Adorama - an internet retail horror story.

[EYE.image]

This is the worst internet dealer I ever had to do with, and I am very sorry I ever went there.

Summary:

1. extremely rude
2. poor customer service, poor communication
3. do not give you order numbers.
4. overcharge with shipping.
5. Make the cancellation process feel like running the gauntlet.
6. Do not respect your privacy.

Details:

I was very rudely treated by the sales person at ext. 2258.

His rough, ill-humoured, and disrespectfully shouting tone did not contain the slightest trace of courtesy. He never used the word “please” when he needed something, but shouted it like an order: “Credit card number!”

Another telling detail: when I introduced myself with my first name and asked for his name, and, angrily, he shouted at me: "You can call me Mr. M.(name initialed)!". Be aware, that those people are on a first name basis with you, but want you to call them Mr.

This sales person also promised me an e-mail confirmation of the order (which never arrived - this was obviously a lie, as they never send any confirmation e-mails).

When I asked him to read back the shipping address, he got so angry, that he shouted at me: “Hurry up! Others are waiting!”

Finally he told me the total cost of my order, and it was higher than what I had. I tried to clear this up, but he wouldn't listen. He was so keen on doing the next quick deal, that it felt like being hung up on once he had what he needed: my order and my credit card information.

Afterwards I found out why the total didn't match. Instead of the advertised free shipping (on resellerratings) he had charged me a whopping 45.00$ shipping fee.

I called the sales man up again, was transferred to his voicemail, where his recorded message promised to RETURN the call within TEN MINUTES. I asked him to call me back to clear up the problem with the shipping fee.

After half an hour (he had not called) I cancelled the order for excessive rudeness (and took it to b&h, where the manners are professional and courteous) . I was again promised by Adorama a confirmation e-mail of the cancellation (which, of course, I never received, even though I called again, and also sent three e-mails). They also said they would inform the manager about this problem.

ONLY NOW, two hours after the original call, he called back, and I told him I already cancelled the order and did not want to talk to him. Then I disconnected, hung up on him, and thought, this was it (at this time I still thought I would get a cancellation confirmation, but you’ll never get anything like a confirmation from them).

But - on Sunday! - he called me again, to apologize, he pretended, but in fact to close the deal again, to reinstate the cancelled order! He tried to lure me with free overnight shipping. For this he disturbs me on a Sunday in my home. Twice.

This is hustling at its worst. So much trouble for a process, that should have been so simple.

With an internet retailer, all you have is a voice on the phone, and an e-mail as a confirmation of the business you made. If the voice is rude, and you don’t get any e-mail confirmations, you’ve got nothing but trouble, anger, wasted time.

Warning: If you like your peace, your privacy, and expect others to treat you with respect, don’t go anywhere near Adorama. To be mistreated as a customer, who actually pays for it, is one of the lesser joys in life.

PS: I took my business to B&H, and got a courteous sales agent there. I got an e-mail confirmation right after the deal, and a tracking number the next day. That’s how it should be. No hassle. No attitude. Just professionalism. Plus: I actually had the luck to get a really friendly sales agent, which will reflect in my review that I will post soon. And b&h's prices are good. No use to risk your peace of mind for three percent price difference.

PS 2: I did not post a review, because you cannot do this without an order number.

[Kuulei]

I am sorry you had such a horrible experience. After reading the actual reviews on this company, rather than just looking at their current rating number, there seem to be a huge number of 'edited reviews' with many of them dropped down to a mere sentence or two.

It appears to be hit and miss; A 'hit' if the item is in stock and a 'miss' if it isn't and customer service seems to be iffy in a lot of the reviews.

I have not purchased from them even though I am currently in the market for a new camera (I am still trying to decide on the model / brand and haven't even gotten to the merchants I might try) and I don't think I'll be using this vendor.

[EYE.image]

I have contacted resellerratings about that fact, that several "very dissatisfied" reviews, given to Adorama by customers, have been turned into "very satisfied" reviews and that I suspected that negative reviews are being turned around there.

