IJM INCORPORATED

[indiestar]

Ayone had business dealings with this company. We sent them our Beaulieu 6008 for repair, paid and never received the camera back. They don't answer emails or phone calls.

I know, I know we should have sent it to Bjorn

[sciolist]

I had a transaction with Irv Higdon a couple of years ago. That experience wasn't good, and I've avoided IJM Incorporated since then. Reports made by other customers of that firm suggest my experience isn't unique.

[Elmogs]

I sent him a few things in the past. Note I said "The Past". He had a Beaulieu 6008 of mine for 6 months.. I finally received it back. The price was high (I could have sent it to Bjorn for what he charged me.) but it was working in the end.
The second time I sent my Beaulieu 6008S Digital to Bjorn. I had it back in 3 weeks, it was cheaper AND he is in Sweden!
You should try and give Irv a call. He is older so he might be ill. Or you can do what I had to do:
I sent him an Elmo GS1200 which he said he would send back to me when he got a chance. A few days turned into weeks...etc. I eventually had to send a friend of mine down to his place to PICK it up!
I would send my friend again for you but he moved and now lives in Northern California.
Best of luck to you.

[astro_tiki]

Irv is quite crusty and not really down w/ the whole concept of customer service. And just echoing what has been said here before, his prices are a bit on the high side and it takes FOREVER to get anything from him. For what it’s worth, he does have a lot of repair experience from what I've heard.

[Jim Carlile]

I don't think he does the work himself. He has a line to the old Elmo guy that used to work at the Chatsworth Elmo office. The Elmo guy's brother used to work at Precision Camera Repair, the old Beaulieu outfit in Sherman Oaks, before Phil V. bought them back in '89 or so. So I think there's some kind of connection there.

When Elmo closed their service centers, the story I heard is that they wouldn't even let the repair guys keep any of the jigs and test equipment so they could stay working. They had to trash them all, much like those Canon stories of floating barge loads of spare parts out to sea....

For Elmo I'd go to Duall.

[Will2]

Next time send it to Bjorn. Believe me, you'll be happy. Just have to fill out a customs declaration and he'll walk you through it. Even from the States it is your best option. All the factory parts you need, excellent at his craft and wonderful communication.

I wonder why he doesn't have a website though?

[yolia]

I wrote a post about Irv Higdon some time ago about a Bealieu 4008. I had a crappy experience. The "refurbished" camera he sold me had a pile of mold in the lens that somehow his "assistant" failed to notice when he "refurbished" it. He basically tried to dump a crappy 4008 that looked pristine on the outside. I never shot any film with it. Once I saw the mold, I returned it, but he wouldn't give me a full refund. I think he kept the sales tax portion which was $80 or something. I didn't want to fight him. The guy is too fucking old and irritable to be in business. He doesn't produce quality. I strongly recommend that no one ever do any business with that petrified hump-backed fossil.

[CHAS]

The thing to remember about Irv is that he was never a repair man himself. He just has a line on Elmo and, Beaulieu, I guess, parts and repair people. I knew one guy who did contract work for Irv and he said the pay wasn't that great and it was a frustrating experience working with him.

I bought a projector belt from him once -- a simple O-ring really -- that he charged over $30 for and it was the wrong size! He sent me a new one but it was still wrong. The repair guy I had here had to melt it down or something to get it to work.

That said, I know one guy who spent an afternoon hanging out with him and he had all sorts of nice things to say about him...but I sure wouldn't want him working on any of my equipment.

[Spanky]

I'm making a long story short, and writing in haste.

I saw Irv Higdon last week. He charged me $37.89 to replace a broken belt on my Elmo K-100 Projector, plus 98.00 to clean, lube, set transport threading assembly properly, alignment, calibrating, etc. He told me he does all of his own work.

I brought my projector home and found that most of the reels would not thread. I took it back to Higdon and he showed me how to straighten out the leader on the films that had been sitting in the cartridges for many years. He said this is why they were not threading. OK, most of them thread now. Most, not all. They ALL used to before the belt broke.

