Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Strikes Back at Crooked Online Retailer
BigBadLad writes "Seems like customers are at a huge disadvantage when dealing with dishonest retailers. This is the story of a man who had a horrible experience with an online camera retailer. In short he was lied to, yelled at, and threatened to be sued if he posted the experience on his blog. He was also persuaded to sign an agreement that would allow the retailer to charge him an extra $100 if he left bad feedback."
Sure he should have known better than to use them. But his complaining is having very real, and very positive, results. They should be taken off PriceGrabber, they should be blacklisted at ResellerRatings, they should really be out of business and in jail! They kind of threats they are making along with blatantly illegal credit-card charges indicate they are totally out of control.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
(I'm an Aussie; we know about corroborees and stuff)
But what's to stop someone with a personal grudge or a commercial agenda from doing the same thing? Sure, it's a lottery to see if your blog-rave captures any attention on /. or BoingBoing or Digg etc., but the costs are low and the potential damage high.
How can a reputable business (even one with a couple of justly unhappy customers; nobody's service is perfect) protect themselves?
What's unusual about that?
It's unusual because its, well, unusual. As in rare. I've been in retail business myself, and while this kind of behavior occurs, it doesn't happen at big firms like those you mentioned. That's because no business can get to that size with that attitude. Customers don't keep quiet about their bad experiences, they tell everyone they know.
I've never had any experience like this with any of the firms you name. A firm WILL try to sell you a warranty, but they won't pull an illegal bait-n-switch like what was described, since most businessmen don't like getting thrown in jail.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Very rarely is the company offering the very lowest price on a product also going to have good customer service. You get what you pay for. While I do agree this person got a raw deal, I'm also having trouble being massively sympathetic to someone who decided where to buy a multi-thousand dollar camera based solely on price. If you want good service, then you're going to have to pony up a few dollars more than "rock bottom price" to get it.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
What you are seeing is the results of years of people being scammed by companies just like this one.
For whatever reason, this post has caused a flashpoint of activity as anyone who has ever been wronged by a shady New York camera dealer exacts revenge.
Honestly, I expect there's nothing for the people at the company to do now but run the shop under a new name, that one is done.
However I don't think the incidents are as isolated as you think. Just because they often get away with hoodwinking people into buying warranties and overpriced accessories does not mean they should get off scott free even if not everyone complains. They really are getting what they have coming to them. Even the complaints are not that isolated, just look at the horrible ResellerRatings score.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I ALWAYS read the negative comments for anything I buy. Happy people tend not to post, so absence of positive reviews is often (though not always) indicative of a good review, but if there are an overwhelming number of negative reviews, or a few VERY negative ones, I pass. There also need to be a large total number of reviews so as to be "statistically" valid.
Also, if there is no physical address listed or a phone number on their web page, I move on to another retailer.
They still list pricegrabber on their site
I also google for their phone number, and their address and check the location on a map. One vendor I was about to purchase from didn't show up on any maps (it could have been a new building, but better safe than sorry for a few dollars).
Lastly, never let ANYONE yell at you on the phone. Just hang-up. Crank Yankers was so successful because of the false politness of people on the phone or with strangers. And NEVER let him talk to your boss. This is a personal issue, not a work one.
This is why you need one-time credit card numbers. Several banks offer them. You generate them on-line as needed, with a precise limit and timeframe, and you can even revoke them if they haven't been charged.
I would imagine an IRS investigation would reveal tax fraud. There's simply no way that crooks this heinous are playing honest with the IRS.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Of course, this ends up meaning that I don't do much business with the smaller online retailers unless they operate through EBay (or I happen to hear about them). Hmmm, I suppose that says interesting things about EBay. You know, I'll bet you could set up a transaction rating system like that that random merchants could opt into. Since you're only providing the rating system, overhead probably wouldn't be that high, and you could probably support yourself with ad revenue. Paypal is probably in the perfect market position to do something like this.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
My understanding of online taxes is that businesses charge tax only if they have a physical presence in the state the order originated from, i.e. warehouse, storefront, offices.
He's not talking about sales tax, he's talking about income tax. Even if you only sell intrastate, you are still responsible to pay income taxes on the profits that you make.
The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Due to internet sales, I've dealt with some very reputable companies that had either no storefront or very small, sometimes shoddy-looking storefronts. Less overhead since their sales are mainly online.
Do some research especially in forums. While some ratings sites get rigged by the stores, a simple question in a forum will bring response from customers that you can ask questions of. If a crooked store answers on the forum, you generally get a few quick bad responses right after them like where's my money?.
Try to buy small from a new company. Don't drop $3000 on your first purchase. Buy some film or something.
Talk to the store owner and ask some questions. You'll get an idea of honesty and how knowledgeable they are. Sure, I don't need to buy everything from someone who knows about it, but it's an added plus.
this kind of hateful bigoted filth should be banned from Slashdot.
in my country, we put people like you in jail. inhuman racist scum.
Well, this make the guy's remark "I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again" quite ironic. Seems like Thomas Hawk is the type of photographer a lot of shops will boast about him being one of their customers.
Trust me, I work for the government.
Things brings back bad memories for me. I had a very similar experience with this same merchant a year ago, and I wrote the attached letter. I sent it through the mail to the New York BBB and the PriceGrabber offices out in CA. At that time (October, 2004), I spoke with a PriceGrabber rep on the phone and they removed PriceRitePhoto from their site. So how come these bastards got listed again?
