jbs@hropus.UUCP (J. B. Skiendziel) (01/13/86)
I am looking to purchase some photographic equipment. Does anyone have any recommendations on the New York City Camera Stores. (Like the ones listed in the back of most Photography magazines. If you have dealt with one I would appreciate it if you let me know what you thought of them. I don't know if I'll buy it via mail order or take a trip to the city, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks, J. B. Skiendziel EMAIL ADDRESS: -/ihnp4/houxm!hropus!jbs
stu16@whuxl.UUCP (SMITH) (01/14/86)
> > > > I am looking to purchase some photographic equipment. Does anyone > have any recommendations on the New York City Camera Stores. (Like Try the N.Y. Camera Exchange, somwhere in the 40s, I think. I wonder if Willoby's(sp) and/or Peerless are still around? -- whuxl!stu16
peter@uwmacc.UUCP (Peter Kaufman) (01/15/86)
> > I am looking to purchase some photographic equipment. Does anyone > have any recommendations on the New York City Camera Stores. > J. B. Skiendziel > EMAIL ADDRESS: -/ihnp4/houxm!hropus!jbs Try any of the stores listed in the back pages of Modern Photography. The latter magazine has a "guarantee" which you should read first, but I have had success with both Smile Photo, and Adoramma. These were both mail orders. Adoramma bent over backwords to help me when I last dealt with them. Peter - peter ({allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!peter)
rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (01/16/86)
[] A few years ago, in fact until a few months ago I would have recommended Cambridge camera. However, based on my recent horrible experience with them I would suggest everyone stay far, far away from those nice folks. They recently took $150 of my money for three months and only returned it when I wrote them a letter threatening action with both the BBB and, probably more important to them, Modern Photography whose many regulations they flagrantly violated in my case. Things happened like...after about a month they tried very hard to persuade me that I had ordered from another camera store (!). I had the Visa Bill to prove it was from them. I still don't have the merchandise I ordered even though they continued to advertise it for at least a month after my order. Try someone else...anyone else. -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg
ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) (01/16/86)
I second Dick Grantges' comments about Cambridge Camera. I was once in their store, waiting to buy something, when I overheard a dispute between another customer and a salesman. The customer had wanted to buy something, had called to verify that it was in stock, and then had traveled two hours to get to the store only to find that the item was not in stock and had actually not been in stock when he called. They offered him the choice of coming back some other time, presumably with no reason to believe that he would fare any better, or of buying the item and paying for them to ship it to him when it arrived. He said he was willing to do the latter, provided they would pay for the shipping -- he had wasted two hours because of their mistake and he was going to have to waste two more, and he had no intention of paying for it -- but they refused. He left, disgusted. I quietly left the store shortly thereafter, with no intention of ever coming back.
silber@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Jeffrey Silber) (01/18/86)
In my photo years (which were almost 10 years ago), I found that the most honest store was Hirsch Photo. The best prices were at Camera Barn. The most disreputable and likely to sell you gray-market items, 47th Street Photo. Now these are just my opinions, but in recent years the experience of some of my family members has proven this to be true. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A million here, a million there ... they all add up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jeffrey Silber silber@devvax.tn.cornell.edu Business Manager JAS@CORNELLD Theory Center 265 Olin Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853
ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) (01/20/86)
> In my photo years (which were almost 10 years ago), I found that the most > honest store was Hirsch Photo. The best prices were at Camera Barn. The > most disreputable and likely to sell you gray-market items, 47th Street Photo. > Now these are just my opinions, but in recent years the experience of some > of my family members has proven this to be true. I don't know what your problem is with 47th Street Photo. They are indeed likely to sell grey-market items. They make no bones about that, and claim to back these items up with their own warranty. As far as I can tell, though, they do indeed deliver what they promise. In what way is this disreputable? (I like Camera Barn too.)
smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) (01/21/86)
> > I found that the most honest store was Hirsch Photo. The best prices were > > at Camera Barn. The most disreputable and likely to sell you gray-market > > items, 47th Street Photo. > > I don't know what your problem is with 47th Street Photo. I have been lied to by 47th Street, saying things were in stock or had been shipped when they hadn't. I have had cancelled orders shipped and then they wonder why I treat it as unsolicited merchandise. Fortunately, my local bank has easily gotten my account credited when neither time nor patience would get 47th Street to do a d**n thing except plead ignorance, which I in all honesty believe is true. Most crooks are not that stupid.
