• A friendly and periodic reminder of the rules we use for fostering high SNR and quality conversation and interaction at Stormtrack: Forum rules

    P.S. - Nothing specific happened to prompt this message! No one is in trouble, there are no flame wars in effect, nor any inappropriate conversation ongoing. This is being posted sitewide as a casual refresher.

Stay Away from These Companies!

I'd stay away from Broadway Photo broadwayphoto.com. They advertise cameras and lenses on sale for good prices, then try to upsell. If you don't bite, your 'clearance item' all of a sudden is on backorder. Who reorders clearance items? What is the purpose in having a 'clearance' sale?
 
Yikes!
Go to Reseller rating and sort all by # of reviews. On the second page, you'll find Best Buy, sporting a 1.25 (of 10) rating. :rolleyes:

Dan, your list would be a vastly shorter, and lot easier to compile, if you reversed the criteria. Restrict it to the few stores that ARE trustworthy. :cool:
Newegg, B&H, Adorama, Mwave, ZipZoom, Mwave, etc.

There are soooo many shady camera / electronics dealers out there....
 
Good day all,

Stay clear - very clear - of this one: http://www.digitalliquidators.com

Digital Liquidators ... By far they have the LOWEST rating at resellerratings.com.

Also, and to no suprise (after my laptop experience (in another thread for Vista) over the Christmas / New Year's week) - Best Buy did not make much of a "grade" on Reseller-Ratings either!

Greg Campbell said:
Go to Reseller rating and sort all by # of reviews. On the second page, you'll find Best Buy, sporting a 1.25 (of 10) rating.
Click to expand...

0006.jpg


Above: You can see a PICTURE of their wonderful store-front!

The Reseller-Ratings site is FANTASTIC for this type of "check before you buy" research ... Digital Liquidators (also my show up under Broadway Photo and shown in earlier posts in this thread) had a "fractional" rating (like 0.5 or less) out of 10 ... Many of the posts are scary and depravic - "Very Dissatisfied" remarks.

Unfortunately, most was from customers who bought something, then got either a broken camera (or even an "empty shell" stripped of options, including battery, and everything in Japanese, etc) or nothing at all with 4x shipping charged, credit-card disputes, and such - all-in-all it was very bad - And, even worse, their money was lost forever.

I have an archived thread about my experiences years ago with these places (a good read)...

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5670
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Another company to definitely stay away from: Ontime Digital Inc. out of NYC.
We went to purchase a cannon video cam through this site, since they were offering a tremendous deal that included an extra pack of tapes, a tripod and case, all for $450.
Unlike with other purchases, there was no confirmation e-mail, and a simple back order comment was given.
My wife inquired, and got no assistance with their customer service.
Next looking on the web, she found a tremendous long list of extremely angry individuals who had been taken by this outfit. Check it out on www.merchantcircle.com
 
What REALLY gets me about these scam artists, is when you Google for cameras they are in the mix, and even Google continues to give them good ratings.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!
But true.
That is how I got cought up with PhotoDynasty. I had to call the bank and cancel my CC - and get another one with a different acc no#.
That fixed em!
 
Online Electronics Stores Caught in Consumer Fraud

The companies, all of which are based in Brooklyn, have agreed to pay a $765,000 settlement after a lengthy investigation by the attorney general’s office.

Best Price Camera, Foto Connection, 1 Way Photo, 86th Street Photo and Broadway Photo — have agreed to change their business practices and accept continual monitoring. Two other companies, Camera Wiz and Sonic Photo, will close.
Click to expand...
Now if they will nail all of the rest. I would still avoid these guys on general grounds.
 
add Bingo Cameras to this list. i found a decent price on some cameras on their site, and in my other post on camera suggestions, asked if this was a good deal. patrick martin was nice enough to find out some reviews on the company, and OH MY GOD!!!! this is THE DEFINITION of rip off companies. they have a rating of .54/10. thanks for the info patrick!

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Bingo_Cameras
 
WOT - Web of Trust

If you use Firefox, there is an extension called WOT - Web of Trust. It gives and indication of the user-rated trustworthiness of sites. It will warn you if you enter a site rated as untrustworthy.

URL = http://www.mywot.com/

Don't need to create an account to just use the ratings, only if you want to contribute site ratings.
 
Hi-PC - Seller on Ebay.

They sell a lot of electronic stuff.

I bought a Easycap USB 2.0 Video TV DVD VHS Audio Capture Adapter

The item arrived with a cdr with pirated software that was unreadable.
The hardware was a non functioning chinese fake.

They have a great feedback as a power seller and with that rating you cannot leave negative feedback for them until after a period of time.

Paypal wants me to return the fake at my expense to get my money back.

Avoid these scammers.

Take a look at the sorted negatives. List.
 
Jim Saueressig said:
Hi-PC - Seller on Ebay.

They sell a lot of electronic stuff.

I bought a Easycap USB 2.0 Video TV DVD VHS Audio Capture Adapter

The item arrived with a cdr with pirated software that was unreadable.
The hardware was a non functioning chinese fake.

