Camera I got online doesn’t work – is it ‘grey market’ and can I get a refund?

I bought a new Sony camera from electronics website Next Day Deal in April 2022 and paid around £1,300.

The transaction was made through PayPal and the money was said to have been paid to a company called WA & Co Limited.

The camera was faulty from the start. Despite my attempts to save power, the battery drained quickly and sometimes wouldn’t charge. The lens did not retract well and there were also problems with focus.

It had a two-year warranty, so I contacted Next Day Deal in June and requested a repair. I was told to send the camera to a repair shop in Glasgow. I had to pay for this repair and Next Day Deal refunded me later.

But when the camera was returned, there were more glitches than before, and the previous glitches were still there. I went to a local camera shop in Surrey for a second opinion and they agreed.

Frustrated, I decided to claim a refund under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. I emailed Next Day Deal’s customer service address and sent a registered letter to the Somerset address on its website.

I have had no response to the email and Royal Mail has bounced the letter saying the address was not valid.

So I sent another certified letter to WA & Co’s registered address in London. It was forwarded to a PO Box address earlier this month and has not received a response to date.

This camera is not working properly and I want my money back. Can you help? GT, Hampshire

Helen Crane from This is Money replies: I’m sorry to hear this. You hoped to take great pictures with your new high-end camera, but ended up being far from happy.

It looks like you bought your camera from a company that deals in goods known as “grey market”. These are items that have been marketed in one country and then exported and sold without the permission of the company that owns the trademark.

This is not illegal and does not mean that the products are counterfeit. However, it does mean that they do not come with the original factory warranty.

The brand owners will usually refuse to repair items purchased from these retailers, even if the customer offers to pay.

Here’s why you were instructed to send the camera to an independent repair shop hundreds of miles from your home, rather than sending it back to Sony – and why you had to pay them up front and wait for the Next Day Deal to get you refunded.

As you’ve discovered, dealing with these smaller, third-party export sellers means it can be harder to put things right when they go wrong.

While Next Day Deal says it offers its own two-year warranty, your experience of trying to get your camera repaired – and then refunded – has been painful. It’s been eight months since you first shipped it and you still don’t have a properly working camera or your money back in your pocket.

Looking at Next Day Deal on Trustpilot, it initially seems to have an excellent reputation, with 96 percent of reviews five stars.

However, searching through the handful of one-star reviews that remained, This is Money found allegations that Next Day Deal had refused to help customers with delivery issues or offer refunds unless they first agreed to release negative reviews they had posted to remove. If so, it is very bad behavior indeed.

The fact that your letter to Next Day Deal was undeliverable suggests it’s a minor operation, and when I searched the address on the website, it turned out to be a residence rather than an office or warehouse.

This would make sense considering how difficult you found it to get in touch.

Undeliverable: A letter GT sent to Next Day Deal requesting a refund was returned to him

Customers who want to use these types of websites may be able to save a few bucks off the price of their expensive gadgets, but deviating from the original manufacturer or an authorized retailer could be a false saving if something goes wrong.

I contacted Next Day Deals to ask if it was planning on giving you a refund. I received an email saying that the company regretted the experience you had after the initial repair attempt failed.

It added: “We are investigating the difficulty he experienced in contacting us and why this may have happened.”

“We have also introduced additional procedures to support our customers going forward, including further training for our team and ensuring customers are informed not to use third party repairers, as was permitted on this occasion.”

The Next Day Deal website states that ‘all warranty issues are handled locally in the UK by a manufacturer approved service centre’ – but you were explicitly told to use the third party camera repairer in Glasgow.

I’m sure you wouldn’t have chosen to send the camera hundreds of miles across the country if another option was available to you.

If even their own staff doesn’t understand where products should go for repair, what hope does the customer have?

Next Day Deal has now contacted you and arranged for the camera to be collected and refunded in full.

I hope you can use the money to buy a less cumbersome camera, and I imagine leaving Next Day Deal out of the picture.