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Hi Pelikan fans, I wanted to share my recent experience with my newly purchased M800, and regrettably, some horrible experience dealing with Chartpak. This reveals some important changes to the Pelikan's warranty policies, and I thought my experience may inform any prospect buyers of Pelikan fountain pens. Long story short: Chartpak will NOT service any Pelikan fountain pens purchased outside of North America even though you are the first owner with the original receipt. Never mind the service fees or Pelikan warranty; Chartpak management will REFUSE to service your pen under any circumstances. Period. Just over a month ago, I stumbled upon a great bargain and purchased a Pelikan M800 fountain pen from a German retailer. To my dismay however, the F nib I received turned out to be troublesome and it just did not write correctly. I contacted the seller, and he suggested I send back the nib for a section swap but the shipping the pen back to Germany was going to cost me $95.00 UPS + weeks of waiting time (I live in Chicago, IL). I thought this was a little too expensive for me so I decided perhaps I can contact Chartpak and they will be able to help me out. It is a brand new pen and the pen comes with 3 year warranty after all. Within the next couples days, I heard back from Abi Weeks and her response was: show us the receipt first. So I wrote her back with the copy of the receipt and the dealer stamp, and a few days later she wrote back to me saying that Chartpak will not service the pen, no explanations provided. The response was rather surprising for me because this was a brand new pen and I was the first owner. I wrote another email to Abi Weeks asking about the reasons for the refusal of services because I wanted to know that I would be able to repair my pen in the future should I have any problems with it. Abi only told me that Chatpak will not service the pen and it was the "decision made by the Chartpak management." The only reason I could think of was because the pen was purchased from Germany, not America. Nevertheless, Chatpak's stance was rather absurd because the pen I purchased was defective to start with, never mind the 3 years warranty. I understand that sometimes when a product was purchased from outside the service country, companies charge service to to account for the labor cost, and I was okay with that. I have never experienced complete refusal of any kind services with no explanations of the refusal provided. I don't know about other fountain pen users, but when I spend hundreds of dollars on a pen, I feel that I am also paying for the services. The hardware alone can never justify the high cost of these pens. When I pay a lot of money for a fountain pen, I want the confidence that I will be able to enjoy this writing instrument for a long time, and if I have any problems, they can be fixed, sometimes with a cost. Pelikan's excellent warranty service was not a small part in my decision to purchase the new M800, and all the more reasons why the experience dealing with Chatpak was extremely disappointing. As far as I know, Chatpak is the only official repair services Pelikan has in North America. I don't know how I can go about repairing the pen in future if I have any problems with the pen. I guess I will have to go with other skilled third party repairman.