LA woman brought her 60-year-old heirloom camera for cleaning and repair. She was devastated by the outcome
The clerk insisted that he only cleaned her camera, but she suspects something fishy happened at the store.
Kai George (@kai.george0) inherited a 1960s heirloom camera from her late grandmother. She had it cleaned at Walters Camera Repairs but now alleges the store tampered with it.
“This camera store has been here since the 1950s,” George told TikTok as she pulled up. George told the clerk that she has a Rolleiflex 3.5F Planar. The clerk shared that he had recently acquired a similar model. He inspected the camera’s glass for damage.
“If the glass is good, everything is working,” he explained. After checking, the clerk concluded the glass was clean. However, he claimed the mirror was outdated and needed to be replaced. He quoted $450 for the cleaning and mirror replacement, which George agreed to pay.
“Mom found this at my grandma’s. Wish she would’ve found an extra few hundred dollars too,” George joked. The clerk pointed out that her heirloom is valued at $1,800 and added that the repair is “money well spent” for “one of the finest cameras ever made.”
Despite her initially cordial interaction with the clerk, George returned to the store, disappointed at the supposed state of her item. She alleged that after the repairs, the clerk handed her a camera with missing parts, dents, and scratches. George called the alleged damages “unacceptable” and confronted the clerk.
A regretful experience with the repair shop
“You’ve mixed up all these pieces,” she accused the man. George pointed out that one side of the camera had alleged scratches that weren’t there before. She also claimed that it was missing a metal plate and screws. “This ain’t my d*** camera, sir!” she said. She further accused him of dismantling her camera and putting on different parts. The clerk denied it, claiming that he only cleaned it.
“Why are the screws different here than they were in the ones that I gave you?” she asked. The clerk replied, saying, “Do you understand that we don’t have the appropriate tools, so the screw sometimes doesn’t fit?” However, George insisted that the plate on the side of the camera wasn’t the same as the one her camera had before she brought it to the store.
George also claimed that one of the knobs of her camera looked different. She pulled up a video of her supposed heirloom camera, and the knob near the lens had an arrow and a ‘V’ etching. When asked about the knob difference, the clerk said he “had to remove the plate.”
“I have a video of what it looked like when I dropped it off. Now, I’m seeing different sketches, and different etches in here,” George alleged. She continued, “I want all of my original parts, and I know what every single part looks like because I did a thorough filming of the camera before I dropped it off.” George claimed the camera had been barely used and had sat in her grandmother’s drawer for decades. Thus, she believes it shouldn’t have any scuffs or scratches.
Will she get her camera back?
“When you clean, scratches and impurities start coming out, because your camera was full of dust, oil, and residue. It really was,” the clerk claimed. However, George didn’t believe the explanation. She warned, “This s*** will definitely turn into a lawsuit if I don’t get my camera back in the initial condition that it was. I promise you, because there’s some real, fishy s*** going on.” George isn’t the only one who’s had expectations dashed after a costly purchase. Another woman looked forward to treating her family to a fully paid $1,400 Airbnb stay, only for the host to cancel at the last minute.
George is emotionally distraught, and she refused to take the camera from the store. In a video update, she said she will return to Walters Camera Repairs on Monday to retrieve her item. “I just want you to know, all I want is my grandma’s camera,” George said, addressing the clerk. She said she had gone to the police about the issue but refused to disclose additional information. The Mary Sue has also reached out to both parties involved in the story for further comments.
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