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Leica and Nikon USA warranties are not transferrable

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Adhering to the forum guidelines of not posting pricing advice in the forum buy sell ...feel compelled to lay this out there . The Leica M9/M9P warranty is not transferrable for items purchased in the USA . Its a Leica USA policy and I checked it many times directly with Christian Erhardt when he ran Leica s service department . Unless you have original invoice with your name on it from an authorized Leica dealer ...you have no warranty . (this does not mean that Leica will not choose to repair something without proof of warranty ).

My experience is that early in the product life cycle ..Leica didn t ask but generally when the bodies started to go out of warranty ...they start to ask .

This S2 is the exception and the warranty is transferrable . They really want to know who has the S2 and will update the registration if you send it in.

Nikon USA has the same policy .....if you don t have an original invoice with your name on it from an authorized NIKON USA dealer ..you have no USA warranty . This is common knowledge on the Nikon forums and they have plenty of examples of even NPS members being held up for lack of the invoice . .

Just my opinion ..but its dishonest to state that a item has a warranty because its new ..it doesn t unless you can get a dealer to issue a invoice in the buyers name . Never registered does mean anything .

Don t agree please call either Leica or Nikon directly before you refute the accuracy of this post . Statements like my dealer has never had a problem don t cut it . (FYI each country distributor may have different policies but this is how the USA warranties work.)
 

Hosermage

Active member
What if the seller is a trusted person and is willing to help you if the need arises? I mean, if the seller is willing to open a claim for you, and you send the package in and have the package return back to your address, then Leica'd be none the wiser?
 

atanabe

Member
Leica USA warranties are not transferrable as Roger has said in his original post. You can buy an additional year warranty from Leica Camera AG that is transferrable. I bought one before my warranty ran out last year - just in case and thankfully did not have to use it. The link to the site is:
Leica Camera AG - Service - Warranty Extension

The cost is 290 euros or $363 with todays' exchange rate. So this in effect takes the standard warranty to a transferrable 3 year warranty, but from what I read you can not extend it beyond that period.

I think that Leica is the only camera manufacturer that offers this.
 

atanabe

Member
What if the seller is a trusted person and is willing to help you if the need arises? I mean, if the seller is willing to open a claim for you, and you send the package in and have the package return back to your address, then Leica'd be none the wiser?
That would be one way of getting around it.
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
What if the seller is a trusted person and is willing to help you if the need arises? I mean, if the seller is willing to open a claim for you, and you send the package in and have the package return back to your address, then Leica'd be none the wiser?
This works and is somewhat standard practice . Where it gets tricky is when the new buyer sells the camera . Because of this misunderstanding of how warranties work .....unsuspecting buyers send in the camera and then its too late .

What is bothersome and why I posted this .....sellers buying the latest and greatest with an explicit purpose of “flipping” the camera for a profit . Then misrepresenting the item as having a full warranty.

If you know the person is trusted and willing to help with warranty work that is much different .
 

stephengilbert

Active member
Misleading Leica about the owner of a camera--so that Leica would be "none the wiser" and would repair it for free--is fraud. (E.g., Cal. Pen. Code § 484, subd. a.)

You can decide for yourself whether you want to offer to commit a crime in order to sell your camera.
 

JWW

Member
There have been posts in LUF that the Leica worldwide warranty is transferable. If this is the case, shouldn't the Leica warranty be valid (USA bought or not) if a repair is sent directly to Solms?

Would be good for a potential buyer to validate this prior to making a decision.
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Wouldn t it be better if the seller did this so that he could properly answer the questions about warranty . We are still seeing buy /sell posts that say..never registered full warranty . I ve bought plenty of Leica gear and never saw a international warranty in an officially imported product . But you are correct the buyer should verify this .
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I just sold my D800 but I orginal owner sent it in for repair before I shipped to buyer and I will do that with anything I sold in Nikon for my buyers. A lot of times I will state that in my ads too. Folks should understand these warranty policy of diffrent OEMs but seriously it should be the product itself and not the owner. So yes I totally disagree with Leica and Nikon. If you have a valid receipt for a item in the warranty time period it should be honored regardless of owner. To me it's a bad policy that Nikon and Leica have. It's forcing people to buy new and that to me is not good policy and just flat out greedy. I love buying used gear as many of us do here on GetDPI. This just is not a fair policy. My opinion
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Wouldn t it be better if the seller did this so that he could properly answer the questions about warranty . We are still seeing buy /sell posts that say..never registered full warranty . I ve bought plenty of Leica gear and never saw a international warranty in an officially imported product . But you are correct the buyer should verify this .

The end of the day though Roger it's on the buyer regardless what the seller posts. I know it seems not a good thing to post from the seller but it really falls in the buyers lap. I know this is frustrating and don't disagree. I really have no issue of this being brought up but price I do. We just can't give a thumbs up or thumbs down on what someone wants to sell there gear for and honestly Leica products are some of the biggest selling issues on this and other forums.

