Comments on: The Grey Market & The Online Digital Camera Hustle

By: Don W.

Don W. — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:02:02 +0000

I’m a newb when it comes to photography, and I wanted to purchase a zoom lens for my newly acquired Canon Rebel XTI. I spent hour researching the Canon 70-200 4L lens and saw Sonic Camera had it listed for 469.00. I place an order over their website and was really exited to get it.
I got an email shortly after that saying I needed to call and confirm my order, which I thought was strange. A customer service rep. asked me again for my credit card security code and I asked him why he needed this again. He suddenly became very angry and accused me of stealing the card. I told him I already gave him that information when I placed the order but gave it to him again. He was yelling so loud that I guess he didn’t hear me and then told me he was going to cancel my order.
I am a customer service supervisor and have worked in a high volume call center for eight years. I could not believe what I had just witnessed.
This is where I made A REALY STUPID MISTAKE. The price on that lens was the best I could find anywhere so………….. I cooled down and called him back.
I said can I just place the order and be done with it? He asked me what kind of camera I was going to use the lens on, and told me it wouldn’t work because of some reason I didn’t understand being new to photography. I let him talk me into a different lens (Canon 50-250 IS USM) that they have listed for 699.00, plus he would throw in a UV filter pack that sells for 199.00 al for 499.00. Sound great!
I hung up with and googled it and it sells for about 250.00 all over the web.
I called him back and he said those are “grey market lenses”.
I told him I wanted to switch back to my original order for the 70-200 4L lens and he told me it already shipped. This was 20 minutes from the first phone call. If that were true they would be the officially the fastest service in the world. But he was lying.
I paid extra to get the lens in 2 days, as of now, (8 days later) I have not received anything.
I am an idiot and I fell for the switch and bait.
DO NOT BE AN IDIOT LIKE ME AND BUY FROM THESE JERKS!!!!

By: AG

AG — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:11:08 +0000

I have to feel the full punch of a similar scam. I was given a grey market lens for 20% more money. It was sold to me as the “US version”. I was so eager to get that lens. It was more than just a switch and bait. The website is called questforcameras.com.

It is still running and still selling my lens for even cheaper price. I think consumers should stand up and build a case against all those companies who practice such a thing and keep changing their names frequently.

Someone should get a lesson so the rest of the scammers stop doing what they do. Obviously, the consumer protection office is not doing much really-since these issues are going for so long. I think this practice damages business and economy.

We should have a web site were people can list their cases with as much information as possible about the seller-which usually has no physical address and a website registered through proxy-and try to make a case when all information is collected.

Thanks for the good article.

By: jose

jose — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:45:37 +0000

I just noticed that stores like IbuyDigital.com (and related sites to this company) now they only sell grey market products. Years ago I bought a canon from a Central Digital related to IbuyDigital.com but back then they had US version of the camera. But when I tried to order from Ibuydigital a Canon 40D I expected the same smooth transaction I the one I had few years ago from their sister website Central Digital. But they send me an email to confirm the order and when I called they told me that they didn’t have in stock. I called back to check stock on the camera and a guy told me and confirmed they had the camera that I just bought. But when I called back, to my “Case agent” he was angry that caught them doing something bad and he clarify that they didn’t have the overseas version. Then I said, “what you mean overseas version?” and he angrily answered that I ordered the overseas version and they only had the US version. I told him that the website didn’t say anything about overseas or US versions. Then he ended the call very fast. If they charge my card, I’ll call citi bank to go after them because that is borderline fraud.

Does anyone have a website to check what stores are selling Grey market products? Like a blacklist of companies.

I found that ResellerRatings.com is very useful to find stories like yours where stores don’t mention whether is a US version or Overseas version and on top of that they try to sell you overprice crap.

By: deadc

deadc — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:58:08 +0000

JOE-

I finally got a D80 from cameta cameras on ebay with a buy it now auction. They seem to have an actual location in New York that isn’t some dude’s garage as well but they list a lot of their DSLRs on their ebay store. They have a website as well but all of their D80s were placed in auctions.

I popped around to a lot of legitimate sites with reviews and they always seemed to have positive comments. There is a warranty and they are an authorized US dealer so if you send your camera back to NIKON for repairs they won’t tell you that it isn’t covered and to go fuck yourself. They also throw in a year subscription to a digital photo mag, 50 free photo developments and some other shit. It’s the cheapest camera that I could find but where I actually trusted the company. I’ve only had it for a couple of days but everything still seems on the up and up here.

By: Amandica

Amandica — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:14:22 +0000

What’s wrong with doing whip-it’s in your bathrobe while nugget porn is on? What if you didn’t put the Nugget Porn On yourself, and it like just happened to be on ? Does that make it O.K.?

By: justwanna

justwanna — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:46:41 +0000

Gezus – I was looking at buying a video camera off the internet but after reading all you went thru I think I’ll just pass until I have some more cash.

Thanks for all the great info and links – I’m bookmarking this page in case I have any issues!

By: Joe Cas

Joe Cas — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:53:08 +0000

Went through exactly the same experience. Where did you decide to get your camera?