Mt Spokane Photography said:
All the warranty card does is to get you registered so you can get advertising, and recall notices. I'd always register a gray market camera as soon as you get it, that helps establish the warranty.
For warranty repair, they want your sales receipt from a authorized dealer, but they seem to accept gray market.
Most gray market sellers provide a warranty, so ask the seller about their warranty if Canon will not repair it.
Canon has a new camera registration page. Its different from the CPS registration, so do both. The Canon registration page wants more information than CPS. Be sure to put the date you purchased it, you will be asked for a copy with any warranty service. The registration merely helps establish the date of purchase. When receipts are not available, in cases such as a gifts, they may go by the registration information, or the date of manufacture which can be determined from the serial number.
thank you for the response. I never got the warranty card, but if I'm a CPS member and register there, would this be basically the same thing?
Also, hopefully, I never need the warranty repair, as although I have heard a few bad things about the company in regards to completely unrelated camera gear(seems the macbook airs they sell have many negative reviews), everyone seems happy about their DSLR purchases through them. with this being said, I have heard that dealing with them for anything after purchasing can be a complete nightmare, so hope if anything does happen *knock on wood* that I am able to go straight to canon and receive the necessary help.