Nikon - RIP

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AusDLK

AusDLK

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Nikon offering a $700 rebate within weeks of my buying a D600 at full price followed by Nikon USA's insulting email correspondence and inaction afterward as I sought some recourse, has ended my 40 year love for Nikon and its cameras.

Gone is the D600 and shortly all of my Nikon gear (except for my 1960s Nikomat and 43-86mm zoom).

Enter the brave new world of the Sony A99. Wow.

So, good riddance Nikon -- this disrespected former customer will never buy or recommend one of your products ever again.
 
I think the M9-P dropped in price by more than double that amount, but only after some months of me buying it. So be it. I am no less happy with the camera. Either I was willing to pay the list price or I wasn't. I don't know the financial etiquette of price drops. Camera companies are in fierce competition, as evidences by you having a satisfactory alternative which is not even Canon. Nikon's marketing people told them they better drop the price. If the amount you paid was reasonable for what was on offer, I don't see why you would then ditch a whole system on the basis of this recent experience, unless you were planning to do so anyway. It was worth a try to see if you could get the rebate. Often there is a cut off. It might have been 30 days, for instance.
 
I'm like that, too. I am generally quite easy going, but when I'm slighted by a company, it becomes a lifetime ban. Enjoy the Sony. (While I only use rangefinders now, every now and then I wonder what I could do with camera like the A99.) Good luck!
 
Post the letter. What was insulting?

Do you feel Nikon should rebate $700 to everyone that bought a camera before the offer? Where do you draw the line as to when people can claim a rebate? What would the grace period be. Seems like folks just before that grace period will be upset.

I would understand if you bought it in the time frame and they refused to honor it but weeks before.

This has happened to me before with canon but I accept that my timing was off which is no fault of canon. It happened last year with my M9 too. It's just the way life is.

You got rid of a fantastic camera.
 
I noticed that a Mamiya 50mm ULD dropped $25 about a week after I bought it from KEH. It was new and they had a few. I sent them a quick email and wasn't expecting much. But they surprised me and refunded the difference! Loyal customer gained.

Now, it's too bad that Nikon and Canon hadn't done their research as they both dropped some prices recently. I think the compact market took them by surprise. Sorry to here about Nikon's poor response. A partial refund would have been nice in your case as the rebate was considerable.
 
I went through the D600 debacle and I'm done with Nikon until they regain their honesty and commitment to quality.
 
Face it guy's all these company's are the same it's all about money, so if you
purchased a camera when it first comes out and six month later or so they
drop the price it's not Nikon's or whoever fault. Sony might do the same thing
as well who know's, it's that amazing world of Digital!

Range
 
sprokitt said:
Ouch. Take that Nikon!!
Sadly, I don't think they much care what we think anymore....
Click to expand...

I don't think many companies care about us. They only care about our money. I've gone through some problems with apple too. I went throug a big fight with Honda motors over a safety recall that they recalled just enough to satisfy thevfederal gov. They stopped the recall just before my wife car vin number and her car had the faulty parts but they would not honor our claim. Until a large enough group of customers quit buying their products to have an impact on their bottom line they Will continue to abuse customers.

In this case I think Nikon was right. If you buy outside the dates its just tough luck. I don't think it would have been fair for others or good business to rebate to someone who bought weeks earlier. It's not like he bought at 11:59 pm the day before the price drop started.
 
My point is that early adopters were screwed. Dropping the price by ~25% within the first six months or so was an insult. It showed me that the camera was overpriced in the first place and I was gouged when I could be.

Having a $100 or $200 holiday rebate on the camera would have been reasonable (from my point of view) to spur sales -- but a drop of that much so soon after introduction is what I'm reacting to.

And, of course, after (too short) a period of time the value of anything digital dries up. That's a completely different situation.

I know that dealers across the country were outraged by this rebate. They may have sold some cameras, but overall, it was a customer relations nightmare for them. I count myself VERY FORTUNATE as I did get resolution (no thanks to Nikon USA) and I have moved on.

The flippant attitude of Nikon USA customer service only added to my ire.

It was basically a F**K YOU albeit polite and shrouded in customer support babble.

Well, back at you Nikon. You reap what you sow.
 
The instant discounting was pretty annoying, but what really pisses me off is that they shipped thousands of defective D600s and are now lying about it IN WRITING. I ended up returning two of them for the same ridiculous sensor contamination problem. I have no FF Nikon gear and I won't be buying any after this.
 
Sold an A99 last fall. The next day? Sonystyle offers the A99 with a FREE Sony HDTV (about $500 worth.)

Called Sony...sorry, you are out of luck. You have to have the customer return the A99 and buy it again with the HDTV. But it had already shipped out. They wouldn't do anything.

Called the regional Sony rep...he funded the HDTV for the customer with MDF (camera store marketing funds.) Shipped the HDTV direct to the customer. Kudos to the rep...but not to Sony.
 
If I learned anything in the decade or so I worked at a camera store. It's that you never communicate problems like this directly with the company.
Be it Nikon, Sony, Canon, whoever. You fall back on the dealer, and we in turn would turn it over to our sales rep to do the dirty work.
Most of our reps gave us a couple week grace period when it came to rebates and warranty claims. A happy customer was in their best interest.
I can't remember ever having an issue like this that went unresolved.
 
There are always situations where on day 1 the price is $x, and the next day the price is less.

Apple handles this with refunds. They also manage their inventory so they are almost out of old models before introducing new ones, minimizing the refunds.

It's more difficult when working through dealers...since the majority of Apple sales are direct, this simplifies things for them.

How much of the D600 price drop/promotion was due to the similar Canon price drop/promotion on the 5D Mk III? Perhaps they had no choice but to respond.

I have never seen any promotion so significant on new models...
 
This is but one reason I never buy a camera within its first year in the market. I prefer to allow the excitement of a new item to cool and let the market dictate the price of an item, rather than the manufacturer.

I didn't buy a M9-P until they were listed as discontinued. I wanted a M9 for several years, more so when the M9-P was announced.
 
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