I’ve known about MPB since they started following EOSHD on Twitter, all the way back in 2011. Soon after that MPB reached out with an offer to sponsor the blog. Describing themselves as “The UK’s Only Specialist Canon and Nikon Used Equipment Dealer”, MPB have come a long way since the early days. When MPB set-up a warehouse in Berlin, as you can imagine I was very excited and as a serious gear-addict, have spent many thousands with MPB online over the years
My last order was placed this week in Berlin. When I say last order, it could literally be.
It is mainly on the EU side of MPB in Berlin where I have been let down time and time again. Over 7 serious problems this past 12 months alone and now a big slap down from their customer experience team leader accusing me of being an abusive customer. This review is something I’ve been holding back for many months, to give MPB every chance to make amends, but I think it would be a disservice to the camera-world for the facts to go unpublished.
These problems are systematic and experienced by many others. It started for me in January 2025 when some of my own gear was due to be returned with what I’d bought as part of a trade-in. Instead of arriving back with me, the gear went into one of Stephen Hawking’s Black Holes around the back of DHL’s warehouse in Ludwigsfelde. Rather than reappearing as Canon radiation, nobody to this day can offer any explanation as to what happened to my Canon and Sony gear…not least MPB, certainly not DHL, not even Steven Hawking.
That’s ok, deliveries go missing occasionally. It’s the way MPB’s customer service team in Berlin dealt with it that’s from another planet, and not a good one. Rather than offer a prompt refund, MPB made me wait nearly 2 months for (their own) DHL compensation claim to proceed. This is against EU trading laws. Eventually MPB refunded the Sony camera I had ordered only, but not my own lost equipment. This needed separate, further effort on my part to chase again – by April, almost as much time had gone into the black hole as camera equipment.
The eventual compensation did not even reflect the value of the goods had sent them and never received back. Had I received it back as planned and sold the camera privately it would have gone for 50% more . Something to be aware of, if you decide not to accept their revised lower quoted value (which happens very often for the most spurious of reasons) and it goes missing.
Undeterred I accepted one-off disasters happen, this wasn’t going to ruin my 13 year relationship with MPB.
I decided to place my faith in the MPB gods once again and ordered a bargain, spares & repairs Leica Q which I intended to fix.
Stupid, I know.
This is when I really suspected something unusual, because it immediately went into the same black hole again, gone forever. Bear in mind this is not a complex logistical challenge – a delivery from Berlin, to Berlin. In order to get any sort of prompt action out of MPB I had to email their CEO, Matt Baker as their EU customer service team were now in the habit of simply ignoring emails.
What was going on? Were MPB’s boxes splitting open, due to the environmentally friendly paper box tape? Was somebody at DHL helping themselves to free cameras?
It still has not been explained.
At this point, as you can imagine I was quite annoyed. Three items lost, months without the money, would it be the case again with the Leica Q? CEO Matt Baker was initially on the case, but it all felt rather performative. After 1 or two emails, Mr Baker simply vanished just like my deliveries… ghosted by the boss.
I can accept he had better things to do, but a simple email saying – sorry Andrew, I’m rather busy, I’ll let my team look after you, wouldn’t have gone amiss. After all he had employed a team of people in Berlin whose actual job it was to look after customers.
Undeterred I ordered a Sony a7s III in the UK which was reserved as part of a trade-in, before I had chance to send the trade-in items, suddenly the Sony was taken off reservation for no reason and sold to someone else – with no audit trail. The staff could offer no explanation. I even did a freedom of information request to get to the bottom of it. There was nothing. This was so strange that not even MPB could explain it so at this point I was fighting for the whereabouts of my Leica Q in Berlin, and my Sony a7s III in the UK, several thousands of euros worth of kit – a battle on two fronts at once!
And the problems for me were not over yet. Equipment I was selling or trading-in with MPB would have spurious deductions applied to the quotes which didn’t make any sense. To give you an example: a boxed and fully complete camera as originally bought brand new had a deduction applied for a “missing AC adapter” – which was never even included in the first place by the manufacturer in the box. If they are doing this to me, how many others are out of pocket?
After all these problems, you might think it would be reasonable for the customer to vent their frustration with some negative feedback. I did exactly that, but rather than take it onboard, let alone apologise, MPB’s customer experience operations manager in Berlin doubled down on the blame game and issued me with a severe telling off, threats of action via “serious channels”, continuing “You do not have the right to belittle our team’s concerns, nor to direct discriminatory, insulting, or threatening language toward any of our staff.” none of which I did, and I can prove it – yet at the same time I’m not going to sit there and tell them how wonderful everything is when it isn’t.
Every time rather than helping me with the latest problem of their own making, this person began to point the finger at me instead.
The exact reversal of what a customer experience role entails.
Imagine, after 13 years of spending money with a store, time and time again to be told that YOU are in fact a problem, that the messed-up orders and non-deliveries don’t deserve or warrant any negative feedback at all.
Before this review was published, MPB claimed I was making an “unnecessary threat involving public defamation”. Apparently, in their eyes it is “defamation” to speak factually about your experience as a customer?
MPB in Berlin owe me an apology for the way they have behaved. The performance issues are bad enough, but the customer service team which would rather have an argument and shout “defamation” before listening to what the customer is actually saying, and solving the problems, is the cherry on top.
The problems didn’t stop here either. The last MPB non-delivery was only a month ago, in the lead up to Christmas. I have still not received a refund, for a delivery which was due on the 23rd December.
MPB’s sales practices also raise eyebrows – Sometimes descriptions on the website completely misrepresent what is being supplied. You’d think for example that a paid camera tester who sees thousands of units a year would know the difference between dust or debris on the sensor, and laser damage. In my experience, this hasn’t been the case. I also received a Leica M camera with a broken jog-dial.
In the case of the lost shipments, staff didn’t even file the claim form with DHL until many weeks later, despite assuring me it was a done job, but at the end of the day why should they ask a customer to wait months for MPB to get compensation from the postal service?
It’s frustrating for the customer to have to keep on at people, spending countless hours with emails and online chats, only to have staff sit on their hands and then a few days later forget to do anything at all.
Mistakes can happen, it’s the attitude in dealing with them that needs to improve at MPB if they are to keep hold of one of the longest standing customers.
