Hi,

One of the guys at work is contemplating buying a Nikon D750. He can save up to £500 by getting a grey import, but I am concerned about warranty implications.

Do any of you kind people have any experience of buying grey imports, or any advice you can offer?

Thanks in advance.

There are a few firms in the UK (one's based in Glasgow and I can't recall the name right now) who'll offer a warranty on your camera gear regardless of it's origins. They also handle the legitimate Canon warranty claims, so it's the same place you'd be sending your camera to anyway.
So while not a manufacturer warranty, there are third parties out there who'll cover your gear and make a good job of it, if you needed to use them.

Flashcamera is based in Scotland. There's digitalrev, hdew and Panamoz. Some of them have offices in the uk where you send equipment back to if it's faulty.

Would the 3rd party warranty premium added cost make a grey import worthwhile overall?

AFAIK, the warranty cost falls well below the £500 saving in the OP, but I haven't looked into for a while.
One of our former students saved a small fortune on a 5DMKII from the grey market with a third party warranty.

Some manufacturers offer a worldwide warranty so will repair faulty gear under warranty. Some others (I think Sigma are always mentioned when this topic is raised) will not honour warranty for items purchased out of your geographical location.

I bought my camera body from Simply Electronics cheaper than UK stock and whilst I saved a few quid their customer service was shocking so that might be something to consider.

I'm also not sure you'll be able to fall back on UK consumer laws if things go wrong e.g. Sale of Goods Act and Consumer Contracts Regulations with grey importers where the offices are based abroad.

I believe there are some UK based retailers who sell grey import stock so a) you've got somewhere to go back to should something go wrong and b) you won't be stung for any import duties, etc. Someone mentioned http://www.hdewcameras.co.uk/ but I've never used them before. I;ve used Microglobe who, judging by their prices, sell grey imports from a UK based store.

Thanks all,

I'll send the forum link to the guy, so he can read the replies for himself.

awesome. I've heard these things.