Camtex

Dishonest people. Stay away from this store. Overpriced, under delivered, downright cheats.
Terrible service. Unless you want your camera gear or lenses ruined, stay away!!! Unfortunately this app will not allow me to select negative stars for review. I manually give it a minus 5

I have been into Camtex a few times and have had nothing but good service. The first time I went in because my little Elf had broken. I was told it would be ready in a week. I was leaving in 4 days for Mexico and wanted my camera for my trip. The man gave me a similar camera — just one year newer — for the cost to repair my broken camera, $ 75. While I was in Mexico, I dunked my camera in a puddle. I took it to Camtex for repair. My old camera was repaired by then. Instead of having to wait for it to be repaired, I was given the opportunity to pay the repair cost and have my own camera back. I was happy. I didn’t have to make another trip to pick up a repaired camera.

This place is a rip off. I brought in a new camera (like two weeks old) for repair. Unfortunately I bought this camera while I was overseas and needed it quickly for traveling so I could wait for warranty work. I had earlier brought my camera into a reputable camera store for advice. They told me he problem was minor and common but they were not equipped to repair cameras there. I bright the camera to Camdex since they appeared to repair all brands and have bee around for a while.
After paying the $ 40 estimate fee, they called me back telling me that the problem was that «gooey stuff» was inside and had to be cleaned out. The cost? $ 200! I said it was quite impossible as the camera was hardly used (30 shots at the most) and was always in a pouch. However they insisted that was the problem. As I was in a bind time wise and really needed the camera I reluctantly bit the bullet. If I wasn’t in a rush I would have taken the camera elsewhere as I am sure they were trying to rip me off… which they did and hence this review to warn others to stay clear of this place.

Horrible customer service. Basically won’t just fix the one thing you came in for must look at whole lens and clean it and charge you for that as well. If there was another place available to go to I would.

I am a professional photographer based in Whistler, BC. I use Camtex for all of my photo/​video equipment needs. For my older lenses where parts are an issue from the manufacturer, Andrew has always been able to source parts… or I can agree to wait for a ‘parts’ piece to show up. They clean my lenses, camera bodies, sensor clean my digital cameras all quickly and I’ve never had an issue with any repairs. Andrew even swapped out the shutter box on my Canon 1D Mk lll for about 40% less than Canon… and within 14 days. I highly recommend their technical expertise.

Do not take your camera here.
I dropped off my camera this morning (Wednesday) and told them the Command Dial on the back of my Nikon wasn’t working and needed to be replaced. I was told I had to pay a $ 45+tax «evaluation fee» and that they wouldn’t be able to look at the camera until Friday, that they would have to take it apart to look at it. Cash or debit only. So I paid, but the kid who took my money and camera gave me a bad feeling, the whole place gave me a bad feeling.
So I went to work and looked them up on the internet and saw bad review after bad review of the shop. It would seem my bad feeling was being supported by the many bad experiences of others.
I decided that I would feel better taking my camera somewhere else and I went back this afternoon to pick it up. I told them I wanted my camera back, that I needed it this weekend and I could work around the back dial not working properly, and they weren’t going to have a chance to fix it before the weekend anyway. Before I could ask for a refund the older guy came out from the back and said, «We’ve already done the work though. We looked at it already.» I said I was told he wouldn’t have a chance to look at it until Friday and he said he fit it in when he had a chance and that he did it already.
«What was wrong with it?»
«It needs a new command dial.»
«Yeah, that’s what I told you when I came in. Do you have the part in stock?»
«Yes.»
So here’s the thing, the camera wasn’t taken apart, you have to take the rubber grips off to take it apart to get to the command wheel, my rubber grips hadn’t been taken off. And if he had taken it apart, and he found the problem, and he had the part in stock, why didn’t he call me and say, «hey, this is the problem, we have the part, would you like us to fix it?» instead of putting it all back together again?
I’d bet my 8 year old daughter that these guys didn’t take the camera apart, didn’t do anything other than sit it on a shelf for a few hours, and then claimed to have examined it.
Their estimate for repair was $ 350, plus the $ 45 «evaluation fee» for a total of $ 395. Curious, I called Nikon Canada and asked them how much they would charge to replace the same part. They told me $ 274.99 including parts, labour, and new rubber grips (because you have to take them off to work on the camera and the old ones don’t go back on very well, even though Camtex claims to have magically take mine off and put them back on to do their evaluation)
Camtex is more expensive than actual Nikon service (who would you rather trust?), and they are shady. There’s no way they looked at my camera. They were just feeding back to me the diagnosis I gave them. The receipt they gave me didn’t list the diagnosis on it, it just said «service refused» and when I asked for a description on the receipt of what it needed to be fixed he printed out the same thing again with the words «command dial doesn’t work» on it. No part numbers, no service and parts costs, no description of the repair at all, just the same thing I told them when I dropped the camera off.
Bad place. Bad service. Too expensive. I will never go there again. It pays to read reviews online before going somewhere. I wish I had read the reviews, it would have saved me $ 50. Hopefully I can save someone else $ 50

