Beware of Camera Scams!
I've been watching prices on digital SLR cameras for a while now, hoping that some alignment of planets or coincidence of payments would enable me to pick one up, and I have noticed a few things in doing so. The first thing I noticed is that ebay does not have the best deals on digital cameras, I find better ones on Amazon. But a few weeks ago someone pointed me towards some online price comparison websites, like www.streetprices.com, and I have been watching the rise and fall of the lowest prices there. This was the first step towards me finding the problem.
The lowest prices reported by that website are dramatically lower than what I have seen on the Amazon marketplace. Low enough that I found it possible to dream that I might be able to scrape up the dough to buy one if the bills would just temporarily roll out to low tide one day. But on Sasha's advice I checked some reviews and I found horror stories.
It turns out that none of the really good looking prices are real at all. The Genius Cameras shop I mentioned in an earlier post as having good deals turns out to be just one of a collection of seedy online retailers, run by the same group of people out of unmarked warehouses in Brooklyn. They are reviewed online by page after page of people who complain about poor treatment from rude sales reps and that they were victims of bait and switch tactics designed to make them buy as extras the acessories that come in the standard box from the manufacturer.
I may even have dealt with such a company when I tried to buy a 3 megapixel Kodak from an online vendor a few years back. I was upsold on an accessory, and became angry when a question I asked about the payment proceedure was answered with "I don't make the rules," a phrase that is already something of a pet peeve of mine. What may have protected me from a bad experience was that with the acessory I didn't originally want to spend money on my order went above the transaction limit of my debit card. Which I found out only later, after cancelling my order because I believed it was taking an inconveniently long time. Ironically, they would have made the sale if they hadn't suggested I buy anything besides what I asked for.
I originally went along with the sale in spite of the off-putting manner of the salesman, figuring that, in New York, that was just the way people were used to talking. But I have learned from the reviews of online merchants I have been reading that it is probably a good idea to trust your instincts about their ways of dealing with you that seem a little seedy.
Here are some of the things I have been reading to learn about the bad camera deals out there:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,107855,pg,1,00.asp
An older article. The prices offered on compact flash cards seems shockingly high, but they are from years ago. But the tactics described are apparently current, as recent merchant reviews on other sites reveal.
One comment about the "grey market" cameras. If a reputable manufacturer like Nikon, Kodak or Canon is making a nearly identical model to be sold overseas at a lower price then they really have no business complaining about those cameras being diverted for sale here. If they are the same then they have no business refusing to honor the warranty on international models. If the international model is constructed more shoddily than the US model, then they make crap and should be known as manufacturers of crap. I would be incensed if I lived in, the Phillipines, say, and read something like this, implying that the cameras I read reviews for, probably on US websites were built better than those available for sale to me. I'd feel cheeted. And I feel cheated as a US resident, because I strongly suspect that people overseas are getting the same camera, as sturdily built, with multi-lingual menus, including English, for less than I would pay.
It's as if one man approached a merchant wearing an expensive suit, the merchant looked him up and down and quoted a price. And then another man approached wearing a ragged uniform from some blue-collar job and got the same thing for two thirds the price. It just isn't the kind of fair dealing that we have come to expect from merchants. If selling cameras intended for a lower priced market in a high-priced market is a scam, or "grey" business, with shadyness and legal loopholes implied, then I suggest that it is enabled to operate through the scamming or shady operations of the camera manufacturers themselves.
The "grey market" is probably a good thing, which operates towards bringing the prices of these goods to a more fair level.
http://www.resellerratings.com/
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller8519.html
Where I found the sad stories about Genius Cameras hard sell and bait and switch tactics.
Aside from a few known reputable merchants the best place to shop for this kind of stuff may be Amazon. Reputation is as important as price.
As bad as this may be I think I still prefer shopping online though. When I consider the maximum security atmosphere of the last few computer and electronics stores I've been in. But maybe that rant should be for another time.
The lowest prices reported by that website are dramatically lower than what I have seen on the Amazon marketplace. Low enough that I found it possible to dream that I might be able to scrape up the dough to buy one if the bills would just temporarily roll out to low tide one day. But on Sasha's advice I checked some reviews and I found horror stories.
It turns out that none of the really good looking prices are real at all. The Genius Cameras shop I mentioned in an earlier post as having good deals turns out to be just one of a collection of seedy online retailers, run by the same group of people out of unmarked warehouses in Brooklyn. They are reviewed online by page after page of people who complain about poor treatment from rude sales reps and that they were victims of bait and switch tactics designed to make them buy as extras the acessories that come in the standard box from the manufacturer.
I may even have dealt with such a company when I tried to buy a 3 megapixel Kodak from an online vendor a few years back. I was upsold on an accessory, and became angry when a question I asked about the payment proceedure was answered with "I don't make the rules," a phrase that is already something of a pet peeve of mine. What may have protected me from a bad experience was that with the acessory I didn't originally want to spend money on my order went above the transaction limit of my debit card. Which I found out only later, after cancelling my order because I believed it was taking an inconveniently long time. Ironically, they would have made the sale if they hadn't suggested I buy anything besides what I asked for.
I originally went along with the sale in spite of the off-putting manner of the salesman, figuring that, in New York, that was just the way people were used to talking. But I have learned from the reviews of online merchants I have been reading that it is probably a good idea to trust your instincts about their ways of dealing with you that seem a little seedy.
Here are some of the things I have been reading to learn about the bad camera deals out there:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,107855,pg,1,00.asp
An older article. The prices offered on compact flash cards seems shockingly high, but they are from years ago. But the tactics described are apparently current, as recent merchant reviews on other sites reveal.
One comment about the "grey market" cameras. If a reputable manufacturer like Nikon, Kodak or Canon is making a nearly identical model to be sold overseas at a lower price then they really have no business complaining about those cameras being diverted for sale here. If they are the same then they have no business refusing to honor the warranty on international models. If the international model is constructed more shoddily than the US model, then they make crap and should be known as manufacturers of crap. I would be incensed if I lived in, the Phillipines, say, and read something like this, implying that the cameras I read reviews for, probably on US websites were built better than those available for sale to me. I'd feel cheeted. And I feel cheated as a US resident, because I strongly suspect that people overseas are getting the same camera, as sturdily built, with multi-lingual menus, including English, for less than I would pay.
It's as if one man approached a merchant wearing an expensive suit, the merchant looked him up and down and quoted a price. And then another man approached wearing a ragged uniform from some blue-collar job and got the same thing for two thirds the price. It just isn't the kind of fair dealing that we have come to expect from merchants. If selling cameras intended for a lower priced market in a high-priced market is a scam, or "grey" business, with shadyness and legal loopholes implied, then I suggest that it is enabled to operate through the scamming or shady operations of the camera manufacturers themselves.
The "grey market" is probably a good thing, which operates towards bringing the prices of these goods to a more fair level.
http://www.resellerratings.com/
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller8519.html
Where I found the sad stories about Genius Cameras hard sell and bait and switch tactics.
Aside from a few known reputable merchants the best place to shop for this kind of stuff may be Amazon. Reputation is as important as price.
As bad as this may be I think I still prefer shopping online though. When I consider the maximum security atmosphere of the last few computer and electronics stores I've been in. But maybe that rant should be for another time.
posted by Greg Banville at 7:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home