Mauriat Miranda     mjmwired

Canon Cameras and Customer Support

I think it was during late 2004, that my younger brother said he wanted to buy a digital camera since he would be taking a trip to France. After a little bit of research (and seeing the ugly pictures from a co-worker's Sony camera), we both settled on a Canon PowerShot S410. I had a gift certificate from Best Buy, so I picked up S500 that Christmas (same camera but 5MP instead of 4.1MP). I have never regretted that purchase. For the past 4+ years my camera has taken some great pictures on various trips and vacations (especially my last India trip).

Unfortunately, last Christmas my S500 had developed a minor problem where every picture had either a purple bar or light pink/purple hue in all of the pictures. Luckily a few months previous to my younger brother's wedding, my youngest brother had picked up a PowerShot SD 880 IS which took some great pictures at the wedding. The only issue was that there were some moments that a better camera might have produced better pictures. So, reluctant to invest in an DSLR, my oldest brother bought a PowerShot SX10 IS which produced some amazing pictures at my youngest brother's wedding last month!

However, it became quite obvious that the SX10 might be inconvenient for quick pictures and trips when I needed to pack lightly. So I thought I would go ahead and purchase a new camera similar in size to my S500. However, before I did, I found a story about Canon Support on the Consumerist website. I thought I had nothing to lose in contacting tech support. Before I contacted them, I decided that I would be willing to pay ~$100 to have it fixed. Primarily because (1) I had accessories (case, spare batteries, 2 2GB Compact Flash cards) and (2) I would end up spending at least double for a new camera.

I finally got around to calling them 2 weeks ago on Monday (Jun 15). The tech support lady was quick to tell me that there was an advisory that did affect my S500. She also stated they would evaluate it and tell me the repair cost. So they emailed me a free UPS shipping label, and I sent in just my camera (no accessories) on Wednesday (Jun 17). The UPS tracker stated the camera arrived at their repair center on Friday (Jun 19). It wasn't until Monday (Jun 22) that I got an email stating that all repairs would be done free of charge. I was so happy. The final email I received was on Thursday (Jun 25) that the camera was fixed and shipped on FedEx Next Day Air. This last Friday my fixed camera was waiting for me after work. Great service for less than 2 weeks!

I didn't start out to write a "Canon Love Fest", but I can honestly say that there is nothing better than a company that produces good products and (more importantly) has great customer service. My biggest regret was not contacting tech support earlier.

Posted in: Stuff,

5 Comments:

  • RZD on June 28, 2009 ~ 09:21 PM

    I've been a fan of Canon too and have never bought any other brand since my first Canon camera, the A95 which died due to the purpling effect, I thought was due to the LCD's exposure to direct sun… and unfortunately I could not get it fixed in India.

  • me on July 2, 2009 ~ 11:11 AM

    5mp, DSLR, & UPS have underlines. wtf?

  • Mauriat Miranda on July 4, 2009 ~ 02:14 PM

    abbreviations - so people can figure out when I use (possibly) uncommon terms

  • Tom on July 20, 2009 ~ 05:17 PM

    My years old Canon A70 developed a problem with the LCD display appearing like a celluloid film being pulled thru a film editor… Sure made it hard to take photos !

    I thought it was "toast" and started looking for another camera. But, I went to the Canon site to check new camera info and found a service advisory regarding my problem exactly.

    I called and got the same service as Mauriat. And, while they had the camera they replaced the LCD screen which had been scratched.

    Am I pleased ??? I'll never buy another camera other than Canon. PERIOD and end of my story.

    Tom

  • Richard Isom on December 30, 2009 ~ 04:16 PM

    The Cannon Camera is a GREAT product, however I have a comment on the programing mode. I took a 3 week trip to South America and took some great pictures. On the 20th day I wanted to see how many pictures I had taken and how much memory was used. I was going through the menu mode and looking. I got on the format place and saw how much memory I had used. In my confusion I thought I was getting out and accidently hit the OK prompt and it immediately formated the memory chip and I lost 600 pictures! I only knew about deleting pictures in another screen, one or all, but I had never encountered the reformat section. I think Cannon shoud give another prompt like "are you sure you want to reformat and loose all your images?" for people like me, which I am sure there are many!