I received a gift af a Panasonic lumix camera for Christmas 2009.By April the shutter malfunctioned and would not work at all.
I then proceeded to call customer service who advised me to send the unit in for repair or replacement. I paid for the shipping to send in the camera and after around 3 weeks of hearing nothing I called in and was told I have to a pay a $50 fee just to find out what was wrong with it since I did not have a receipt. I told them this is not what was told to me when I was asked to send in the unit. After a long call They finally agreed to fix the unit and I was told it would be done in a few weeks. A few weeks went by and I received a call from Panasonic again asking me for the $50 to tell me what was wrong with the camera. I then went through the long and tiring process of explaining that I had already been through this and was advised it would be handled fine this time again in a few weeks. This happened about 3 or 4 times and it was amazing to me that the right hand had no idea what the left hand was doing.
Finally I reached a different dept and was told by a lady named Nancy that I again needed to pay the $50 to find out what was wrong. (this is after I had been told it would be fixed and shipped back to me more than 4 times). Nancy spoke to her supervisor and told me that the best they could do is waive the $50 fee but i would still need to pay for the repair cost. I was upset at this point and told her I am tired of dealing with you liars and I am just going to contact my attorney. At this point she put me on hold and told me she was unable to assist me any further because I had told her I was going to contact my attorney. An hour later she called me back and told me that her supervisor told her to just get it handled and I would now have my camera in a few weeks.
Again a few weeks went by and I called in to check the progress and was told by customer service that they are still working on it and it would be sent shortly. A few minutes after I got off the phone I received a call back from the same guy who told me I was in luck because they had just sent out me a new unit and I would be receiving it shortly. He then gave me the tracking number.
When I received my unit I opened it up find it was the exact unit I sent it and nothing had been done it was in the same broken condition as when I sent it in.
I contacted my attorney and explained the situation. He wrote me a letter dated July 2. No response from Panasonic they ignored my letter. After a few months I contacted my attorney again and he wrote out a 2nd more aggressive letter dated October 1st 2010. This time my attorney received a response from there attorney Michael Marino Jr. Which basically said that Panasonic is unwilling to help me and I somehow misinterpreted what I was advised by numerous people in Panasonic's warranty and customer service division.
I assumed Michael Mario Jr. Was not know the full scenario because surely if he knew he would advise Panasonic to just repair this camera. When I called him He had the worst customer service of anyone I have ever spoke to on the phone. His tone was such that it was obious to me he considered himself way above my level and was quite clear he didnt care what anyone said or did but was only concerned with protecting Panasonic interest in there warranty.
I realize his specialty is not customer service but he told me had already looked into it and determined that the camera was manufactured in 2005 and so he didn't believe it could be sitting on the shelf of a store for five years and if I could not produce a receipt then they were unwilling to do anything else regardless what was told to me by the warranty and it was unreasonable (even after all Ive been through with this) of me to think they would take the time to look up which store it went to, to determine when it was sold. I was amazed at this companies genuine lack of concern for the end user. I own many items by Panasonic in my home (plasma, dvd recorder, blu ray player, cordless phone, etc) and the first time I have a problem not only it is not resolved but im still out my camera, countless hours, shipping cost of the item, attorney fees and most important the principal. Bottom line is I will never buy Panasonic again and I hope if your reading this you don't experience what I have with them.
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