However, while we were at Higdon's one of the films began bunching up in the bottom of the projector instead of threading on to the take-up reel. He started to remove the cover and realized he didn't know how. That was my first red flag. So, I reached over and in one second removed the cover. A two year old can do it.

Then he looks inside and says...."ohh, it needs to be cleaned." He had forgotten that he had charged me 98.00 to clean, lube, adjust, etc. He said he would get his can of air. He did not. I told him to stop and I put the cover back on realizing he didn't know what he was doing. I just wanted to get out of there.

After I got home, and after having endured his "ATTITUDE" (crusty doesn't come close to describing it), I decided not to let this pass. I wrote him five emails and have not heard back from him. I phoned but there was no answer.

1. He did not clean, adjust, or any of the 98.00 worth of work he charged me for.

2. How much does a belt cost for an Elmo K-100?

[yolia]

I'm making a long story short, and writing in haste.

I saw Irv Higdon last week. He charged me $37.89 to replace a broken belt on my Elmo K-100 Projector, plus 98.00 to clean, lube, set transport threading assembly properly, alignment, calibrating, etc. He told me he does all of his own work.

I brought my projector home and found that most of the reels would not thread. I took it back to Higdon and he showed me how to straighten out the leader on the films that had been sitting in the cartridges for many years. He said this is why they were not threading. OK, most of them thread now. Most, not all. They ALL used to before the belt broke.

However, while we were at Higdon's one of the films began bunching up in the bottom of the projector instead of threading on to the take-up reel. He started to remove the cover and realized he didn't know how. That was my first red flag. So, I reached over and in one second removed the cover. A two year old can do it.

Then he looks inside and says...."ohh, it needs to be cleaned." He had forgotten that he had charged me 98.00 to clean, lube, adjust, etc. He said he would get his can of air. He did not. I told him to stop and I put the cover back on realizing he didn't know what he was doing. I just wanted to get out of there.

After I got home, and after having endured his "ATTITUDE" (crusty doesn't come close to describing it), I decided not to let this pass. I wrote him five emails and have not heard back from him. I phoned but there was no answer.

1. He did not clean, adjust, or any of the 98.00 worth of work he charged me for.

2. How much does a belt cost for an Elmo K-100?

Man sorry to hear that, but I'm not surprised. I'm more surprised to hear the humpback is still alive. What is he 90 years old??

[Jim Carlile]

I'd be sceptical of any Elmo repair in L.A.

Phil V. told me years ago that he tried to get the Elmo Chatsworth guy to work for him when he bought Precision, but it was a no-go. The guy was bitter that Elmo had made him trash all his jigs and specialized test equipment in about '91 or so, and he wasn't interested any more. So that might explain the "difficulty" of getting IJM to repair this stuff.

Pro 8 used to repair all Beaulieu, because they bought Precision Camera Repair, which had been a spinoff from when Hervic had the Beaulieu line in Studio City. Higdon-- from my understanding-- was a sales rep for Elmo, and possibly Hervic too in the 70's. Hervic got rid of the line when Bell and Howell took over in about '78 (that explains the underrated 1008XL, which is a Chinon, and almost the exact same camera as the big B+H model...)

I have a sneaky feeling where Higdon goes to get this stuff fixed if and when he does, and I wouldn't recommend it.

For Beaulieu in America, I would think Bernie in upstate NY would be the best and most reasonable. For Elmo, Duall in NYC, but more expensive. They can all get parts from Wittner who bought out the B. factory.

[MovieStuff]

I'd be sceptical of any Elmo repair in L.A......

