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.. stupid people are at a disadvantage.
I bought my Canon S70 from BestChoiceDigital.com, a camera store from NY that is probably just a little storefront in Manhatten somewhere.
The site looks a bit dodgy and doesn't always render correctly, but the prices are insane. And let me tell you, they're no scam by any means. They called me to verify my shipping information since it was different from my credit card billing address, and had my camera within a week. And it works flawlessly.
I'd buy from them again in a heartbeat. Their price on a Rebel XT beats Best Buy employee pricing even, and since I know they're aboveboard, I'm happy.
this guy gets a deal almost too good to be true and then finds out he almost got scammed. so what does he do? he takes an internet fit, and blogs about it. and becomes the biggest story on digg.
we seriously need to change our perspective on reality. these blogs and bullshit just makes shit worse. why isnt a story about Iraq or something more important to us than some douche and his camera?
I hate dealing with camera dealers in the North East. Most of the disreputable/dishonest ones are in the New York and New Jersey area. They will typically advertise superb prices on their merchandise and then when you place the order they typically tell you that you need to buy additional items that normally should come prepackaged with the item. Another trick they use is, if you call them to place the order, after you've given them your CC info they'll tell you that the item is backordered and you'll get in 4-6 months. arrrrrghh!
Who buys a $2900 camera anyways? Sure, a $290 camera takes better pictures and has more features than a $29 camera, but what does a $2900 camera get you? And why would you buy it from an online website with "price rite" in its name? Maybe I'll buy our next server from eBay, and bid it up to $25000, just so I could say I manage a $25000 server.
This one guy has a bad experience, posts it online, and bam. story is _everywhere_(5000+ diggs on digg, huge on del.icio.us, boingboinged, slashdotted). this is by no means a unique experience, just read feedback on yahoo or.. anywhere, about any number of stores like this.
if he had written an article about it, and interviewed a number of other effected people then maybe, but this seems like a small operation and a farely isolated experience. its not like amazon, or even one of the popular dedicated camera sites pulled this crap. and as many other people pointed out the site was already terribly rated everywhere BESIDES yahoo.
not saying its his fault, but still. it just comes off alot like that "fuck natalee holloway" story that made the rounds, the guy gets his 15 seconds of fame and everyone starts talking about how there going to DDoS this companies site(aparently, a ton of people from digg just called there phones non stop while other people ENCOURAGED them). pretty lame, in my opinion.
(ouch, that was probably my karma exploding, but who gives a fuck)
This story only shows what you've got coming when you shop from jews.
You don't make deals with jews or gypsies. This has been an axiom for thousands of years, yet there have always been people who gamble and think they can do it and get away unharmed.
About 90% of these stores in New York and New Jersey are owned by hasidic Jews. The cheating methods they use are standard practice.
I'm just talking about peoples' experiences, not what you've read.
E.g. Hasidim are infamous for cheating people -- including other non-hasidim who consider themselves Jews. Ask any Israeli -- it causes a lot of conflict.
Likewise, please consider the case of Mexicans and Blacks. Mexicans are infamous for killing their girlfriends when they get in disputes. Blacks are famous for carjackings. But if you read what they think of as their holy book (The Holy Bible), it is clear that stealing and killing girlfriends (or just premarital sex) are forbidden. And if a black or Mexican were to do those things, he'd have to do a great deal of penance.
However, as you may or may not know, Hasidim have different standards for cheating Jews vs. cheating gentiles. It is part of their religion. A hasid published a book on this recently, and it is a big deal, because he lays it all out: http://www.rense.com/general48/newbook.htm -- where Orthodox Jews recommend to other Orthodox that the gentiles are evil and a different species. And that a Jew should deceive them about their true feelings -- e.g. don't tell the gentiles that you think they are evil, and of a different species.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Judaism is the oldest still-surviving religion and it carries pretty primitive values, almost as high as cavemen values.
For example, non-jews are considered shit, and fair-game.
Having been picked upon throughout most of History, jews have developped the habit of concentrating wealth in order to lose as little as possible when forced to move, hence their reliance on gold, diamonds or, more intelligently, on knowledge (now that's something you can't pry from someone's head).
Unfortunately, their overreliance on wealth and disregard of ethical rules towards non-jews make that a disproportionate amount of scammers are jewish, thus fueling even more the universal resentment displayed towards the jews throughout the world and History, often escalating to very high level of horrors (the shoah, for example - this did not happen by accident; when some people decide to industrially exterminate another one, there has to be a very good reason, and the fact is that the jews have historically accumulated a lot of bad press).
By comparison, expatriated chinese (the oldest surviving civilization, by the way) are just as trade savvy as the jews, but as they do not think that non-chinese are only worthy of being screwed, you do not see any universal resentment against the chinese.
It is unfortunate that the jews have not learned from the lessons of the shoah, and have returned more arrogant than ever by stealing some land in the Middle-East all the while manipulating a nuclear superpower into fraudulently backing them (with the huge expense of international goodwill), thus fueling even more hatred against themselves and towards the superpower.
As long as this will last, you can expect someone to start yet another shoah eventually if the jews don't learn that their crappy religion is bringing them lots of trouble and they oughta dump it so they can live in peace with others.
Other people dumped their religion when it gave them trouble before (the french, for example), so they jews can very well do the same.
Re: On a bad not about American Express, I was talking to the about some software. They mentioned they were hiring developers anywhere but in America. Go figure.
... rather it should force us to look at ourselves and attempt to understand our own deficiencies. Let's stop the arrogance and ignorance. Let's stop whining and complaining about our loss of jobs and instead try to improve our skills and give the rest of the world some competition - let's show them what we're made of - that we're just as good as any employee anywhere. That's when American companies will be interested in hiring us again. Outsourcing is an opportunity for us to improve in my opinion, not an opportunity to become even more xenophobic and close-minded than we already are.
They do that because we Americans cannot perform basic tasks like spelling and typing without mistakes - yet we expect to be paid as though we can!! Would you hire an American whose resume had to spell-checked by a resident of another country whose first language isn't even English before they applied for the job?? Outsourcing shouldn't make us angry at other countries for taking our jobs