I am in the market to purchase a
Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Like any self-proclaimed nerd, I looked to the internet to find the best deal avaliable. I googled the name of the camera and saw a sponsored link for Expresscameras.com. They had a phenomenal price for the camera at $399. This was almost $300 less than Amazon.com’s price. Also in the Google search I came across Bestpricecameras.com at a similar price of $459. Bestpricecameras.com advertises all over the internet, including the popular
Lifehacker.com. There are even fake rating sites saying how wonderful Bestpricecameras.com is as a store. After checking major sites like
Newegg.com and
Ritzcamera.com, I kept coming back to the two previously mentioned sites. I was very tempted by the low price but was slightly hesitant to pull the trigger.
Something did not feel right to me about the two sites offering the camera at such a deep discount, especially since the best deal I found on
Slickdeals.net was for over $600. Since I had never heard of either website, a friend recommended that I take a look at
Resellerratings.com, which rates online merchants on a score from 0 to 10. I typed in Bestpricecameras.com and saw that it was ranked 0.2 out of 10. Ouch!
It turns out that both sites, Expressecameras.com and Bestpricecameras.com are ‘bait and switch’ operations. According to posts on Resellerratings.com, they lure you in with a deal too good to be true. Once they receive your order online, they send you an e-mail asking you to call a sales representative, who then tries to convince you to buy overpriced, made-up accessories. If you do not agree to the accessories, they become belligerent and still charge your credit cards. If you do agree to buy the phantom accessories, they don’t even send you the right items and also overcharge you.
I always assumed that Google monitored the sites that they took ads from to make sure they were legit. I was surprised to learn otherwise. Resellerratings.com saved me from dealing with the headache of canceling my credit card and having fradulent charges. One tip to consider while shopping is to use the Resellerratings.com Firefox extension
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January 5th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Good thing you did your homework and checked Resellerratings.com. Your wife would have been really pissed off if you spent $400 on a camera which you never received.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I was looking for a XTi as well and off course was tempted to order through those sites. I got careful when I actually looked for a physical address of the company and realized that the box showing the’customer service contact number’ looked very similar on all of these sites. So I decided to call some of the numbers and ask a few questions…. Most of them were just busy (No online customer support would have a queue busy unless the line was down).
Finally - one one of the numbers, after a bad quality call queue recording, I was transferred to an agent. There I received a short - ’snot available’ for an answer and was in the process of asking about backorder, when the rep simply hang up on me.
I could tell by the way the call was handled that this was not a serious retailer.
Red flag: No physical address, no actual customer service…… Buyer Beware!!!
July 12th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I had the same experience. I never went as far as doing some due diligence on the site. 6 months later and $550 in lawyers’ fees, I am still fighting with the credit card company. They are holding me negligent for not doing more of an investigation into the site.
August 4th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
What you’re saying is entirely true. I realize that everybody must say the same thing, however I merely reflect on that you put it in a style that every person can understand. I besides love the images you consign in there. They well consequently healthy with what youre trying to say. Im confident you’ll reach consequently numerous persons with what you’ve got to say.
September 3rd, 2010 at 6:05 am
I wish I had known about Resellerratings.com before I did business with this company. Sent back an item that was unmistakably defective and they told me they couldn’t find anything wrong with it and were sending me back the original defective unit! Another caution is that this seller has an ebay component to their business and their ebay feedback score is almost !00% positive when their Resellerratings.com score was 7 something out of 10. I bought the item on ebay from them and the receipt that came with the defective unit assured me that they wanted me to be 100% satisfied with the item and their service. Somewhere there is a disconnect in this. Their behavior vs. their ebay rating now has me suspicious of how feedback scores are arrived at on ebay. Bottom line, these guys are a bunch of schmuks and buyer beware.
September 12th, 2010 at 7:07 am
I had a similar experience a few months back when I was going to buy a graphics package on the net. Google shopping came back with several cheap companies listing prices half as much as the other retailers. I checked a couple of rating sites and found the cheap guys were scammers. I would have lost all my money easily.
I will check out reseller ratings.
Thanks for a good post
September 12th, 2010 at 10:12 am
I bought a “Brand New Factory Sealed Omnia II” as listed on eBay from an eBay Store owner. When I recieved the phone… the box was torn right down one side of the box, the box was not sealed and it was missing the wall charger!
I gave him a bad review and warned others not to buy from him. He wrote back asking for me to please remove the feedback as he was selling it on behalf of a company he worked for and he would lose his job if the feedback was not removed or fixed as it now had placed some sort of ebay restriction on their account. I didnt check my ebay account for over a week and next time I logged in there was 8 emails in total from him pleading for me to remove the feedback or he would lose his job. The 8th email he offerrred $50 of his own money as a compensation for having recieved a DUD! (the phone still worked and appeared to be brand new altho it was not factory sealed and was missing the wall charger). He sent another few emails asking for me to remove the feedback and he would deposit the $50 into my paypal account. I finally accepted and sent the email after if deposited the money into my account.
I think they do this as a way of still making the same profit as if they really were selling a brand new phone!!!
I bought it for AUD$405 and $15 shipping… I had plans to resell the phone, after recieving it as I did, it was impossible to even try and just make my money back!
July 18th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Früher war ich sehr erfreut sehr glücklich heraus zu suchen dieser internet-site.I wollte in Ihre dieses hervorragenden read ! I unzweifelhaft genießen jede kleine bisschen und es habe Sie ein Lesezeichen heraus zu überprüfen neue Slideshows Sie weblog schreiben.
July 27th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
I think you had a very lucky escape there are a lot of sites out there they offer products at discounts with the aim of conning people out of their hard earned cash. The golden rule to avoiding these types of scams is if it seems to good to be true chances are it probably is and also using sites such as http://www.digitalgadgetsworld.co.uk and http://www.trustedreviews.com, not only do they review products providing you with essential information but also only link to authority sites such as amazon who can be trusted not to rip you off.
August 28th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
kopsun dilim Eger Penisinizi büyütmek, ve bu konuda bir kaç hafta gibi kisa bir süre içerisinde sonuç almak istiyorsaniz, bu belkide simdiye kadar ziyaret ettiginiz en önemli web sitesidir barbaros caddesi besiktas bayan azdırıcı damlalar mevcuttur seviyor deme bahtiyarından mahrum olsun
September 15th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
for the person who posted last night re the cost of steel sheet ,it realy depends where you go to buy it, galvinized is around £740 per metric ton and standard is around £650 per ton- hope this helps