Camera dealers feel the Web's wrath

Brooklyn has gained a reputation as a center of the gray market for cameras, with complaints and threats on the rise.
The New York Times

The story "Camera dealers feel the Web's wrath" published January 16, 2006 at 4:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Dead Soulman]

Buyer Beware.

That's why people need to stop searching for the mega deals all the time. If every major retailer has it for the same price, give or take $10.00. Then do yourself a favor and shop from a well known one. Or your local stores with a good reputation.

I'm a firm support of the small guy too. But, when the small guy is hiding his practices, and identity, behind a flashy website. Then I have a problem. Sure, you have the right to have the best site you can, that's business and marketting. But, don't a crook !!!

And its not just online that these people do these things. They also do it at their stores. They get you in the door. Next thing you know, they start pushing, and harrassing, you into buying all the accessories and other nonsense you never had intentions of geting.

I feel bad for those who've gotten taken for a ride with their money.

[kenny-J]

And continue to beware

I have been into photography since the mid-60's. First dealing with a New York camera store had similar results. 30 yrs later thought I was smart and bought a collector camera from another NY store. I asked all the right questions and didn't get what was I was told I would get. Return was a hassle and sat on their dock for 6mos before a refund. Fortunately, I had sent it UPS signature required. I filed a claim against UPS and found their driver hadn't even gotten a signature, just left it. An acquaintance had gone to one of the big stores in NY--everything was behind a screen, the clerks answered no questions, their response was "I sell boxes. You want a box? Tell me which box you want". There are few, very few, reputable mail order camera stores--has always been a crooked business, has always been in NY--does that tell you how much the NY government cares?
Others have problems also. Just made a purchase from Best Buy with rebates--what a hassle to complete. Also, the clerk didn't give me a $40 instant rebate advertised. I didn't discover it until I got home, checked the ad against all the rebates I got and found it hadn't been given. Guess the proof will be how they treat me when I go back to claim it; but had I not double checked, it would've just slipped by.

[lewissalem]

lessons learned...

Why buy a digital camera from Brooklyn? I wouldn't buy a hot dog off the street, let alone a digital camera from there.

[sanenazok]

lowest price

oh and most of the sites don't advertise themselves as "we're from Brooklyn."

Recently I placed an order for a camera for a store called "Abe's of Maine" Turns out it's from Brooklyn after all. How do I know? I got a call pushing accessories, even though the camera hadn't been shipped yet. When I cancelled my order the first thing they did was charge my credit card. I ended up loosing nothing of course, but it was still a waste of time.

[bruscol]

Message has been deleted.

[ewelch]

Nothing new

New York camera delears have aways been uneithical for the
most part (B&H being a notable exception, as well as other
independents.) The reason this has gone on so long is that these
same dealers do most of the adertising in photo magazines, so
those magazines are not going to investigate them. Pop Photo is
probably the worse offender in this area. They never saw a
cheesy piece of camera technology they didn't like - from an
advertiser. But try to get an even break for Leica and have Pop
Photo tell the truth about their quality surpassing their
competition. No way, Leica didn't advertise much in Pop Photo.

But back to the discussion. New York delers used to sit on credit
card payments for the meximum time allowed by law - to make
interest of the money sitting in banks. Which is why they could
with with such small margins. They put many local camera
stores out of business with their uneithical business practices,
they sold gray market (i.e. you have to send the camear to Japan
or Gemany to get it fixed) cameras for not much less money.

All in all a sleazy group of dealers who don't treat customers like
human beings.

Stay away from the lot - except B&H and a few other notable
smaller outfits (Tamarkin, etc.)!

[Razzl]

Fresh lambs to the slaughter

It's amusing to read all of these comments from digital camera buyers who are treating this as a new problem--for decades the general-circulation photo magazines have been warning people about gray-market purchases with specific prefaces to their advertising pages, articles about what to look out for, and yes, vetting of advertisers with high complaint ratios. Unfortunately the digital photo crowd are stepping out of the world of computers rather than photography and have no interest in hooking up with the mainstream sources of information in that field, so they go blindly into the market and make all the old mistakes that the film photography crowd have already passed through.

Gray market is a bad idea for cars, computers, cameras, you name it. Resist the urge to pinch pennies when hundreds are at stake--if it sounds like too good a deal, well, you know the rest...