Camera Obscura Repairs UK.... Problem 😔

[LocalHero1953]

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19 minutes ago, ian solley said:

Sorry I will refer to them as Camera Obscura Repairs - there is a lot of comment that they are a scam and yet there also seems comment that they are genuine but dont communicate.  Having posted my M7 to them and when they dont communicate it does not sound good.  I was looking on the forum to see if anyone had recent experience of them?

No, I don't think it is a scam. However, all the evidence is that the sole owner/employee/technician should have no part in the running of any business whatsoever, and that he should be employed only as a technician (a competent one, by all accounts); employed by someone who has a notion of what a business should look like (address, phone number etc) and how to deal with customers in a professional manner.

If you read the thread from the beginning, you will see that he cleaned a lens for me well. I would not touch the business in future though. 

[nf3996]

I had a couple of repairs/CLAs done by Camera Obscura when they were based at Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. The work done was very good, but communication was extremely poor - and got worse as they got busier. I now look elsewhere if I need any work doing.

Alan

[Jonathan Rogers]

As others have said, the work seems to be of a good standard (my M3 shutter replacement was and is fine) but it requires nerves of steel to use this "company"...a definite leap of faith when sending anything in.
I'm afraid I won't be using them again, but you should get your M7 back in good order eventually.

Jon

[ga99js]

I’ve now received my repaired Barnack back again. It needed a further adjustment under the 6 month warranty and this was done free of charge. I’m happy with the camera now. 
 

As others have said, you get a good service, for a good price. It actually doesn’t take that long compared to other companies. 
 

However, communication is terrible at times and the timelines promised are wildly optimistic. 
 

If you use this company, expect a good service. But maybe multiply the promised time of repair by 400% and expect you’ll hear nothing for months. 
 

[ian solley]

Thanks for the comments - I am just annoyed with myself for sending off my M7 to a flat in Oxford without doing some due diligence.  Then 5 days after  it should have been delivered, and no response I do start looking and its all a bit disconcerting.  I will update as and when something happens.

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by ian solley
typos

[pierovitch]

Perhaps a luxury service model should be implemented with repairs by invitation only after consideration of past patronage. 🤑

[250swb]

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9 hours ago, ga99js said:

 

If you use this company, expect a good service. But maybe multiply the promised time of repair by 400% and expect you’ll hear nothing for months. 
 

I don’t think this is an actual registered company, and despite the spin on his website ‘we’ actually means ‘me’. So you are not paying for technicians beavering away servicing your camera but a one man band creating mayhem and anxiety.

[250swb]

9 hours ago, pierovitch said:

Perhaps a luxury service model should be implemented with repairs by invitation only after consideration of past patronage. 🤑

There are models of customer service within UK camera repairers that many could follow. An exemplary example is Sover Wong who specialises in repairing and servicing the Nikon F2. Probably the best technician in the world for that camera, so naturally everybody wants him to fix their F2. So when he gets too much work he stops taking on orders and people have to wait two years for the list to open again, as simple and responsible as that.

[pedaes]

47 minutes ago, 250swb said:

people have to wait two years

Most would agree Malcolm Taylor is the best for Leica but timescales are long - for some lenses I have read years. He must be nearing retirement and there does not seem to be any scheme of apprenticeships for camera technicians as there must be a real opportunity for anyone with the right aptitude.

I used to get great service from Will and Cathy in the Netherlands, but Brexit killed that as he couldn't be assed with the paperwork and extra cost, understandable for a small business.

[thighslapper]

On 7/13/2023 at 8:05 PM, 250swb said:

I don’t think this is an actual registered company, and despite the spin on his website ‘we’ actually means ‘me’. So you are not paying for technicians beavering away servicing your camera but a one man band creating mayhem and anxiety.

Such is the misleading power of the internet ........

Edited July 15, 2023 by thighslapper

[250swb]

3 hours ago, thighslapper said:

Such is the misleading power of the internet ........

If you refer to Alexander Spencer's Linkedin profile 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-spencer-57295a95/?originalSubdomain=uk

 the fantasy and spin starts right there, and even a supposed photo of him. But 'Head Engineer' at Camera Obscura surely means there are people below him, which if they exist are doing a very bad job and bringing their embattled CEO into disrepute. But he's kind enough to keep paying them, even if there are few reports of work being done. Shame he can't also employ a part time Secretary to respond to mail.

Edited July 15, 2023 by 250swb

[Anbaric]

Perhaps someone who has dealt with this business could start a new thread that summarises their experience in a public area of the forum where people can google it (nobody can read this one without an account), and leave appropriate feedback on a site like resellerratings?

