[Closed] Buying camera stuff from HK, yes or no?

Bought my X100 from some dodgy looking site like eGlobal. HK company but came from stock in Spain so no customs to pay. Bit risky on the warranty side but I’ve never had a modern camera (or any tech thing) fail under warranty so thought it was worth a punt for the huge saving.

I bought a Tamron 90mm macro for Nikon from OneStopDigital years ago & it was fine.

I am not sure about the warranty/service if something goes wrong, but it was almost half price so I was willing to risk it.

I'm a commercial photographer and the last few (full system) purchases have been from einfinity and the like

I take the risk re: warranty. Don't really care, it's just a tool

Never had an issue. It's all a bit back hand though; don't really get a proper receipt etc

I will be purchasing from my local camera shop from now on personally (bc I want to support them - not bc imports are untrustworthy), because I now make enough profit for it to be properly tax deductible, but for when I just needed gear at the lowest price, what other option is there.

I've bought about 10k worth of kit from einfin (and the other one I can't remember the name of) over the years and they/that would have saved me about £4k

EDIT: Actually I remember having an issue once and they agreed to cover the cost of service by Fixation

No experience with camera equipment. My only word of warning here is that I bought an iPhone using one of those dodgy online companies.

It went wrong about 3 months out of the 2-year contract and when I took it to an apple store they told me I’d bought it from Dubai. I didn’t but it explains why I got it for about £150 less than if I’d not gone with the dodgy online company.

If I’d “bought” it in this country the repair would have been covered.

I thought Apple had a global warranty?

OP, what's the URL of the site you're using?

Assuming we are on a bike site, and you have a bike. Would you import your bike with no knowledge of the warranties / guarantee's and not supporting your LBS or would you buy local or at the very least national. The same goes for your camera.

Assuming we are on a bike site, and you have a bike. Would you import your bike with no knowledge of the warranties / guarantee’s and not supporting your LBS or would you buy local or at the very least national.

Yes if it was cheaper. 100%

Edit: all my Canon DSLR gear is also from Hong Kong

Thanks for the feedback guys, looks like I'll take a punt.

@Cougar here are a couple of links link1link2

So, Link1's domain was registered in 2017 and is still around so it's probably legit. Scammers don't tend to last that long.

Link2 was registered a couple of months ago for a single year which is a hallmark of a scam site so I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

I'd dig further to cross-reference site data and contact details and physical addresses but it's 2am and I'm going to bed.

As a rule of thumb if something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Looks like there is a used one on MPB

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-lenses/used-olympus-lenses/olympus-m-zuiko-ed-75-300mm-f-4-8-6-7-ii/sku-1186380/

I'm not affiliated to or have ever used this company but their reputation appears to be very high - I've been looking at buying some of their gear recently.

I’ve looked at the foreign sites such as global but in the end I’ve bought everything from London Camera Exchange secondhand. It’s usually cheaper and you can send it back if you don’t like it. I figure there is less chance of a newish secondhand item being faulty than something that has never been tested. You also get a guarantee though granted not a particularly long one.

LCE have 4 of that lens from £300 to £350.

Isn’t there import duty with items from Hong Kong?

Thanks for all the replies and to @Cougar for domain research. I've got £47 credit in my WEX account but not in stock. The second hand ones do seem to be less than mint.

Warranty is the only concern - the manufacturers do seem to exclude Europe from the products sold in HK. I’ve bought a few cameras and taken the punt. One did fail and I was stuck with it. But the saving was worth the risk and I’d do it again.

I thought Apple had a global warranty?

Not on phones. Only Macs - and that too may have changed now. You can generally only get warranty repairs on the continent that Apple has the phone registered as sold to. So grey imports are unlikely to be covered.

Having bought stuff from 'grey importers', and having looked into it a bit, I'd now avoid buying from anywhere other than proper registered UK sources. For the chief reason that buying vua such sources, is screwing UK businesses over. Yes; we are being gouged on prices, thanks to Brexit etc, but now more than ever, is the time to support our own economy.

I’ve bought about 10k worth of kit from einfin (and the other one I can’t remember the name of) over the years and they/that would have saved me about £4k

What you mean is; you've avoided paying any UK taxes, import duties etc, on the products. And denied a UK business their slice. If you're ok with that, then fine, but if everyone starts doing that, then we're all screwed, because our economy kind of needs to survive in order to pay for things like roads, healthcare, education etc...

Isn’t there import duty with items from Hong Kong?

Yes, technically. It just doesn't get applied most of the time, because of the sheer volume of stuff being imported every day. UK Customs are way too under-resourced to cope.

I’ve never had a modern camera (or any tech thing) fail under warranty so thought it was worth a punt for the huge saving.

I've just had a significant sum refunded for something I bought from a UK supplier. Had I bought it via grey channels, I'd have lost all that money. Caveat Emptor. And I think some companies will refuse to repair grey imported equipment, even if you want to pay for it. Not 100% on that, and it might only be selected companies, but it's something else to consider.

Update. Having slept on it I called up the Southampton branch of LCE and had a chat with the manager on the classification of 'Excellent' relating to the 2nd hand lens for sale pointed out by @Jerm at £349 which is £100 less than retail. He went and got the lens as he personally hadn't classified it and reckoned it was the same condition as if was unboxed and left on display in the shop and it came with box and caps. That was good enough for me so I bought it.

Thanks for all the advice above.