The Lens Doctor

A few of my lenses had suffered a fungus attack and I decided to get a couple of them cleaned by a qualified lens technician.
I had noticed the Lens Doctor from his listings for refurbished lenses on Ebay, all of which are presented complete mint or as new condition. From there I made contact though his website which details his expertise as a former Canon technician and his prior history as a rock guitarist.
I sent a Yashinon 50 mm macro lens and a Tamron 70 – 210 zoom lens, only one of which was really worth getting cleaned at a cost of £50 a piece. However, I decided to get both done in another show of altruism and as the old saying goes, no good deed shall go unpunished, I should have realized that yet again, not only would I be rewarded by lower grade workmanship, but also harassment.
So I got both lenses done, I paid and they came back. The job was ok but there were some particles in the zoom lens and the macro lens had a smudge inside the front lens element that looked like the tip of a thumb print. Hardly the immaculate condition of the lenses he flogs on his website but they were ok and my experience with most photographic equipment tends to be that once they are opened up and reassembled they never quite reach factory standard. So I would say the repairs were acceptable but not exemplary or in accordance with his advertised standard of work.
What really annoyed me more was when I sent a Vivitar Series 1 70 – 210 2.8 zoom lens for a faulty aperture repair. It’s a big chunk of a lens, very heavy and so I made contact before sending to see if the repair could be achieved. He said yes, send it off. I did. Then weeks went by without hearing a thing. I emailed and he replied saying he was trying to get parts from the US. More weeks went past, no response to emails and so I called him and I got the impression he was deliberately fannying me about so to speak. So i sent off the return postage and asked for it to be sent back as agreed. Despite sending the return postage I didn’t hear a thing again for weeks and had to make contact with the consumer standards people in Cumbernauld after which I eventually got it back, minus the original box.
I honestly got the impression from his attitude that his attempt to keep the lens was a direct harassment attempt. It had been away for about 4 months. So my advice to anybody out there thinking of using this guy is, just be careful!