If resellerratings allows such practices, it could ruin the whole rating system.

reply by rr's "Lara":

"Merchants are encouraged to resolve customers' complaints - it makes happy customers, and any customer may edit their review at any time to reflect an updated opinion. The merchant may not, however, ask users to enter a positive review or to change or remove a negative review. "

This is a typical "everything is pretty" PR response, which denies the immanent chance for a potentially dishonest merchant to bend the ratings in his favor. Resellerratings has no control over a merchant's contacting a customer directly and asking him anything he likes - and offering him anything he likes for changing his rating.

My proposal was: to allow reviewers to add comments (how the problem was solved), but never to erase the original post and never change the original rating. This way there a new customer can see what has happened in each case and get a true picture.

So: If I see a dealer with a lot of edited reviews, I'll be wary.

I can recommend b&h photo. It's a dealer where many professionals buy. After that awful Adorama experience I was a bit nervous about calling another dealer, but this was a pleasant experience. I can recommend Jay at extention 2214. Internet sales is a tough job, and he does it courteously.

Prices at b&h are good, not only in cameras, but also with accessories (where several others overcharge). In some things like Sandisk cards or professional digital video tape they had the best prices of all. And don't forget: if there are problems (and they can always happen, like a doa camera or a lost shipment) I want to be with a good dealer to take care of it.

I do not think 3 or 4 percent of price difference is worth the hassle I went through. I mean one already saves a lot by buying on the web, but one should only shop at the best stores.

B&H has withdrawn from resellerratings, their logo doesn't come up any more when you search for a product. If such a good store does that, it is not a good sign for resellerratings.

After this awful experience with the 8,0 plus rated Adorama (and noticing that, generally speaking, any rating system can be beaten by a determined merchant), I will take ANY RATING ON THE WEB with a big grain of salt.

[EYE.image]

Hi, Kuulei,

Regarding your camera purchase, I can recommend you a few camera review sites:

For digital still cameras:

1. http://www.dcresource.com These guys are really good.

2. http://www.imaging-resource.com/

3. www.dpreview.com (their reviews are good, but their ratings are, well, not too reliable. They seem to prefer Nikon and Canon too much).

4. If you like Nikon, you may be interested in kenrockwell.com

A review of photo equipment review sites:

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/ph...s/reviews.html

For digital video:

Camcorderinfo.com

[MadMan2k]

I haven't had very good luck with Adorama either. Mostly I order from there when they have something on sale, when B&H doesn't have it, or when B&H is closed. Both of them have ridiculous 'holiday' schedules that they just use as an excuse to take a week or two off and not accept orders on a regular basis, though...

I ordered a lens and a battery there last year, and paid with PayPal - the payment took about 3 days to process, before they even thought about processing the order, so it took over a week to get to me, and in the meantime I couldn't shoot at all because the battery on one camera was dead and I didn't have a lens for the other.

Then I bought some Kodachrome that was on sale for 5 bucks a roll, they shipped it the next day and it was here 2 days later. They must be able to tell when you have plenty of the thing you're ordering and don't need it any time soon, and then they ship it out as fast as they can.

[Admin RR]

I have contacted resellerratings about that fact, that several "very dissatisfied" reviews, given to Adorama by customers, have been turned into "very satisfied" reviews and that I suspected that negative reviews are being turned around there.

Of course we allow merchants to contact reviewers. If a customer posts a bad review, and the merchant then contacts the customer to make things right, why are you complaining? What we don't allow is for a merchant to coerce or bribe a reviewer and believe me, there are plenty of ethical people out there that have told us when this occurs. When we do receive such reports, we then scrutinize a merchant's reviews to look for fraud, we warn or take other action against the merchant etc. By and large, it's not a common practice. Merchants are simply trying to make things right and satisfy their customers, who are then compelled to edit their reviews. That's a good thing and it's not something you'll find at any other ratings site. ResellerRatings helps you as a consumer and acts as a catalyst to get through to the merchant. ResellerRatings merchants care about their ratings and reviews and go the extra mile so satisfy ResellerRatings reviewers.

B&H has withdrawn from resellerratings, their logo doesn't come up any more when you search for a product. If such a good store does that, it is not a good sign for resellerratings.

B&H hasn't "withdrawn" from ResellerRatings. You're confusing the ratings portion of our site with our price comparison shopping engine. If B&H's products aren't coming up in our shopping engine, that has nothing whatsoever to do with ResellerRatings. We use Shopping.com to power our price comparison engine. Therefore if B&H doesn't come up in our engine, it's because they stopped advertising (or changed which products they advertise) at Shopping.com.

