You do get a printable receipt when you purchase things online, and yeah, they are not going to honor the warranty if it is not from an authorized dealer/local unit. I don't think the market is as "complicated" and funky in malaysia yet. Look around the states, they have shit loads of sellers, some carry "local usa warranty" units but are not authorized dealer, some are authorized dealer but also sells grey market units, and etc. If you are not "careful", you can easily be a victim of grey market stuff.

I have read some articles about grey market stuff in US. And some people claimed to be cheated. Somehow I think that people refuse to make a second thought when they are seeing great bargains. Just like AP handset in Malaysia. You don't expect cheap Nokia handset from Avaxx when it's cheaper than what it suppose to be.

Cantonese says: Mou Gem Dai Zack Gap La Chou Gai Tiew

This post has been edited by kelvinyam: Aug 11 2007, 11:48 PM

Cantonese says: Mou Gem Dai Zack Gap La Chou Gai Tiew

Translated to English: the deal is too good to be true

I almost got pwned when i was hunting for my sigma. Many companies on pricegrabber list prices cheaper than others, but when you call and ask them, they'd tell you that those are "imported aka grey market" models, they do have USA models, but you need to pay extra for it. Some more reputable sellers will state explicitly on their site that they only sell full usa warranty models and that they are authorized dealer, no grey market at all.

i.e. 17stphoto, 47stphoto, beachcamera, buydig, and etc.
grey market sellers: tristate photo (or was it camera?), sigma4less, and many many many more.

If the shop has good reputation in warranty, if it's even grey market item where the price is much more cheaper, I don't see what's the problem of getting it. Furthermore, if it's only one year warranty, one year is no longer than a few blinks of an eye (exaggerates a little lah )

Just like buying hand phones. I doubt many people will by from "original" dealer.

you said fe blinks... haha...in chinese we at school write later goes like this :" yi zha yan yi jing 3 nian le" thats call exaggerate...

I guess the main concern is not really price, but rather the item itself, how to verify it is an original item. Imitations are getting so good at it that it is almost impossible to tell the difference for some products.

You are right about the one year warranty, it is almost useless to most people, 3 years warranty is slowly becoming the standard now.

No, don't get confused between grey market and imitation. Grey market lens are just like AP h/phone. Those are from Canon Japan (or what ever place it's manufactured), just that those lens are not brought in by the Sole Distributor. This doesn't happen in Malaysia because no duty is imposed on photography equipment. But in US, it does. Grey market is also known as parallel import. For some reason (that I'm not aware), grey market lens is not illegal in US.