A guy in the UK purchased a 5D Mk III from a HK dealer and it developed a problem, so he sent it to Canon UK for a service/repair. Canon UK informed him that they would not be able to perform the service /repair because the Canon serial number on the physical label on the bottom plate did not match the serial number displayed in the EXIF data i.e. the software serial number.
It seems that someone, somewhere along the distribution line has “updated” the label on the baseplate of the camera to fool or bypass the Canon export rules.
It seems that it may have been a distributor rather than a dealer practice, so the dealers were also an unwitting victim of this practice. From what I understand, the camera was a brand new genuine Canon product, but with the OEM label replaced so it would not be traceable back to the naughty distributor.
Needless to say, I confirmed that my DDP supplied model had matching serial numbers.
Cheers
Dennis.