Sigma of America

Was looking for refurbish my 300 mm f/2.8 APO lens that I had purchased for my EOS system from an Amazon vendor. Sure, the lens was not only cheap, limited in capabilities (AF is slow, more a close focus lens, shoots very bad in low light, despite it’s aperture and was covered in all this gross sticky crap from previous owner), but at least functions in all manual during sports shoots. So I call the Sigma Corp and get transferred to their repair department.
The lady behind the phone took the question, asked their repair guy if it was fixable and this is how our conversation went afterward:
Sigma: No. Your lens is too old.
Me: I understand but you guys were my last hope. Can you recommend me anyone else who could at least help me out here?
Sigma: Just throw the lens away. It’s going to break your camera.
Uhm, I’m sure you readers, who like me, read reviews here on Unilocal through the eyes of a «consumer» would be taken aback by this. Especially after hearing these words from the people who MANUFACTURE the product you are inquiring about. After I hung up on the lady with the heavy NY Jewish accent, it only solidified why Sigma gets such bad reviews on other sites (I’ve read reviews where people send in gear to get fixed and get it back pretty much in the same condition with no refund on repair fees).
Funny part is that the «other» Sigma repair shops I called across the continental US were a lot more helpful and polite with my inquiry. But in the end, they all told me the same thing, «Would like to help but you may have to call Sigma headquarters regarding your lens.»
Thanks but no thanks Sigma Corp of America. Your 8−16mm F4.5−5.6 DC HSM may be one of my workhorse lenses — BUT the customer service in your repair department is the one that actually needs the refurbishing.
1 star

As everyone knows, this Sigma 28 – 300 was purchased specific for a purpose: my best friend’s wedding in Australia. That lens never went to Australia. Instead due to its unreliability and its being in the repair shop AGAIN when I departed for Sydney, at the «last minute» I had to buy yet another lens (Tamron 28 – 300) just for the trip. This lens BTW worked great w/​o the problems encountered with the Sigma lens. When I returned today from Sydney, the Sigma lens was here waiting my return. It was broken twice and finally returned still broken as I refused to pay almost $ 100 for repairing a lens that was just a few months old and broke twice during a testing period. What would YOU do if you had a lens that broke twice? Now the real question is WHAT do you do with a «new» lens that has broke twice and STiLL doesn’t work, yet the company will not refund your money as requested, and the NY state BBB has not done anything yet to resolve my problem? If I could open my window and throw this stupid lens through their headquarters windows, I would… it’s a worthless piece of crap, after 30+ years of using third-​party lens w/​o ANY problems… thanks Sigma for setting a record and being the first for this photographer to have a lens with not one but TWO (2) problems within months of first-​use! Now to see how many months they will ignore my request to refund my money for a worthless un-​working lens! methinks not!