The Pentax Story
The below text is the letter that really got me a new camera out of Pentax cameras. After 7 whole years of battling back and forth it was finally resolved by sending this letter which explains everything to the president of the company in Japan. Apparently, I'm under the understanding that he does not speak one word of English and had to have his secretary read it word for word to him.Conclusion, I wouldn't give Pentax cameras the time of day. They made my father's life a misery with their broken trust and back stabbing lies. Dear Sir: I'll make this letter as brief as I can, yet try to enclose the main facts. I only say this because every time I've written to your company so far explaining this dilemma, I've never had one satisfying response. To give you the bare facts, I bought a Zoom 70 camera from J. Patience, a camera store in Southend-on-sea, Essex, England. This was purchased when that model of camera first came out onto the British market in the summer of 88. It cost two hundred English pounds, which at the time and still today is a lot of money by British standards. My father had saved up for sometime to buy this camera, for he knew what enjoyment it would bring. But before buying it, he asked what kind of camera I would like. He wanted to buy one that was reliable, was well made and would last. I chose Pentax due to previous experience. At the time of this story I'd taken over 14,000 photographs. Within 72 hours of its purchase the problems began. The lens froze in mid zoom and the camera itself couldn't be turned off. Also every operation on the camera was totally dysfunctional. Considering I'd only bought the camera three days before, I was pretty disgusted by its performance. I had a lot of faith in Pentax. I believed that my experience with that camera was a one in a billion chance of that happening and opted for a replacement camera (rather than a full refund). Ten months later while in New Zealand the second (Zoom 70) camera decided to terminate itself. Only this problem wasn't of a different nature, this camera also ceased to operate "IN EXACTLYTHE SAME WAY AS THE FIRST." After a call to my father it was concluded that your headquarters in England would still validate the camera's warranty when I returned (even though this date would be three weeks after it expired). The reason for this was because I still had a lot of traveling to do and didn't have the time to wait for it to be fixed. The day I arrived home I took the camera back to the store. I was told to return in a couple of weeks. When I did, I was asked to come in the following day. Each time I returned, I was told the same thing again and again for the two weeks that followed. When I finally asked what was really going on, the owner nervously informed me that Pentax wanted a fifteen pound estimation fee for my camera's return. It wasn't going to be fixed, as they'd 'supposedly' found sand inside the camera. How coincidental, considering the exact same malfunction had ceased the existence of the first camera's short-lived life on this planet. My father was absolutely livid at your response. In fact he was more humiliated by your broken trust than by anything I'd ever seen him upset at, in the twenty-two years that I'd known him. He never got over your mistrust. He was a man of his word his whole life and believed in loyalty and respect and standing by the words you say. At first I thought this was some kind of joke on your behalf, but when I realized you were serious, that's when my acting solicitor got involved. This resulted in my camera, which by now was a dysfunctional lump of plastic with a well-known name engraved on its side, being returned. Click below to see:
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