Yes, I tend to agree, Jim. We once had a client with an Elmo TRV16 unit that needed work. The projector was quiet as a church and ran smoothly but the audio output was dead. We could have fixed it for her but we were thick in the middle of releasing the new Sniper units and had no Elmo service manuals anyway, so we sent the unit to Irv. He said that he couldn't just repair the audio, that we would need to also pay for a complete refurb, cleaning, belts, etc. That didn't sound like a bad idea and the price was okay so I figured, why not? Wellll.....

It came back in horrible shape, with a ridiculously loud grinding kind of noise, like a bad bearing or something, as well as a vibrating rattle that would not go away unless you squeezed the back cover as hard as you could with your hands. He did fix th audio but, though we paid for a general overhaul and cleaning along with the repair, I saw no signs of that kind of work performed. It was in worse shape than when we sent it, though the audio now worked.

A colleague of mine in Houston warned me not to send it to Irv because of a similar experience with an Elmo super 8 sound projector but I had always heard that Irv was the "go-to" guy for Elmo units, so I figured it was okay. I guess not. When I called Irv about the 16mm TRV and the weird, new noise it was making, he just said, "Well, you know those Elmos were never very quiet." and that was that.

No attempt to reconcile anything but he did tell me that he had someone that did the work for him and that he wasn't responsible for the repair. End of conversation.

Ouch.

Roger

[etimh]

I have a sneaky feeling where Higdon goes to get this stuff fixed if and when he does, and I wouldn't recommend it.

Are you perhaps referring to Marvin Meister at the Photo Center, located on Beverly Bvld.? I heard from someone somewhere that Marvin does work for this Irv character, but I have no idea for sure.

Thing is, I've taken two of my Elmo projectors to Marvin for work and they have come back in top form--he does fantastic work in my experience. He has also worked on cameras for me, doing check-ups and major repairs, all at very reasonable prices. I would recommend Marvin without reservations.

So, if he is in fact doing this work for Irv, I can't really explain why it would be so sloppy and inadequate. For those of you looking to get work done on your Elmos, go to Marvin directly and give him a try and cut out the old grumpy middleman.

Tim

[David M. Leugers]

Irv in my experience with him, was a personable guy who reeks of "salesman". I don't believe he is a con man, he just oversells his capabilities for providing service. He apparently does not back his work, so who would do business with him? Instead of being the head of a repair company, he is more just a broker who will connect a service provider with a client for a hefty fee. Problem is, the customer is totally unaware of the actual service provider and is left swinging in the breeze when there are problems. Not the way to do business. At the time he was given my Elmo 1012SXL to repair, he had told me he had the only cache of available parts for the Elmo and had certified Elmo techs working for him... maybe he did twenty years ago, but based on the stories here, I doubt it now.

David M. Leugers

[Jim Carlile]

I have a sneaky feeling where Higdon goes to get this stuff fixed if and when he does, and I wouldn't recommend it.

Are you perhaps referring to Marvin Meister at the Photo Center, located on Beverly Bvld.? I heard from someone somewhere that Marvin does work for this Irv character, but I have no idea for sure.
Tim

No, I was thinking of someone in the Valley who is very hit and miss. It's good to know about this Marvin, I'll check him out. Does he do cameras or mostly projectors? I wouldn't know who to go to for the projectors any more. There used to be a guy in Hollywood who did great work but he retired some time back. He also fixed those big Goko motorized sound editors.

Yeah Roger, I'm not sure what's going on with Higdon nowadays. Phil told me that he tried to do everything to lure the real Elmo guy into his fold, and he wouldn't go for it. So I'm not sure where he takes them, if anywhere...the more I hear these stories I doubt the elmo guy is doing the work.

L.A. repair has been a problem for 20 years. It was a complete nightmare for Nizos, before the Web and international shipping took hold. It was sad, because all of the big distributors had been here-- everybody-- Bauer, Beaulieu, Elmo, all within a few miles. Then all of a sudden they were gone. I remember years back how much trepidation I had in sending my 6080 to Agitta in Germany, there was just no other place to go. But they did great work (I think it was Karl Schacherl who actually did it...)