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Aurora Pen Factory Repair Service


Mr Ink

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My Aurora 88 (full-size, modern) FP needed to be repaired and I decided to avail myself of the Aurora factory's repair service. I am not a pen repair expert, but it did not seem to be a major job. Basically the knob that controls the piston had come completely off. The pen was not in use at the time. It had lain safely in a drawer, cleaned of any ink, for about a year or so, and I found the damage when I went to pick the pen to start using it again.

 

The pen was sent on January 9th, and the courier service confirmed that it had been delivered safely on January 16th. Aurora sent an email on February 6th, informing me that they had received my pen and that they would send me an invoice for the repairs as soon possible. They haven't sent anything so far.

 

I have sent a few very polite emails (in good Italian) asking for information. Each time, I would receive a reply after 10 - 14 days, but they never directly answer my questions. They have asked me to confirm my postal address, but little more than that.

 

On April 19th, they apologised for the delay and informed me that they would be doing their best to send "it" (the pen or the invoice?) by the following week. Nothing has happened since that email. My latest, very polite email of May 6th has not been acknowledged yet.

 

Aurora pens are the ones that I consider to be my absolute favourite, and I have quite a few. However, I am becoming a little concerned about this delay in seeing to the repairs of my pen. All I am asking is to be given an invoice and an estimated date of completion of repairs. It's been 4 months since they received my pen and I still have to get an estimate of the cost of repairs.

 

What are your experiences of Aurora's repair service. Is this normal for them?

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You should call them. It's much better than email.

Generally you could pay by Paypal for the repair cost and the pens will be send back soon. If it's not received within 10 days after the payment. Call to confirm it.

 

Comparing all out-of-warranty repairs, I'd rate the pen companies(Major ones) after sale service by following:

Cost(high to low)

OMAS Montegrappa AURORA Stipula NAMIKI Pelikan Visconti

Unreasonable A bit high Very Reasonable Cheap or free Very cheap Free for most of the times Free for most of the times

Speed and Service(Best to worst)

NAMIKI Pelikan Montegrappa Stipula Visconti AURORA

Super fast and wonderful service Fast and good service Relatively fast and wonderful service Relatively fast and good service A bit slow, not very responsive Relatively slow, good service

 

OMAS

Won't repair again unless completely damaged

Edited by freakman
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Wow 4 months for an estimate... I would definitely call them as freakman says.

 

When something like this happens to me, I just keep harassing them after a month or so.

I just hate the way a lot of these pen companies handle things. No particular rant against any specific company at all, but I just can't stand the fact that we pay a relatively high amount for their pens, while the quality control is way off at some companies, repairs take half a year or an unreasonable amount is asked while the user hasn't done anything wrong...

 

In this particular case, you just cannot tell me they haven't found any time to check the pen, and send out an estimate in the last 4 months.

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Generally you could pay by Paypal for the repair cost and the pens will be send back soon. If it's not received within 10 days after the payment. Call to confirm it.

 

Thank you, freakman.

 

The point is that the people at Aurora haven't yet even given me a value for the cost or repair and return postage. Therefore, I have no idea of the amount of money I need to send them. I would have thought that a 4-month period would be enough to at least send me an invoice of some sort.

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Wow 4 months for an estimate... I would definitely call them as freakman says.

 

In this particular case, you just cannot tell me they haven't found any time to check the pen, and send out an estimate in the last 4 months.

 

I just cannot understand why they are taking so long to give me the cost of the repair. I am finding it frustrating.

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Great news! :wacko: I am just going to send an Optima in for repair of the leaking piston. I will for sure not be so polite as you, if they would decide to let me wait for four months. Well, let's see what will happen in my case. I guess my FP will arrive there next week. I'll keep everyone posted.

Ciao,

Tom

For sale: M625 red/silver, P395 gold, Delta Fellini.

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In my experience, after sending pens back to five different Italian makes for repair (not Aurora), this kind of experience is normal. It could get worse. The quickest was Ferrari da Varese, fixed and returned in less than a month.

 

- SJX

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In my experience, after sending pens back to five different Italian makes for repair (not Aurora), this kind of experience is normal. It could get worse.

- SJX

 

Maybe I'm naïve, but I'm so surprised about this. In my case, it's not so much the length of the wait, which is annoying enough, but more about the lack of communication from their end (even when one takes the trouble of addressing them in their own language). I would have thought that such a prestigious company would do its very best to provide basic customer care.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi,

 

They can often take a very long time. It took them about 6 months to repair three of my pens, but you will get them back eventually, and they seem to do a good job.

 

Dillon

Stolen: Aurora Optima Demonstrator Red ends Medium nib. Serial number 1216 and Aurora 98 Cartridge/Converter Black bark finish (Archivi Storici) with gold cap. Reward if found. Please contact me if you have seen these pens.

Please send vial orders and other messages to fpninkvials funny-round-mark-thing gmail strange-mark-thing com. My shop is open once again if you need help with your pen.

Will someone with the name of "Jay" who emailed me through the email system provide me an email address? There was no email address provided, so I can't write back.

Dillon

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Italian brains shut down after reading one question and will typically not respond to anything else.

 

Likely.

But we can test it: try asking me two questions :)

 

(and after you'll tell me where are you from so that we'll manly compare our stereotypes, italians are believed to have them bigger - the stereotypes of course :excl: )

 

Back in topic... it's months now I have to send an Aurora to assistance (a 2001 LE demonstrator) cause it has a tiny, almost invisibile crack - it formed "out of the blue" too, while sitting in a drawer - which annoys me a bit. I think I'll go later on this week, will keep this thread updated and see if I get the same problematic outcome.