It’s too bad that the young Asian man has absolutely no customer service qualities in him. He is negative, accusatory, and rude. Unfortunately he is at the front desk and the first person you’ll likely encounter.
If you need your camera repaired talk to Alan the owner (older Asian gentleman) or one of the techs — I spoke with Andrew. Both are good to deal with. The techs know what they are talking about. Andrew explained to me the parts he replaced in my Mamiya RZ67. Detailing the specifics of which springs he replaced in the winder, and how hard it was to find a transistor.
Camera repair is a hard business. Especially a shop that deals with every camera brand on the market. I use to be in the camera retail business and repair timing is always a week or two longer at the independent shops.
A note to Nikon camera owners. If you need your Nikon camera fixed go directly to Nikon Canada in Richmond (8 – 13 511 Crestwood Place). They have a service centre onsite and certified Nikon techs. Their repair turnaround is roughly 2 weeks for normal repairs.

This place is awful, they are just trying to squeeze as much money out of you as they can DO NOT GO HERE it costs $ 45 for an estimate, they wanted to take apart my whole hasselblad lens and replace parts for almost $ 500, i was able to fix simply the problem simply and at no cost in the end overall there is no reason to even consider going to this place as an option.

It’s been over a month since my initial review of Camtex and unfortunately it doesn’t get any better. I FINALLY have my camera back, but it has not been repaired and just prior to picking it up, I sent the following message (mid-​Jan) through the Camtex website which is still without a reply from management.
Thank you for submitting the following information:
MessageType: Complaint
Username: Lindsay Elliott
UserEmail: ??@gmail.com
UserTel: 778-​???-???
ContactRequested: ContactRequested
Hi there, I just spoke with Allan on the phone about my Yashica T4 that has been at your store since late December. I paid the $ 30 to have it looked at and didn’t hear back for three weeks+. Since then I have called numerous times and been told someone will call me, but I have never been contacted. FINALLY tonight I managed to get someone who knew the situation. Apparently he can not find the part, has no idea of the price and basically said he’d hold my camera indefinitely until he found it. I asked if I could pick up the camera and see if I could get it repaired elsewhere and I was told yes, but that he’d close the file and if the part was ever found — I’d have to pay another $ 30 to get it back in to get it fixed. That is not acceptable to me. I reviewed the experience I had with your store on
and I’m astounded at the number of negative reviews your business had. I would love it if you could come up with a solution for this problem so that I could refer my friends and coworkers to your business and not direct them away. I would also love to get my Yashica working and I appreciate and understand that the part is difficult to find, but you should be able to understand the hopeless feeling of being told your camera has no repair date, price or idea of what is going on with it.
I will post a follow up review to how you handle this situation on Unilocal as well.
SO here is the follow up review.
DO NOT GO HERE.

