Originally posted by tibbitts I agree, I don't understand why it would matter to Ricoh US as long as the camera and extended warranty both came from an authorized reseller. It's not protecting a revenue stream for dealers, since both products have always been required to come from an authorized retailer as far as I know. So one authorized dealer or another would be getting the business. The rep mentioned that sometimes the warranties are being bundled with the cameras, which I haven't noticed, but whatever... it still doesn't seem like a wise policy, especially since the change from the previous policy hasn't seem to be too well publicized.
Do remember that an "authorized reseller" in Hong Kong, for example, is not an authorized reseller in the USA. I expect the loophole they are closing is warrantying a product they didn't sell.
When I was selling cameras several decades ago, there was quite a price discrepancy between USA pricing and Canada pricing and our dollars were very close to par. Consequently, people were buying cameras from places like B&H photo or Adorama and then expecting the Canadian distributor to honor the foreign warranty on what was to them grey market equipment.
People were very miffed when they were informed that their camera purchased out of country was grey market, and their warranty was with a foreign distributor, so if they wanted warranty service, they had to deal with the foreign reseller, but that was how the Canadian distributors did things. They simply wouldn't warrant, or even touch cameras that they hadn't sold as they had no way of recovering the cost of repairs. Canon USA, for example, would not pay Canon Canada to fix a broken camera.
This applied to almost all of the manufacturers that we dealt with, which at the time were Pentax, Yashica, Nikon, Canon and Minolta
The notable exception was Pentax, who at the time sold equipment with an international warranty.
---------- Post added Apr 16th, 2021 at 08:40 AM ----------
Originally posted by Michael Piziak Perhaps other will agree with me when I call this move by Ricoh to be
a BIG B.S. move!
Some might, people who think a little deeper probably won't.
Last edited by Wheatfield; 04-16-2021 at 11:20 AM.