@Driftwood: Yes I talked with him about re-repairing. But you know what it means, when you're in Europe? Another $20 just for the shipping to US + about $60 custom duties when the camera comes back + Eric told me that I'll need to pay the return shipping too if he finds out that everything is fine with the camera… How can he only say this if I explained him three times that the meter was not working, that I tried it with three different new batteries, that I consulted it with three different repairmen in Prague (who all told me they can't re-repair it after what he has done to the camera!)?!Does he think I am inventing all this just for fun or what?! And obviously I'd also take the risk that the camera would get lost, if I sent it again… All these troubles and extra costs just because Eric didn't bother to test the light-meter with a different battery to actually see that REALLY it doesn't work?! No, I don't trust this guy at all and won't send him a camera ever again! I don't want to paste here the actual e-mails that Eric sent me but he also had no respect at all, whereas my communication was totally professional and respectful from the beginning to the end. It was the most unpleasant e-mail communication I've had in a long time. He didn't bother to write "Hi" or "Regards", nothing. Not even in the very first e-mail (I see you can omit it later in a continued e-mail exchange). When I first explained him in detail what was wrong with the camera and what needed to get repaired, he answered a cost estimate in FOUR WORDS ("would be about $100") – not even a whole sentence with a dot at the end! This was supposed to be a response to my e-mail where I asked him a few different and very clear questions! Among other things, I explained him at least three times very clearly that due to custom policies in the Czech Republic, I'd need him to make the return shipping cost + official content value under $25 (in such case only you can be sure not to pay any custom duties and taxes for your own camera – yes, it's completely stupid, but it's like that). I asked him if he could send it for $20 and mark the content value as $5, for example. Eric expressly agreed he could do it. Then, when he was done with the camera, he sent me an invoice including a $40 charge for USPS shipping! When I asked him, how is that possible, he just said "it's the standard shipping I provide and I can't send it cheaper". Oh, really?! I asked him three times about the shipping price and explained him why I needed it to be under $20 and then he tells me this, as if I never asked and he never agreed to anything! I could continue and write a very long list of troubles I've had with him. Even so, I never told him anything disrespectful. When his replies were really absurd (it seemed he was actually not reading what I was writing him!), I just wrote that I was *surprised* about his reply… Even if I understood after a while he really must be a dumb person (sorry I can't say it more politely than that), I was always polite with him, explaining him everything over and over again like to a 5-years-old kid. I was so patient that I was proud of myself, I can tell you that! :-) He, on the contrary, couldn't even reply in whole sentences, never replied to some of my questions, agreed to do things that he later didn't do, and so on. The only way to get my camera back to Europe (and avoid custom duties) was to have Eric send it to my family that luckily live in the US and were coming to Europe soon after, so they could bring it to me. Also, Eric exchanged the prism of my SPF because of "specks" as it states in the invoice (he didn't explain anything by e-mail, of course, so I only know it from the invoice). And guess what? I hadn't noticed any speck in my original prism, but Eric's "new" prism has a big speck right in the middle of the image! I am not even surprised any more. And so on, and so on… Just EVERYTHING was wrong with Eric, from the very first "e-mail" he sent me. I should have never sent him my camera! Now I can tell you I can't help laughing, when I read on his website: "I am accurate and I guarantee my work" and "God bless." Yes, Eric probably needs a God to bless him, because he's totally incapable, unprofessional and irresponsible. No one can help here except for God, that's for sure.
---------- Post added 4th Aug 2018 at 19:30 ----------
When Eric finally, after all this MESS, agreed to refund me, he again did WRONG everything he could:
1. He arbitrarily sent a PayPal refund to a different e-mail address than the e-mail address I used to pay his invoice. Of course he didn't ask and knew where he should send the money!
2. He sent me Czech Crowns, while I paid him in USD, again without asking whatsoever. He made PayPal convert the currency, without me having the possibility to avoid it. My PayPal account's default currency is USD, but I received Czech Crowns from Eric. That's wrong not only because I don't want any CZK in my PayPal (I use it to make payments in USD) and I logically should have been refunded in the same currency I used for the original payment, but also because this way Eric arbitrarily made PayPal earn money on their usurious currency exchange rates, as they converted his $121 to an equivalent of only $117 in Czech Crowns. I never wanted Czech Crowns, but Eric made me loose another $4 by saying to PayPal to convert the USD he sent to CZK. Why? Because he doesn't care, right? He sent $121 and didn't care I'd only receive an equivalent of $117 because of currency conversion that I never wanted.
3. He sent a wrong amount. He told me himself he'd refund me $107 (I paid $121 total, of which $14 was shipping inside the US, to my family), which seemed logical to me: Why should he refund me the price of shipping he needed to pay himself to send my camera to my family? That's why I agreed to a $107 refund. Then he seemingly sent me $121 (I have no idea why and sincerely I don't care) of which he made me loose $4 as described above.
Does that all make any sense? To me, not at all! In my experience, there was not a single thing Eric would do right.
Maybe the only thing he did right with my camera is replaced light seals. New light seals for all this trouble! Never more!
I really wish to everyone to have a better experience with Eric! Mine was horrible. At least after all the troubles he refunded me.
