Sea&Sea customer service

Hi everyone!

I own 2 Sea&Sea YSD1. I bought them in Malaysia but I didn't keep the invoice...fast forward one of them stopped working. It seems it charge, the red LED turns on but it does not flashes.

I currently live in Thailand and I tried to send the strobe to a well known retail shop where they sell Sea&Sea, but due to have bought the strobe in a different shop and what they told me regarding Sea&Sea policy, they are not allowed to fix it.

Because of those problems to fix it and because all the good things I heard about the Inon Z330 I decided to change brand.

What are your thoughts about the customer service of this company, Sea&Sea?

If anyone had the same issues, can you give us all with this same problem a solution?

Thank you!

Sent from my SM-P585Y using Tapatalk

Hi everyone!

 

I own 2 Sea&Sea YSD1. I bought them in Malaysia but I didn't keep the invoice...fast forward one of them stopped working. It seems it charge, the red LED turns on but it does not flashes.

 

I currently live in Thailand and I tried to send the strobe to a well known retail shop where they sell Sea&Sea, but due to have bought the strobe in a different shop and what they told me regarding Sea&Sea policy, they are not allowed to fix it.

Because of those problems to fix it and because all the good things I heard about the Inon Z330 I decided to change brand.

 

What are your thoughts about the customer service of this company, Sea&Sea?

If anyone had the same issues, can you give us all with this same problem a solution?

 

Thank you!

 

Sent from my SM-P585Y using Tapatalk

If it is out of warranty and you will pay for repairs then they have to fix it

I would contact sea and sea and the shop you bought the strobe from and ask how to go forward

If you had bought a second hand strobe you would still want it fixed even if out of warranty they can’t refuse but it could be expensive

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know in Australia at least, warranty and service is the responsibility of the importer, though having said that the shop in Thailand should fix the strobes if you pay for the repairs.

I know in Australia at least, warranty and service is the responsibility of the importer, though having said that the shop in Thailand should fix the strobes if you pay for the repairs.

In situations like this, the importer/distributor are often independent business entities, and see grey market and other legitimate imports as money taken out of their pockets... Even in the US, which has (or had) fairly strong consumer protection laws, independent importers often have no obligation to repair under warranty, or even service for pay, products brought in from abroad. To me, this is awfully myopic, but it is a fairly prevalent attitude in many niche industries. That, to me, is a core problem with most enthusiast industries....

It sounds to me that you do not have much leverage in Thailand to get the strobes fixed there.

What you might do is contact Sea&Sea in Japan:

CEO: Stephen Ashmore,

Sea & Sea Head Office

1-4-6 Kitasenzoku, Ota-ku,

Tokyo 145-0062 Japan

https://www.seaandsea.co.jp/

Good luck and please post your progress and hopefully good results.

Update, I bought the new Inon Z330 and will never go back to Sea&Sea as long Inon customer service proves themselves better than the late ones.

Not in a rush to fix the old ones anymore, will do whenever I need them for a bigger project.

Not only are the Sea&Sea strobes unreliable, also the European representative in Netherlands is not good for anything: Approx. half a year ago I had (another) defective YS-D2 to repair and tried to contact them. No response at all. They do not want to deal with customers service...

Instead I sent the strobe in to a UK repair workshop:

Aquaphot
40 D'Arcy Way
Tolleshunt D'Arcy
Essex
CM9 8UD
United Kingdom

Decent work and fast!

At a cost of 250 Euro for the repair, however, I am not sure I will invest again in a broken Sea&Sea strobe. Probably I will invest in another new Z330 instead (in the meantime my wife and me have three Z330 plus the two remaining YS-D2's)...

Wolfgang

On 5/7/2019 at 2:52 AM, Interceptor121 said:

If the strobe is in warranty this is a standard situation

If it is out of warranty and you will pay for repairs then they have to fix it

I would contact sea and sea and the shop you bought the strobe from and ask how to go forward

 

If you had bought a second hand strobe you would still want it fixed even if out of warranty they can’t refuse but it could be expensive

 

I don't know about in Thailand, but here in the U.S., S&S would absolutely not HAVE to fix it. If it's out of warranty, even if you were willing to pay, they could absolutely refuse to do the repair if they felt like it. It would be a foolish business practice. But, they certainly could.

My Olympus OM-D E-M10 broke recently. The mode wheel no longer does anything. It turns and feels normal. But, the camera is stuck in M mode. I reached out to Olympus. I was willing to pay to have it fixed. They refused to fix it. Period.

It has probably to do with the inability or lack of economy in doing it

In some cases this forces the customer to buy new however most times the customer buy ANOTHER BRAND new hahaha!

Just now, Interceptor121 said:

It has probably to do with the inability or lack of economy in doing it

In some cases this forces the customer to buy new however most times the customer buy ANOTHER BRAND new hahaha!

Assuredly. They said this camera is too old, so they cannot repair it. The point remains that just because I was willing to pay does not mean they HAVE to repair it.

Just now, stuartv said:

 

Assuredly. They said this camera is too old, so they cannot repair it. The point remains that just because I was willing to pay does not mean they HAVE to repair it.

No they may lack spare parts and the knowledge to do it. And yes they can refuse but this ends up in the situation as above buy another brand