Never buy a camera in New York
(Update: Okay, perhaps I should have titled it “Never buy a camera from PriceRite Photo” instead)
Online, that is - unless you like getting threatened over the phone. Wow.
(Update: Okay, perhaps I should have titled it “Never buy a camera from PriceRite Photo” instead)
Online, that is - unless you like getting threatened over the phone. Wow.
November 30th, 2005 at 8:55 am
A few months ago, a friend was trying to sell me his slightly used Nikon Coolpix. I did a google, and found it was cheaper at this same company. And then I looked on Reseller Ratings, and found many, many stories similar to the one you linked - evidently it’s common practice at that store to quote a low-ball price and then insist that they can’t sell it to you unless you buy hugely overpriced accessories like batteries, memory cards, filters or lenses.
November 30th, 2005 at 9:49 am
There are plenty of disreputable camera sellers, but New York also has one of the best reputable sellers: B&H. I’ve gotten most of my equipment over the past ten years from them, and have never had a problem.
November 30th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Hello fellow wordpress user!
Found your blog from Thomas Hawk’s list of links. I’m a NY’er and a photographer and can highly recommend Cameta Camera. I purchased a few thousand dollars worth of equipment over the years and they’ve never done me wrong. B&H is also fairly good in reputation but I found their prices to be a little high and read some negative things about them on http://www.resellerratings.com.
Don’t paint all us NY’ers as bad people. We can really be quite nice!
Trish
November 30th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Trish - I didn’t mean to imply that all NYers are bad folks, and I’ve updated the post accordingly.
I just buy my (low end) digital cameras from Amazon…
November 30th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
I just bought a close-out model Denon A/V receiver. I actually selected this receiver about two months ago, but have been fighting online merchants trying to get it ordered. The first two merchants I tried were low-cost audio/video/camera stores. (Which, coincidentally, were New York-based.)
After those orders fell through I decided “screw it” and went with a merchant I had heard of before (ubid.com).
I’m just glad I finally got what I wanted, and I didn’t have to fight billing or mischarge issues.
December 3rd, 2005 at 2:22 pm
i’ve bought three olympus digital cameras online at buydig.com. i think they’re either in new york or maybe new jersey. (haha same thing to us best coasters. ;)) they’ve given me fantastic service with some of the lowest prices and have always gone the extra mile to make me happy. i’d rather support individual retailers than monsters who want to take over the world, like amazon.
December 4th, 2005 at 6:43 am
You quite unlucky =(
January 27th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I can’t remember where I read this, but I heard that there is a certain section of NYC where all the sketchy camera on-line retailers seem to congregate. It’s probably because they just change their name when they have a significant bad reputation and can’t sell anything anymore.
And not that all NYC camera shops are bad. I buy almost predominantly from B&H.
And as one of the previous commentors said, use resellerratings.com.