mazlack@ernie.BERKELEY.EDU (Lawrence J. &) (01/22/86)
>> > I found that the most honest store was Hirsch Photo. The best prices were >> > at Camera Barn. The most disreputable and likely to sell you gray-market >> > items, 47th Street Photo. >> >> I don't know what your problem is with 47th Street Photo. > >I have been lied to by 47th Street, saying things were in stock or had been >shipped when they hadn't. I have had cancelled orders shipped and then they >wonder why I treat it as unsolicited merchandise. Fortunately, my local >bank has easily gotten my account credited when neither time nor patience >would get 47th Street to do a d**n thing except plead ignorance, which >I in all honesty believe is true. Most crooks are not that stupid. I too had similar problems with 47th Street. Unfortunately, I didn't use a credit card and ended up getting beat for about $100.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (01/24/86)
> I too had similar problems with 47th Street. Unfortunately, I didn't use a > credit card and ended up getting beat for about $100. I've found this discussion interesting, since 47th Street Photo is my favorite mail-order photo store -- I order a very large amount of equipment and supplies from them. I like them because they are reasonable, efficient, and don't retroactively bill me for "additional shipping" the way some of the others always do (e.g., B&H, just yesterday, sent me a roll of VPS404 film, 12 sheets of (thin) mounting board, and billed me an additional $2.00 (in addition to the $5.50 I already sent) for shipping.) For $5.50 FSSP has always shipped similar items without an additional charge. I tend to feel that people who have complaints about mail order companies of this sort often have unrealistic expectations of mail order companies. If you order by mail, you should order something that's advertised in the catalog, expect it in 30 days (as provided by law) unless they say it will take longer, and not expect to be able to have the amenities of arguing with the dealer over price, delivery dates, etc. that you have from a local store. You should also know what it is that you're ordering before you order it, to avoid disappointments if the (usually brief) descriptions in the catalog suggest to you something that the item doesn't turn out to be. You should also be careful to document everything in case of disputes. You can't expect the impossible, like deciding 30 days is too long, cancelling the order, and then refusing to pay for it because it had already been shipped when you cancelled the order; nor expecting complicated order changes after you've placed the order. These are the things you pay extra for from a local dealer. If the company acts in a fraudulent manner, New York has a very effective District Attorney's office to get the problem straightened out, equipped with fill-in-the-blank (by the D.A.'s office) forms which they send to the company saying "deliver the merchandise in ______ days and notify us that you have done so, or send the customer a refund." I know firsthand that this works even with companies who end up on 60 Minutes for mail fraud. (However, if you do enough buying by mail, trying numerous companies, it is inevitable that you may eventually encounter a dishonest one, and thus should use caution with new ones.) Regarding the use of credit cards... I would be more wary of using a credit card, since it provides a greater opportunity for someone to obtain and use your credit card number illegally. On the other hand, with a money order the *most* you can lose is the amount of the money order (as compared to a check, where the check could be altered). While you have the right to dispute the amount on the credit card bill, the total amount involved may be much larger than what you originally paid (especially since many companies reserve the right to add additional charges after shipping the item to cover "additional postage and handling charges"). -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCC.UUCP CCC DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 LOTD(2)=a "A people without history is not redeemed from time, For history is a pattern of timeless moments." --TSE
smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) (01/25/86)
> I tend to feel that people who have complaints about mail order companies > of this sort often have unrealistic expectations of mail order companies. > > You can't expect the impossible, like deciding 30 days is too long, > cancelling the order, and then refusing to pay for it because it had already > been shipped when you cancelled the order. 47th Street shipped an order 2 months after they agreed to cancel it. They also agreed to repay me for my time and expenses to return this unsolicited merchandise. Needless to say that after waiting 2 months for "in stock" items and another 2 months after cancelling, I had made other arrangements. No ammount of savings is worth dealing with liars and cheats.
todd@ur-helheim.UUCP (Sempei Todd A. Jackson) (01/26/86)
In article <490@mhuxl.UUCP> smh@mhuxl.UUCP (henning) writes: >> > I found that the most honest store was Hirsch Photo. The best prices were >> > at Camera Barn. The most disreputable and likely to sell you gray-market >> > items, 47th Street Photo. >> >> I don't know what your problem is with 47th Street Photo. > >I have been lied to by 47th Street, saying things were in stock or had been >shipped when they hadn't. I have had cancelled orders shipped and then they I also have been out and out lied to by 47th Street. They told me that two lenses were in stock for my camera (the salesman actually checked, i.e. he left the phone for a while), I placed my order expecting to receive them within days, and received one lens two weeks later with a note that the other was back ordered. I called them about the lens and was told that they had never carried that particular lens and could not back order it as it was not made in the mount I required. Totally pissed off by this time I asked for a refund which they gave me (to my VISA account) but they failed to refund the 8.25% sales tax to me. One more long distance call fixed that problem but my anger was unabated so I sent their general manager a note saying that I'd do my best to prevent everybody I knew from ordering from them. If any note of apology had then appeared my feelings would have perhaps been soothed but no such thing happened. I believe they are not crooks but they are surely criminally incompetent. Todd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm so miserable without you, it's like having you around." {seismo,allegra,decvax}!rochester!ur-valhalla!todd -------------------------------------------------------------------------