[mikeb380]

I have been doing business with Adorama for over two years and have never had a bad incident with them. I've been treated with courtesy and my purchases have been shipped expeditiously and well packed. I've not felt that the shipping prices were too high ( you ought to see some of the shipping prices on ebay!) All in all, I'm very satisfied with the store and the people with whom I've had contact. I feel that on several instances they went out of their way to help me get what I wanted.

If you have problems with a company, I suggest you ask for the manager, immediately. Don't get intimidated and hang up! Most businesses depending on telephone to get sales cannot afford to treat customers badly. I imagine what happened was that the conversations are taped and someone checked his tape and made him call to apologize. As to being called on Sunday, that is just another day of the week to them and to B&H as both are Jewish and do not work on Saturdays. They close on Friday afternoon and reopen either Saturday Evening or on Sunday morning. As to being closed to take a long holiday, They don't. Both companies are closed now for the Jewish holiday of Pesach ( Passover) which lasts a week for religious Jews. Be aware that it isn't only Adorama, it is also B&H and any other camera store run by religious Jewish people, as many of the NYC camera stores are.

Again, INSIST on speaking with a manager, immediately you are having trouble with a Sales Clerk. Things will get straightened out, but not if you just shrug it off and write a bad review. It is your obligation to try to get it rectified before posting a bad review on a store, any store. If it were me, I'd go up to the President/owner of the company before I'd stop trying. It does work, too.
Michael

[foveon]

I've bought quite a bit from both B&H and Adorama and haven't had an issue with either and believe their service close enough to buy from the merchant with the better price. If any others are considering them I have no issues recommending. One thing to consider, this guy wrote this review after talking to a single rep with the company who obviously had more personal issues than company issues, or could have just been having a bad day. Anyone who would judge a company the size of adorama over the actions of 1 person and not attempt to speak with anyone else doesn't hold much weight with me and i will assume this would be the case with most of the rest.

[ohtoberich]

I've used B&H and Adorama and haven't had problems with either, though I order from the website and haven't dealt with customer service. I've actually heard of people being unhappy with the customer service at both stores though... it seems that good customer service is expensive, so the stores with such will cost more.

[EYE.image]

Originally Posted by Admin RR

Merchants are simply trying to make things right and satisfy their customers, who are then compelled to edit their reviews.

Only: this way a customer has no means to know what has happened in the past. And everything and everybody is judged by what he or she has done in the past. Because it will likely happen again in the future.

Compare this to "ratings" of stocks.

COMPANY A builds cars, and has excellent quality control. It's prices are 5% higher than COMPANY B.

COMPANY B builds cars comparable to company A's, but saves on quality control. This repeatedly leads to recalls, which are awful for customers, and costly for the company.

A stock analyst, who does not know about the business history of both companies might think company B is better, as it delivers a similar product 5% cheaper. (without knowledge of the past performance of a company, a stock analyst is blind - and couldn't be called a stock analyst, rather a stock fortune teller).

A stock analyst would look at the economical performance of both companies. How does he do it? He looks into their past, their present, and draws an estimate for the future.

He sees, that COMPANY B (with the poor quality control) will have less brand value and their cost structure is not OK due to the costly recalls. It will see, that company A is more expensive, but performs better for both customers and their own cost structure. Their brand is worth more, as people can trust those cars more.

See, the look into the past performance is very important to get an idea about the future of a company.

A customer, looking up a company at rr, wants to get an idea about the future performance of a merchant, and he knows it by getting a picture of the past performance. How many "RECALLS" (problems) a merchant had. Now, if a merchant repeatedly causes problems, and fixes those problems (but only with those, who post a bad review), and then the review is edited, this means the merchant's negative past is erased.

Like COMPANY B could also claim: "But we always fix the problem in a recall!".

But a customer does not want a recall.

He looks up a rating service to get a look into the future: "What if I buy there? What will happen?"

Letting reviewers erase a merchant's mistakes erases the problematic past, and does not allow other customers to see, how likely a future purchase would end with possibly similar nerve stressing "recall".

This makes it much harder, if not impossible, to distinguish between a top merchant and a so-so merchant. It will still work for a distinction between bait and switch-crooks and legit merchants.