In short, Canon needs to eliminate gray market, period. As well, they need to stop making their legitimate dealerships jump through a series of flaming hoops to get their instant savings back they're forced to give customers. It takes up to 3 months to get you IS back from them, but they're on you the second a below MAP price pops up any where. Not to mention, will hold special order product indefinitely, without notice, because of some sort of invoicing issues. They treat independent dealers like criminals when the real criminals are the ones selling the gray market machines, which are in turn, being promoted by sites like this.
So happy to have switched from Canon. I used to like them.
Errm, a little bit troll-esque?
Re gray market, how is the situation any different with Nikon, Sony etc? When buying gray, you just need to apply a bit of intelligence and intuition as to whether you'd be happy doing business with them. Low dollar, low risk accessory purchases may be fine with gray sellers, then there's gray sellers who allow local pickup which is going to be safer still, but I like to protect and reinforce my CPS status which requires purchase from authorised sellers. I will always do this with bodies & lenses, particularly an important big ticket item like a 1DX body, even if it costs a few hundred dollars more.
-PW