You learn new stuff all the time. One of my recent discoveries is that even though your camera is securely in its case, fine blowing sand can permeate the case and get into your camera workings, rendering it DOA.
One of my husband’s work colleagues recommended Camtex so we brought the camera there for repair. To even drop off your camera to get a diagnosis/​estimate costs $ 25+ tax. We were called 24 hours later with an estimate, about 80% of the value of a new camera. We made the choice to just buy a new camera.
I went back to Camtex to pick up the old one. I was told to return the next business day because my camera was still in parts and they couldn’t return it to me that way? I told them that I would take it in parts since we were planning to buy a new camera but they still refused to release it to me. There was also a fairly strong sales effort to have the repair done rather than purchasing a new camera.
Several days later I came in to pick up the camera. Interestingly enough they «forgot» to return the battery too until I reminded them. The Asian gentleman that I interacted with on all 3 occasions was pleasant enough to deal with but I am not convinced that Camtex’s integrity is at the level that I have come to expect from a business.

I took my Panasonic Lumix FZ50 camera to Camtex on a Wednesday afternoon, desperate to have it back to photograph a recital on the weekend. All the functions were frozen, so I knew that a major part had to be replaced. I had previously phoned Camtex’s main competitor and been told that the repair would take at least 2 weeks. The guy behind the Camtex counter promised to call me the next day with an estimate, which he did. He then promised to have the camera repaired by Friday afternoon. On Friday morning I phoned him to say that I was busy all Friday afternoon and asked if I might have the camera back before lunch. He put me on hold, talked to the repair technician, and said that my Panasonic would be available in 45 minutes. I left home immediately and by the time I arrived at Camtex my camera was sitting on the counter waiting. The clerk was friendly and efficient. The repair cost was reasonable, they deducted the $ 39 estimation fee, and added $ 25 shipping because they had the part couriered to them overnight. What more could anyone ask? Camtex service is great!

It’s hard to drop off something that is broken and hope for it to be fixed. I dropped off a cheap lens, and they got back to me saying that it would cost more to repair it then buy a new one.
I am taking my Nikon DSLR there tomorrow, but i am a little worried. It would be nice to see some good reviews on here. Camtex is recommended by every photo nerd i know, and also the local camera stores.

I’m sad because Broadway camera recommended them, and I’ve been there twice. The first time, my Nikon D50 was acting up, and they fixed it. I remember back then thinking the guy was rude and could do with a lesson in customer service, but I figured maybe it was a bad day.
Fast forward a year later, and I have a flash that needs fixing. I head over and speak to the dude behind the counter. Once we deal with the flash ($ 25 just to look at it and ‘troubleshoot’) I ask him how much it would cost to clean/​service my nikon, as I’ve had it for 5 years and never cleared the dust or anything like that.
That’s when he gets rude. He looks at me like I’m an idiot and says «well, that depends on what you want to clean». I told him that as I am not a camera technician, I don’t know what needs to be cleaned, all I know is that there is dust in my images. He went on for 10 minutes about how when you drop your car off to have it cleaned, you tell them «clean my seats» or «clean my dashboard» (which, incidentally, is wrong. when you drop your car off to get cleaned, they clean the whole thing… which is what I was asking). I told him that all I wanted to know was how much to have a NIkon D50 undergo servicing, and he still refused to give me any sort of straight answer, telling me that I had to tell him what I wanted done. Crap customer relations if someone is paying you for your expertise and you refuse to show that you have any. If I’m asking an expert to do something, it’s because I don’t know how to do it — so asking me how to do what I don’t know how to do is. well. you get my drift.
It doesn’t end there. I said ‘ok, I don’t agree with you, but alright’, thinking we’d leave it there, he’d take my flash, my $ 25+tax, and be on our way. He moved my things to the side and said «find someone else to help you», and called «Andre». Andre was a nice old man with a thick european accent who took my flash and my money. A word of warning, if you go to camtex, avoid the Asian guy like the plague, he needs a lesson in manners, customer service, and just general interpersonal skills.
If only there were somewhere else to get your nikon fixed.