Missing DCS 560

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Ashley_Pomeroy
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Missing DCS 560

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Now here's a thing. I recently eBay-ed my DCS 560 to a chap in Germany, who appears to be a thoroughly decent fellow. I packed it up, posted it by Royal Mail Global Value, and voop - yes, voop - it has vanished. DHL's German site lists it as being picked up for processing, but it seems to have gone missing before it was put into transit. This is disturbing but I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. It seems too large to just go missing, but I wonder what use a thief would have for a charger-less, battery-less DCS 560?

It was serial number K560C-00560, which is easy to remember because it ends in 560 and it's a 560. Perhaps it's still stuck in customs, but if anybody is offered this on Nikonweb, pay heed because it's not the seller's to sell. More than likely, if it was stolen - especially in the UK - the miscreant tried to turn it on, failed, and threw it in the nearest ditch.
cgrab
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Re: Missing DCS 560

Post by cgrab »

Too bad. If DHL shows it "in processing", they should have it (although I do not understand where they come in, as Royal Mail's partner in Germany would most likely be Deutsche Post). Anyway, it sometimes takes some time for things to get out of the bowels of the courier companies, as for some reason, they have probably routed the parcel through Kerala and La Paz. Get a screenshot of the "in processing" message, and nag them about the whereabouts.
Hopefully, the parcel, and the DCS560 will come to light again.

Christoph
Ashley_Pomeroy
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Re: Missing DCS 560

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

It's this one, here:
http://nolp.dhl.de/nextt-online-public/ ... 76150885GB

If I do a search with Deutsche Post's shipment tracking link it pops open the above. It seems to have arrived at the "departure sorting hub" (curiously, two hours before I posted it!), and will be forwarded to the export sorting hub, which implies that it never left the UK or indeed reached a port or airport. Perhaps the Icelandic ash has completely messed everything up. But then again, that was a long time ago.

On a tangent, a DCS 560 with box and charger etc on the US version of eBay sold for $1,050/£728! a short while ago (although I'm fairly sure it wasn't *my* DCS 560):
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Digital-KODAK-PRO ... 2c5477e82f

It's fine within its limits, but £728 is silly; that's roughly the same as a good used 1D MkII or 1Ds MkI with a bunch of batteries. The same auctioneer appears to be currently auctioning the exact same camera again, so presumably the buyer didn't pay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Digital-KODAK-PRO ... 2c54afc8f0
NikonWeb
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Re: Missing DCS 560

Post by NikonWeb »

I understand your frustration. Some packages are lost, but usually they are not.. Have you contacted Royal Mail and/or DHL?

Good luck!

Jarle
Ashley_Pomeroy
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Re: Missing DCS 560

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Webmaster wrote:I understand your frustration. Some packages are lost, but usually they are not.. Have you contacted Royal Mail and/or DHL?
Good luck!
Jarle
I have indeed - they gave me a Special Form to fill out, which I have done so and posted off. It's entirely possible that the form might become lost in the post as well. Which is "ha ha only serious", because assuming the camera hasn't accidentally gone missing or been squashed by machinery, the people who deal with the form may well be in cahoots with the people who have the camera.

That's probably not fair. The British public have a kind of love/hate relationship with the Royal Mail, akin to Kipling's famous poem, "Tommy". Most of the time people moan that the Royal Mail is slow, inefficient, that it is staffed by bullies who kick dogs, that it loses things, that the counter staff are rude, but at the slightest mention of privatisation it becomes a treasured national institution and pride of Britain staffed by overworked, can-do types. I suspect the reality is all of those things and none of them.

Whereas in the US I suspect that postal workers are either completely ignored or treated with suspicion and fear on account of all those workplace massacres. British postmen do not generally massacre people in the workplace or indeed anywhere.
Ashley_Pomeroy
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Re: Missing DCS 560

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Well blow me down. The postman delivered it back to me this morning. It seems to have gone to Germany and arrived at the destination, but Herr Postmann has scrawled NAME? on the packet and sent it back. To be fair, the buyer was an oriental gentleman, and I might have put the order of his name wrong. I've refunded him anyway.

I'm not loath to sell the DCS 560 again because it obviously likes me and doesn't want to leave. Still, at least there was a happy ending. Mind you the broken DCS 760 remained broken - I sold it in the end for spares. There was a DCS 660 on eBay recently but it was in untested condition and I'm a bit wary of the Nikon-bodied DCSes now. I understand that the DCS 760 had a substantial internal upgrade, with a co-processor and a much larger buffer, and perhaps stuffing all of that into the same cramped body caused the insides to heat up, I dunno.

It would be decadent to own a DCS 560 and a DCS 660 except that in the latter case I could take a screenshot of the built-in game. The DCS 560 has a version of Pong, the DCs 660 (and presumably the 620) has a "puzzle", but I've never seen it in operation.
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