Originally posted by mee But the 1 year warranty is through Ricoh/Pentax -- how is Amazon going to honor a warranty that is between you and Ricoh/Pentax? Amazon is simply the retailer. I mean Amazon sells the lens, after that it is generally between you and the manufacturer of the product you bought with respect to the warranty. I find it very difficult to believe 6 months down the road you are going to see Amazon saying 'sure send it back to us and we'll fix it' should the lens break. I suspect, they will refer you to Ricoh Customer Support.
I agree with you about the Authorized Dealer and Me the buyer. All I know is that Amazon sent me an email, (Not the Vendor) and told me they would honor a one year warranty. However, I shot an email off to the vendor and they wrote back asking me to talk to Amazon. Amazon said they would still honor it. I called Richo/Pentax and talked with them. They said if Amazon wants to pay for it, they can.
I had to send back my 2nd K-3II today to Amazon as it's in the same group of serial numbers with Turn Off issues. Since I've purchased a number of items from B&H, (I also saw where Chuck at B&H stated none of their stock was now in that S/N group) So, I decided to purchase my K-3II and the Pentax 77mm 1.8 from B&H.
I wasn't worried about 6 months down the road. I was worried more about day 31 after I talked to Richo/Pentax and he told me it was @ $310 just to look at it.
I trust Amazon, I now half way trust the dealer. In the end, I want to be taking pictures and not playing back and forth.
Thanks for your input.