To whom it may concern:
I am writing this letter to describe the experiences that I have had with a business called PriceRitePhoto.com. Their address is:1274 49th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11219 and their customer service phone number is (888) 365-4300. I found this business through the PriceGrabber.com website and attempted to purchase a camera from them. However this company was more interested in lying to me and manipulating me than selling me a camera.
I am spending my time and effort in order to inform you of the dirty tactics used by PriceRitePhoto.com with the hope that my story will save other potential customers the headaches and lost sleep that I have endured. The manager of PriceRitePhoto.com has already tried to silence my opinion through bribery and extortion but I think that the potential customers *deserve* to know the business strategies employed by PriceRitePhoto.com before deciding to do business with them.
I understand that I am the kind of customer that PriceRitePhoto.com doesn't want. I am an informed consumer and a comparison shopper. If they had simply been honest with me and told me that they were unwilling to sell me the Canon Digital Rebel camera unless I purchased some other accessories, I would have just found another company from which to purchase this camera. I probably wouldn't have submitted a negative review on PriceGrabber.com - I just would have gone my own way. But what I got instead of honesty were lies and manipulation, and I think these strategies are completely unacceptable for a professional organization and ought to be publicized.
I first read about the Canon Digital Rebel camera more than a year ago, and I instantly wanted one. However I was not able to afford to purchase one until recently. Several months ago I began researching the Digital Rebel and several other cameras in preparation for a purchase. I found the PriceGrabber.com website which offered reviews of many different merchants selling this camera, in addition to their prices. I saw that the various merchants fell into several different strata - about 7 or 8 were in the very lowest price range, from $799 to $850 including shipping. I found a merchant in the middle of this price range with a high rating and mostly positive reviews: PriceRitePhoto.com. I knew that I would also need some other accessories with the camera, and I planned on purchasing a USB 2.0 Compact Flash card reader and a Compact Flash card. I found that PriceRitePhoto.com had a USB 1.0 CF reader for $49, but did not offer a USB 2.0 reader. However Best Buy sold a USB 2.0 reader for $15, so I drove to purchase this item at Best Buy. After some research I decided that the CF card that I wanted was the Lexar 80x 1 gigabyte card. I looked on the PriceRitePhoto.com website but found that this merchant did not offer this card for sale, so instead I purchased it from TigerDirect.com.
So the only item left was the camera. On Thursday, September 16th, 2004 I placed order #7490 from PriceRitePhoto.com for a Canon Digital Rebel camera with 18-55mm EF-S lens for $799 plus $24.80 shipping. I thought I was getting a great deal at this time, but I had no idea what abuse I was in store for.
It began on the following Sunday, September 19th. I received an email at about 11:00 am, stating that I needed to call PriceRitePhoto.com to "confirm the information on your order". This is where the deceptions began, because the real purpose of this phone call was not in fact to verify my order information, but to sell me some additional items. What follows is certainly one of the most unpleasant experiences that I've ever en
Replying to parent just to get this near the top. The following link will load images from their site to infinity: http://electronicchaos.com/pricewrongphoto.html
And you know this because...? How in the world can you make a claim like this?
well...his statement on the ethnicity of the major New York photo retailers is actually correct...but he seems to have missed the fact that the stores which are primarily run by Jewish New Yorkers (read: B&H, which has a sales staff that's 90% Hasidic) are the large, reliable and ethical ones that are considered the most trusted in the region. they have nothing whatsoever in common with the shady installations. So.....his population stats = decent; his wild allegations of impropriety = not so much.
Whether done with debit or credit, there's something consumers can do, and that, boys and girls, is called a "chargeback"!
It's a very simple call or a personal meeting to a manager at your bank stating that someone ripped you off and you would like your money returned to you.
The company has to do a lot to prove the charge was valid. If they actually ripped you off, then they won't go out of their way to dispute the chargeback.
In fact, this works TOO well. One time I ordered a product from overseas - the payment was processed the next day and I received an email saying the package shipped a few days later. Two weeks go by, no package. I contacted their company with emails and calls where they assured me that the package was shipped. I requested proof of a tracking number or receipt for the shipment, but received no response. I became suspicious of the situation, so I charged it back.
Not only did I get my money returned to me, but a few weeks later the product finally happened to arrive. Oops! But hey, they failed to assure me that I wasn't getting ripped off, so I did whatever I had to do to make sure it didn't happen.
People severely underestimate the power of the consumer.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
That the above is marked "informative" is pathetic.
There is no reason to lie to the credit card company--in a chargeback situation, they'll almost always be on your side because they don't eat the charge, the merchant does. They're much more interested in keeping you happy (the one they make all their money off of, who can drop them in favor of another bank if they don't perform) instead of the merchant, whose only alternative is to stop accepting credit cards--which is no choice at all.
In short: "I am dealing with a scam artist merchant, please initiate a chargeback and issue me a new card number" is a much better approach than "someone stole my credit card and is trying to buy a camera with it."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
As justified as it may be, this is still a DDoS attack. And hence not a good idea.
While Pricerite seems to be grade A jerks it is immature to try to DOS their website.
Complaints should go through normal channels. A few comments up there was a guy with the opposite perspective. He had an online store and was blown out of the water by a "conspiracy" that likely was due to the competition not liking him. He seemed like a nice guy.
So, what guarantee do you have that Pricerite aren't good guys and all the testimonials you have read are fictious? You would only need maybe 10 fictitious online identities to achieve this.
I think Pricerite probably deserve getting shafted. But not this way!
Sheesh...
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!