 

By the way, I consider that paranormal delay you described totally unacceptable and reason enough never to buy again from someone. If that happened to me, I'd have stopped being polite after some time I think. For how I see it, after 3 weeks (which incidentally is the longest time I've ever waited for assistance with Montegrappa or Visconti - the rest I wouldn't know) there's a problem.

I'll add that after sale service is to me a very important part of the product itself (one day Visconti replaced a damaged HS cap I had in ...less than one day, I had brought it by person at the HQ itself :) ... but I never do it as it embarasses me, feels like overruling official queues).

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I sent my Aurora on 19th of May, custom cleared it on the 21st of may, since then it is sitting in the post office and is not moving... I asked Aurora to help me to get it from there to their place and emailed them the shipping documents. I still don't know whether they succeeded in doing so and of course I do not know anything about the repair of the leaking pen.

Maybe in July the Italian postal service is on holidays...

For sale: M625 red/silver, P395 gold, Delta Fellini.

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Likely. But we can test it: try asking me two questions :)

 

(and after you'll tell me where are you from so that we'll manly compare our stereotypes, italians are believed to have them bigger - the stereotypes of course :excl: )

 

I was born in the US. My great grandfather came from Umbria. I've lived in Rome. I'm not a native speaker of Italian, but I can speak it well and can write formal, bureaucratic Italian. (I passed the written exam to get my driver's license on the first try!) My opinions were formed in the course of corresponding with various bureaucrats and businesses in Italy.

 

Of course the postal workers are taking it easy. They are getting ready to take their month-long August vacations!

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Just as an update, I had phoned the Aurora factory soon after my last post. The lady at the other end acknowledged that they had had taken too long a time to see to my pen, and told me they would be repairing it free of charge. True to her word, the repaired pen arrived about 4 days later by courier and I was not charged a single cent.

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Great! Kudos to them for acknowledging their error and handling it like this!

Thanks for the follow up :)

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Likely.

But we can test it: try asking me two questions :)

 

(and after you'll tell me where are you from so that we'll manly compare our stereotypes, italians are believed to have them bigger - the stereotypes of course :excl: )

 

Back in topic... it's months now I have to send an Aurora to assistance (a 2001 LE demonstrator) cause it has a tiny, almost invisibile crack - it formed "out of the blue" too, while sitting in a drawer - which annoys me a bit. I think I'll go later on this week, will keep this thread updated and see if I get the same problematic outcome.

 

By the way, I consider that paranormal delay you described totally unacceptable and reason enough never to buy again from someone. If that happened to me, I'd have stopped being polite after some time I think. For how I see it, after 3 weeks (which incidentally is the longest time I've ever waited for assistance with Montegrappa or Visconti - the rest I wouldn't know) there's a problem.

I'll add that after sale service is to me a very important part of the product itself (one day Visconti replaced a damaged HS cap I had in ...less than one day, I had brought it by person at the HQ itself :) ... but I never do it as it embarasses me, feels like overruling official queues).

With a couple of emails, my 88 and mu optima have been both repaired in not more than 2 weeks, in 2 different cases.

Very good job, done for a very reasonable price (free of charge for the 88, and few tenth of euro for the optima, 20 years old).

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Great to hear these positive reactions. I haven't had any repairs needed on my Italian pens yet (knock on wood!), but almost everything I read makes me shudder, buying new pens and sending them off for 3/4 months :mellow:

 

I've been lucky so far, only had to have some nibs/flow adjusted but further than that no major issues.

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My Aurora 88 (full-size, modern) FP needed to be repaired and I decided to avail myself of the Aurora factory's repair service. I am not a pen repair expert, but it did not seem to be a major job. Basically the knob that controls the piston had come completely off. The pen was not in use at the time. It had lain safely in a drawer, cleaned of any ink, for about a year or so, and I found the damage when I went to pick the pen to start using it again.

 

The pen was sent on January 9th, and the courier service confirmed that it had been delivered safely on January 16th. Aurora sent an email on February 6th, informing me that they had received my pen and that they would send me an invoice for the repairs as soon possible. They haven't sent anything so far.

 

I have sent a few very polite emails (in good Italian) asking for information. Each time, I would receive a reply after 10 - 14 days, but they never directly answer my questions. They have asked me to confirm my postal address, but little more than that.

 

On April 19th, they apologised for the delay and informed me that they would be doing their best to send "it" (the pen or the invoice?) by the following week. Nothing has happened since that email. My latest, very polite email of May 6th has not been acknowledged yet.

 

Aurora pens are the ones that I consider to be my absolute favourite, and I have quite a few. However, I am becoming a little concerned about this delay in seeing to the repairs of my pen. All I am asking is to be given an invoice and an estimated date of completion of repairs. It's been 4 months since they received my pen and I still have to get an estimate of the cost of repairs.

 

What are your experiences of Aurora's repair service. Is this normal for them?

I sent my A 88 back for repairs, via the B&M shop where I purchased it. The pen had started leaking in places where it shouldn't have (I have the 88 demonstrator LE). It was gone for at least 4 months with no word from either Aurora or the store but with patience, it was returned. The problem however wasn't corrected, so back it went, and I was without my pen for another 4-5 months. In the end it was fixed, but it took an inordinate amount of time, with no word during its absence. Very frustrating to say the least. I hope things work out for you in the end. Just have some patience, and hopefully you will have your pen back in hand soon. Rick

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(Thanks Mods and sorry for ..ehm... raising the bait).

 

Anyway, today I'm gonna send the Aurora, it's gonna be a live test :) Although I'm not sure it counts that much cause it's gonna be a "national" repair. Will keep it updated anyway.

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Thank you, warblerick. My problem was eventually solved.

Glad it worked out for you. I forgot to mention the repair was free, except for someting like $20 for shipping that the store charged me.

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