Originally posted by Ash PP, Class A & Peter - I made similar responses back to the rep, as diplomatically as possible, and all I could get in return was:
I know you guys on the forums treat our "company line" with suspicion, but it is the truth. I can understand how someone who has had a problem with the lens may not find any comfort in that, but I think from the data we have that our stance on this issue is accurate.
I don't think there is any way to quantify people who quit Pentax, because their DA* lens did not work, but I would hope that if someone was upset with their lens that they would either send it in to us or return it. If they did either of those things, they would show up in our numbers.
Ohhhh... [bangs head against wall]
this is one heck of an idiotic response. Ash, I believe you should have replied that you paid for an $800 dollar lens not expecting to pay for an extra $300 bucks + shipping for repairing an out of warranty lens. this ain't no toy which is only worth 50 bucks. honestly, a $50 toy would last longer than the $800 dollar precision lens instrument. this is some sort of a way of trying to milk the customer for more cash, hence the perception or accusation of form of scam. this kind of continuous return and repair system would enable Pentax to have a consistent income flow which I believe does violate the laws of business ethics and thus put the customer at clear disadvantage of obliging to an out of contract spendings caused by repairs, replacements, shippings and not to mention the time lost. the idea is the customer should invoke the buyers' protection code in a product which he believed and has confidence of quality assurance, especially precision instruments. the limited warranty itself does not safeguard the buyers but rather used as a tool to have a false sense of security, not knowing that the lens would fail after a certain amount of time and usage, which is very uncharacteristic for such professional instruments which had passed QC and has certified QA. these are not disposable items or anything that would fail eventually. otherwise, Pentax should have atleast notified or publicly disclosed to state that these are indeed disposable or have the potential to fail at a certain time. the failure to do so, in itself made Pentax look like they are having a shady business of selling rejects for a premium price. premium price should be for a premium quality equipment, which in this case certainly doesn't really look like it but more as a fraud. I hope Pentax considers this and should be alarmed or concerned.
the lack of data gathered is also a failure by Pentax to address the issue concerning quality assurance and quality control. there was no public announcement but it is clear that the growing concerns and complaints display the same issue on the lens over and over again, and by no means a fluke or an isolated incident. this trend in itself should be a cause for an alarm since there must be something wrong with one particular part of the lens. it only takes a minimum of 15% of the total number inorder to determine that there really is a problem and to what the statistics showed, it had reached that plateau.
I hope that Pentax should inspect all their lens manufacturing plants. if Pentax would simply ignore this, there is no way that they will know or verify the defects of their products. speaking of which, I dunno how often Pentax have their plants undergo inspection. but if I were a member of the inspecting team, I would go there twice a year and I would had surely put a question mark or red mark on them basing on the complaints alone. Pentax is lucky that I'm not.
Last edited by Pentaxor; 01-22-2010 at 01:18 AM.