H Lehmann of Stoke, extremely poor customer service!

[scüber]

I sent my canon ixus 950is to H Lehmann after my daughter dropped it and damaged the lens. I paid around £116 to get it repaired and when it came back I was surprised to find that it no longer worked in a way that I was familiar with and that all images were off centre if taken using the view finder, the main problem though was when I use this camera with my underwater housing I have to now crop the image as it captures the inside of the lens housing and wide angle lens which is mounted, this never used to happen.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I phoned them and told them I was unhappy with the repair and wanted them to put it right. They said send it in, which I did, they sent it back saying there is nothing wrong with it. I phoned them again saying that there is something wrong with it and i'm not happy, they said send it in again. So I did. They then sent me an invoice for £92 to repair it, I phoned them again explaining the story and I might add that at no point did I raise my voice or swear, much to my disappointment I was met with a 'yeah I hear what your saying but I don't give a sh*t' attitude. They then said to me again actually there is nothing wrong with it! They just invoiced me for £92 to repair something that isn't broke? Whats that about??? Anyway, the end of the story is that my camera is now on it's way back to me and H lehmann were unwilling to take any responsibility for the poor repair and won't repair it unless I pay for it.

My advice now is, if you have damaged a compact camera don't get it repaired just buy a new one. I imagine most people already know this, unfortunately I didn't and have learned the hard way.

Has anyone else experienced similar?

[Dougalsdad01]

Use the small claims court, it's much easier and cheaper than you'd imagine.
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoa.../index.htm

[scüber]

Thanks Douglas, i'll look into that.

[Dougalsdad01]

I've used the Small Claims Court and it really is easy, there is a helpline (free the last time I used it) and they talked me through exactly what I needed to do, they really are helpful and try to make it as easy to use as is possible. It's actually got easier between the 2 times I've used it, the second time though the other party settled out of court without even a token gesture fight (I was almost disappointed). Both times I was taking on big companies and it felt like the court favoured the 'little guy' and wanted me to win.