They have a great feedback as a power seller and with that rating you cannot leave negative feedback for them until after a period of time.

Paypal wants me to return the fake at my expense to get my money back.

Avoid these scammers.

Take a look at the sorted negatives. List.
Click to expand...

I don't understand. How can a seller that obviously wronged so many people be at 99.6% positive feedback. Where is the break in the system?
 
D. McGee said:
I don't understand. How can a seller that obviously wronged so many people be at 99.6% positive feedback. Where is the break in the system?
Click to expand...

Power sellers make ebay big money. They are making me wait to give them a negative rating so that I can "resolve" the problem. My guess is that partly due to that they have many negatives that are forgotten and the other is the shear mass of people they sell junk to that works at times that gives positives. sell a million things a year and a few thousand people you scam won't make a difference in your rating.
 
cdcollura said:
Good day all,



LOL ... I remember you sent me one of those "leads" you found in one of those magazines and (oh boy) what a disaster (details in link below)...

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5670

I hope they managed to pull these companies' ads out of those magazines!

It was just too "believable".
Click to expand...

Yeah....it shows that I just took the fact it was in a reliable magazine that it wouldn't be such a scam company. Boy was I wrong. I've so learned since then.
 
This isn't necessarily a stay away from...more of a ???

Got a message via YT from a Global Stringers asking to gain my business. HOWEVER, a few things didn't add up.

First, it was a company that just started. Inc. papers in California say it was inc. (via legalzoom) on 10/5/2010.

Second, check the Beverly Hills address (which didn't match the California Inc. address...but that's not that unusual). The street view of the building show a rather vacant building with lots of space available signs.

Third...the YT channel only showed 6 videos with almost no views to the videos.

Fourth, the TOS notes on the site seems rather mixed a befuttled. I didn't pay much attention after I noticed the 50% fee.

I guess I'm just throwing it out there in case someone else hears from them...that might want to not jump in right-away.

What I did do was ask for a list of clients, customers, other stringers and references.
 
Avoid CableOne for internet service-THEY SUCK-all that I can say
 
There is a company on the internet that sells wireless alarms for your home and car that go by the name American Bull Dog Security and also under the name AAS that operate out of New York. My advice is to stay very clear of this company. Their products are very cheaply made and DO NOT hold up,also there is no manufacture label of identification on the products that they sell.
I experienced all of the above with that company. To make matters worse, After they told me to send back the defective item for a replacement, they refused to answer any of my phone calls nor did they ever sent a replacement back to me!!!!!!!
 
AVOID ENID OVERNIGHT STAYS ...

Can't find an appropriate place to post this but will post here FWIW

Following the Saturday chase (April 14, 2012) I ended up looking for a room in Enid, OK. I'm OK with staying in a small, independent, old, not-so-nice motel as long as the price is in line with the room/amenities offered (or lack thereof)

I began with a tiny motel across from the southside Sonic in Enid, appeared they were maybe 30% occupied, they wanted $69.95 for a single, I walked and they had no problem with it. I expected to pay perhaps $44-49

drove down to another "cheap hotel" but perhaps one notch up, they wanted $75.00, appeared maybe they were at about 70% occupancy. I walked, and again, they could care less. There was a "nice" Best Western, and I assumed from what I was learning they would run about $95

So, I went to the Days Inn and expected to pay $70 for a "decent room". Well, the rate was $74 with taxes, but the room was awful ... as bad as any motel I'd stayed at in decades and I've stayed in many-many roach motels as an OTR truck driver. I would have expected to pay $35 for such a room.

In summary, try and avoid staying overnight in Enid, OK if you want a decent room and to stay for less than $60. I really don't know where they get off charging those sorts of rates for what they had to offer. They must cater to workers whose employers will pay any price. I've never seen such ridiculous prices for very cheap, nasty rooms. (obviously some sort of organized price-fixing going on there)

Also, I'm not sure what has happened with the Days Inn chain but their standards have been reduced to non-existent based on a number of stays over the last few years. (But their rates are still in the upper middle-class range)
 
Good day all,

STexan said:
AVOID ENID OVERNIGHT STAYS ...
Click to expand...

Mods ... Feel free to revise this most as needed.

I noticed the same type of 'gouging' with some chains. For example, Super 8 was never more than $50 plus taxes, now it's always at least $79+tax (crappy or not).

I had the best luck with Motel 6 ... Consistantly, so try that. The small "mom and pop" places are hit or miss, but I found really nice rooms for $39+tax, sometimes less in the small towns!

Try to AVOID these smaller places in large cities, though ... That is in cities large enough to have a "bad" area!
 
I recently purchased a point and shoot camera from Nikon. It broke almost immediately, after only a couple weeks(without ever having come in contact with hostile elements). Their customer service was hostile, unhelpful, and refused to repair or replace the unit. I was surprised, because I figured Nikon was a large and respectable electronics firm. Guess not.
 
Would like to revive this thread. What are some companies you have dealt with lately that others should avoid?
 
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