Believe me it frustrates the hell out of us seeing overpriced sales but it's always a buyers market to decide.
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Guy

I agree with both your posts . You may remember I was all over Leica about this when they introduced the M8 . The S2 warranty is the way to do it. You get a year and can buy another (darn expensive $1795 per year) but its transferrable . The depreciation of the available warranty should be reflected in the price ...have 12 months left should be more than the camera with 60 days .

In practice I haven t seen Leica be unreasonable but I would guess that a camera that goes thru more than a few owners ..it might be fair to say enough is enough .

Nikon has been lousy on the D800 ....even NPS members are given a tough time and they have the NPS sale on file .

I think this is different than price discussions ..because it plays off the uninformed ...condition is different than warranty ....so its new condition without original buyer warranty . Maybe thats it .....you could have a rule that states you can not represent the warranty as new unless you can confirm its transferrable .
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
We went LNIB and unless from a dealer we eliminated the NEW from the buy and sell. This helps some for sure. Honestly I would just like to delete the overprice stuff too but than its censorship which we are very careful about. Seriously I hate rules but people abuse things so we have no choice. It's tough on us too we are smart folks and see right through the veils people create. I know many of our members do too.


Now I know Leica has been good about the warranties on used sales for folks and we should thank them but we can't depend on it either.

Now I will say Nikon surprise surprise did turn my D800 around in less than a week, no NPS but I did put a note of who I am too. You know working pro stuff. They fixed the lock on the drive switch and yes they did adjust the Left AF that I asked them to check. Maybe I got lucky.
 

anthonysemone

New member
Roger,

FWIW, I completely agree with you. In any event, however, your "head's up" post is likely to make no difference whatsoever on the frequency with which such warranty statements are made in the FS section for Leica and Nikon USA gear. Not unless the Mods are willing to block those posts and require the sellers to omit those statements from their offers. Not everybody here who posts, e.g., Nikon gear, is Mancuso who is willing to support the warranty claims on Nikon gear that he sells - diamond in the rough comes to mind :)
 

Hosermage

Active member
Even if you can block it from the post, you can't block the buyer from sneaking it during private messages. So, I rather let people post whatever, at least that way I'll know right away not to deal with these sellers :D
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Roger,

FWIW, I completely agree with you. In any event, however, your "head's up" post is likely to make no difference whatsoever on the frequency with which such warranty statements are made in the FS section for Leica and Nikon USA gear. Not unless the Mods are willing to block those posts and require the sellers to omit those statements from their offers. Not everybody here who posts, e.g., Nikon gear, is Mancuso who is willing to support the warranty claims on Nikon gear that he sells - diamond in the rough comes to mind :)
Problem is we can't guarantee we can do that on a timely and consistent basis. Everyone on our side of the fence has jobs and such. Geez I'm here too much to start with. LOL
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Even if you can block it from the post, you can't block the buyer from sneaking it during private messages. So, I rather let people post whatever, at least that way I'll know right away not to deal with these sellers :D
Honestly that's the key ignore the posts and either one or two things happen. The ad will just slide down naturally in order and seller just won't bother anymore. The age old don't feed the monkeys applies here. Ignore them really is the best solution in many ways. Also biggy don't buy stuff 25 percent or more over retail. If there is no market it goes away.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
The good news is we have great members overall and I can't tell you how much that makes a difference .
 

atanabe

Member
. . .
I think this is different than price discussions ..because it plays off the uninformed ...condition is different than warranty ....so its new condition without original buyer warranty . Maybe thats it .....you could have a rule that states you can not represent the warranty as new unless you can confirm its transferrable .
In the end it is buyer beware plain and simple. Buyers need to do their due diligence researching the claims of the seller. Likewise, the seller should also be willing to back their claims as to condition and warranty support.
 

Brian S

New member
The non-transferable warranty could be to prevent price-gouging on new cameras. I've seen some price gouging on both the D800e and M Monochrom. Having a non-transferable warranty adds risk to the premium paid. If someone is going to buy a camera just to flip it, you have to wonder if they will handle the repair with the company 23 months later. I'll wait for my Monochrom from Dale rather than pay an extra $2K+ just to get it a month sooner, and have to deal with a third party for repair.
 

anthonysemone

New member
Good points, all. Non-transferrability raises for me the question about what would Nikon do if someone were to buy me a D800 as a present, and, then, on the way to work, he/she slips on a banana peel and croaks :D I've now got a camera with no warranty from Nikon because the person who purchased it is now dead and unable to support warranty work under their name. ARGH. Looks like a great opportunity for Mack or other warranty vendors to make some bucks, assuming that they deliver LOL
 
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