[yawpitch]

Because I couldn’t find this thread via Google before I made the mistake of sending in my M4-2 is now with Alexander Spencer (dba “Camera Obscura GB”), having been sent to his Oxford address (which is a private flat). He was happy to reply within a couple of days to an initial enquiry, accepted new work with an estimated 7-10 working days turnaround, which sounded excellent (if perhaps too excellent) and was acknowledged by him as delivered on September 16th. Multiple emails and no response, multiple attempts to contact via social media and no response. I’m now looking into small claims and possibly involving the police, as his apparent willingness to advertise a customer’s camera for sale with a switched top plate (as described in the thread above) appears to possibly constitute at least an (hopefully entirely accidental) attempt at criminal theft by fraud.

Has anyone on this thread who has actually received Alexander’s handiwork reviewed him on his Facebook page? It would be very good to have found this all out via a publicly available forum.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by yawpitch
Minor typos and clarify some details

[pedaes]

12 minutes ago, yawpitch said:

publicly available forum.

Firstly, sorry to hear of your problems.

It is very easy to become a member of this community, and anyone with an interest in Leica cameras of any age should be encouraged to join.

[yawpitch]

Just now, pedaes said:

Firstly, sorry to hear of your problems.

It is very easy to become a member of this community, and anyone with an interest in Leica cameras of any age should be encouraged to join.

I agree they should. I wish I’d found this forum before sending my first Leica off for it’s needed CLA. I also wish this forum and specifically this thread were indexed by Google and DuckDuckGo, as that’s about the only way someone who wasn’t already a member and had specifically searched the forum for “Camera Obscura” could possibly find the very poor experiences everyone appears to be having with this particular company.

[ian solley]

Hi I was in a similar position to you having sent my M7 for works and heard nothing back in September.

However Alexander did do the work to an excellent standard and the camera was returned after about a month.

His business model is a disaster in our world of immediate customer service - but I suspect it works for him.

good luck!

 

 

[yawpitch]

6 minutes ago, ian solley said:

Hi I was in a similar position to you having sent my M7 for works and heard nothing back in September.

However Alexander did do the work to an excellent standard and the camera was returned after about a month.

His business model is a disaster in our world of immediate customer service - but I suspect it works for him.

good luck!

 

 

It’s been 3 weeks since he received it and I haven’t even gotten the inspection report yet; my camera is definitely not coming back within a month. I’ve heard from others who waited 2-3 months without ever receiving a word and they had to threaten legal action just to get a camera back that had apparently never been opened by a technician at all.

The standard of his work might be very high, but it doesn’t matter at all if the work doesn’t get done. I wish I’d looked more carefully at all those bench photos on his Instagram… I spent years servicing cinema cameras and never had that many extremely hard to find (much less replace) screws just lying about on the bench. Sure as hell never swapped a serial number bearing top plate by accident either.

I hope this works out well in the long run, but right now I’m worried my camera is being stripped of parts to be used to service some earlier mark’s camera.

[pedaes]

55 minutes ago, yawpitch said:

I’m worried my camera is being stripped of parts to be used to service some earlier mark’s camera.

Although this guys customer service is a disaster and I would never contemplate using him, there is no evidence that suggests you have to worry about the camera being strpped for parts. Let's not hype it up.

[yawpitch]

19 minutes ago, pedaes said:

Although this guys customer service is a disaster and I would never contemplate using him, there is no evidence that suggests you have to worry about the camera being strpped for parts. Let's not hype it up.

I’m sorry, but I’m not hyping up anything whatsoever. That sort of “rob Peter to pay Paul” behavior would be *exactly* what you might expect from a small, possibly fly-by-night, operation where the parts in question are from old, no longer manufactured devices… we used to do it all the time in the cinema cameras rentals business, the only difference being we definitely outright owned both the donor and the recipients cameras.

Unless I’m misunderstanding something in this part of the thread Camera Obscura swapped the top plate, with serial number, and offered a client’s camera for sale, then rather than swap the top plates back — something that should have been doable in minutes, or at the very most hours — returned the client’s camera with the wrong top plate, quite possibly seriously devaluing the camera in the process.

That certainly smells like smoke, even if it doesn’t clearly look like fire. Coupled with the ridiculous (not just poor, not just bad, utterly and unbelievably ridiculous) lack of communication I would, if anything, be very naively under-hyping if I wasn’t worried.

I certainly hope I’m wrong to be worried, and if I get my camera back or even if something approaching reasonable communication is established I’ll be happy to stop worrying, but please don’t downplay my worries, because they are absolutely legitimate in context, and it certainly looks like I’m not the only one forced by someone else’s ineptitude into having those worries.

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[LocalHero1953]

Could you go and bang on his door?

I would have done if I'd had a bigger delay than I actually had. He cleaned a lens for me (well), and it took twice as long as he said - about 6 weeks instead of three (IIRC). Still acceptable as an interval by the standards of Leica and other repairers, but the progress feedback was still non existent. I got off lightly.

As for not finding this thread on the forum....well this forum is not a public service, but I am surprised to hear that there is a Leica owner online who has not come across it. If I was looking for brand-specific servicing, I would go to a brand-specific forum. Facebook is too easily manipulated to hide bad feedack.

Edited October 9, 2023 by LocalHero1953