Just a stupid 'Babe Pig' -type question: These grey market cameras are made by Canon or Nikon or whatever. How do the get to the 'grey' market? Are they stolen goods? Or refurbished warranty returns? If not, what is the story, Did Canon not guess what the guy who bought 100 5Ds bodies might do with them? If they are not OK with having grey market products around, why do they supply their middlemen?
The short answer might be 'money'.
Their right hand is all for customer service and warranty and everything with a big network of sales- and repairpeople and their administration. For this network they sell their products at a given price and tha Manufacturer's Resell Price allows for a little overhead so that the organisation is maintained and the shareholders get their percentage.
They want to sell more...the best way to sell more is to make a nice discount.
So you cut the customer service network out and with your left hand you sell directly to your overseas customers.
Here, the price does not include the repair and the salespersonnel so no repairs, sorry, sir.
This situation offers a business opportunity to 'liberal' repair shops who can be good or bad but that's your headache. Another solution is to have all the repairs mailed in and either supply the customer with a brand new item or fix the broken one, whichever is cheaper. I imagine having a professional spending three hours on a repair would amount to 1000± 15% dollars which would make the new item cheaper than the repair.
The market will change, that's for sure.
My own experience with the Tamron 24-70 lens thus far is that it ceased to autofocus. Tamron Europe in Germany, local Tamron in Mauritius and South Africa and Tamron Global, nobody wanted to have anything to do with the item that was bought from the 42nd Street Camera in NY. So now I sent it to New York. The guy said that they will take a look at it and probably send me another item if the repair is complicated.
They'd charge me a 'warranty' of about 400 dollars. Plus freight.
Which brings the price of the lens to the same as it would have been 'legally'.
Whatever, there is no repair service here on this island, everything has to be sent out. Deal with it.
BUT and this is a big BUT: A Canon lens would have survived the little knock that rendered the Tamron useless.
You get what you pay for. Unless, of course, you steal or rob without getting caught.
Like a banker.