Well now hold on. There's a little bit of self-contradiction at play here. If you're going to say it's only ever been hearsay how can you then also say that you don't doubt it was true?I haven't seen any proof to the contrary, saying that Nikon wouldn't preform work on gray market. Not a single instance of proof, now or ever. Just heresay on forums over the years.
My point exactly. I don't doubt that sometime in the past the latter (refusal to repair) was true - but it certainly isn't the case today.
Also, it's worth noting that it is not hearsay if NikonUSA's own website explicitly said this in the past, which as far as I can tell it did.
I buy from MAPcamera, one of the biggest photo stores in Japan. Gray market doesn't mean "illegitimate source". It simply means "Nikon products that are imported and sold by anyone other than Nikon Inc. USA". You can find that definition on their website.
gray-market
Shop the latest mirrorless & DSLR cameras and NIKKOR lenses from the official Nikon eCommerce site. Explore our innovations and photo equipment!www.nikonusa.com
So by definition, I (in the US) purchased a body/lens from MAPCamera (in Japan), thus making it gray market. MAPcamera will tell you themselves that it is gray market, but also that Nikon will freely repair the items.
I'm be much less inclined to believe that I'm the luckiest person in the world, and much more inclined to believe that people spread rumors out of fear or jealousy for others getting better deals than they do.
If you know of 2 people personally - please post ANY form of proof. An email. A voice recording. A handwritten letter. Anything from Nikon stating they wouldn't repair it.
You'd think that proof would be SO EASY to find if it were true. And yet we've not seen any proof posted.
Nikon is billion dollar company. I'm sure they're not stupid. Do you think it's more likely that they accidentally left out any wording about refusal to repair? Or do you think it's more likely that it's internet boogyman stories being spread?
I'm leaning towards the most likely option being that sometime in the past (5, 10, 20 years ago?) Nikon for some reason wouldn't repair gray market. But as the industry and company grew and they realized all the missed profits - they went back on that stance. That switch happening at an unknown time, and ancient photographers posting about experiences that are decades old - seems like the perfect storm for what we see today. Lots of stories with no proof, all talking about "back in the day".
From all I can tell the change to the website has happened within the past year or so, meaning that as recently as one year ago they explicitly said they wouldn't repair gray market items.