A thunderstorm looms over Mount Moran in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

Look up reviews of Consumer Priority Service (CPS), and you’ll see nothing but glowing reviews everywhere. Dig a little deeper though, and you’ll see those reviews are based strictly off of the purchasing process, while actual experiences with CPS yields nothing but horror stories. My experience with them is as follows.

I received my Canon 5D at the very end of 2006 along with a CPS 5-year extended warranty. With only one camera for most of that time, I never could find the time to part with it to send it out for a cleaning, so the sensor managed to get a little dirty in addition to a large amount of hot pixels showing up over the years in all my darker shots (dusk, night, etc). In the summer of 2008, I accidentally dropped the camera, leaving a gash on the side just above the memory card slot. I covered it up with a bit of duct tape, and in a rush, was not able to find the warranty information at the time and sent it directly into Canon to see what would happen. The repairs were over $600, something I couldn’t work with at the time, and so I had them send it back. Amazingly, it still worked flawlessly and continued to.

I found the warranty information shortly thereafter if for nothing else than for peace of mind, and then in late 2010, bought a Canon 7D. There were a few issues with that originally (which will be addressed in another blog post), but once those were resolved, I was finally able to send in the 5D for a cleaning and to address the hot pixels.

CPS sent in an email saying that most issues are resolved within 1-2 weeks and that 3-4 weeks is a worst case scenario. They had had it for three weeks and I hadn’t heard anything so I called up to see if they could share any information with me. The response was that they would call me back the in the next day or two with something to tell me. Unfortunately, this went on for the next two weeks. After five weeks without my 5D, calling them for three of those weeks just trying to get them to tell me anything, I finally got fed up with it and sent them an email threatening to file a complaint with the BBB since keeping your customers in the dark is not a technique most businesses choose to use these days.

The next day I was informed that my 5D was on its way back! I didn’t like taking the threat road and it’s incredibly out of the ordinary for me, but I couldn’t get through to them any other way, so I was just excited to finally get my camera back. When I got it back however, the hot pixels were still there and though cleaner, the sensor was in no way a condition I would consider clean. I wrote in an email again (since that seemed to get through better) expressing an incredible amount of dissatisfaction and was told that they had been waiting on a new sensor, so they just decided to send it back for…fun? They also said that if I sent it in again, it would be rushed through and the necessary fixes would be applied promptly. I reluctantly agreed and sent it back out.

Two weeks went by and I hadn’t heard anything (again), so I called them up to see what was going on and once again, I was told they would call me back with some information. A few days later though, they actually did call me back this time. The news wasn’t any good though. Apparently they said that the drop had voided my warranty and the supervisor I had spoken to said that he worked really hard with Canon to keep the total costs down to $480 and flat-out told me that if we didn’t proceed, he would look really bad to Canon. I once again reluctantly went with their plans, not wanting to spend the money on it, but at the same time it needed to be cleaned and the hot pixels were really annoying me.

A couple more weeks had gone by and I hadn’t heard anything so I once again began calling to check on the progress. I was told it got sent directly to Canon’s repair facility and that it was out of their hands, but that they would submit an ETA request and I would hear back within 24 hours. This once again continued for another week until I wrote in yet another frustrated email. The response was very friendly and I was told I would be kept up to date with any changes.

One week later, I was told that after a long six weeks of wildflower season coming and going here in Jackson Hole without my 5D, that it was on its way back to me. After another week for shipping, I finally received it back with the body repairs, as expected, but much to my indescribable dismay, the original repairs I had requested months before still were not addressed. I wrote them immediately very upset and frustrated saying that it was a lost cause and that I didn’t appreciate being talked into basically paying $480 for a very bad cleaning (since it was still working perfectly fine with the body damage), in addition to an apparent lie that they were waiting for a new sensor when there obviously wasn’t a new sensor installed.

So, in conclusion, my advice to you is that if you buy any expensive electronics and Consumer Priority Service is your only warranty option, you are seriously much better off just not even getting it. The headaches, frustration, lack of communication, terrible customer service and irresponsibility in repairs are simply not worth it.