Broadway Photo, et al should be banned!

[photos122401]

I've come to trust this site (resllerratings.com) but am quite bothered by two recently discovered factors:

1) They have stopped taking comments/feedback on one of the biggest scam artist resellers in the country - Broadway Photo (et al).

2) They actually accept advertising money from these shysters.

Read the old threads pertaining to these "fronts" and you will probably agree that they belong on the list of banned stores.

Between these two facts, I am a beginning to question the credibility of this site. Can you reassure us?

[Socalgal]

(1) We are currently accepting reviews on Broadway Photo, et al..

If by "banning" a store you mean delist a store from our site, then no, we don't do that - that would defeat the purpose of our site, which is for purchase customers to be able to submit their opinions of their shopping experiences with and ratings of a store, and, for potential customers to read about those experiences in order to become more informed about the merchant, be it good or bad.

If reviews submission is not open for a merchant, email us to submit a review. The only reason we would disable reviews submission is because the merchant was attempting to spam or submit fraudulent reviews. It does *not* mean we do not accept legitimate reviews.

Reviews are subject to compliance with 1-15 of our policies.

(2) Broadway Photo is not a member and does not advertise here, but, merchants can purchase a Merchant Membership which gives them the tools and services listed on that page, such as enabling the merchant to view invoice numbers, post public replies to reviews, and other features.

In no way and at no time have we or will we compromise our integrity and reputation by removing legitimate reviews because a merchant pays for membership, or for any other reason - it never has and never will happen.

Some sleazy merchants have signed up thinking that by doing so we would remove negative reviews or allow fraudulent positives - and when they found out differently, they canceled.

Back to Broadway Photo, did you see our admin note at the top of their reviews page?

We detected and disabled 50+ fraudulent "Very Satisfied" reviews for this merchant.

We have always encouraged our readers to use the contact us link at the bottom of the page if they see suspicious reviews. Emailing us is the best way to submit a report.

*edited for clarification

[nomaxim]

Originally Posted by Socalgal

(2) Broadway Photo is not a member and does not advertise here, but, merchants can purchase a Merchant Membership which gives them the tools and services listed on that page, such as enabling the merchant to view invoice numbers, post public replies to reviews, and other features.

As already pointed out at resellerratings.com/store/Broadway_Photo this company is not a 'Merchant Member' here at RR.

Nor have I ever seen any 'advertising' by this company here at RR, per the statement by 'photos122401',

Originally Posted by photos122401

They actually accept advertising money from these shysters.

Please feel free to give a example of said advertising here.

Also, per resellerratings.com/store/Broadway_Photo this company at present has a 1.16 out of 10 rating. There are also a few threads about some of the dba's this company uses;
Cameraaddict.com (Cameraaddict.com).
beware prestige camera (beware prestige camera).

The oldest thread about them goes back two and a half years (to DEC2006). And both threads also contain links to the BBB Report (in which the various dba's are listed) in addition to the ratings here at RR.

I would hope that most people would refrain from doing business with them.

EDIT:
And for sake of argument here is the current dba and contact info from the BBB.

Business Contact Information
Name:
BROADWAY PHOTO

Additional Business Names:
A&M Photo World
Camera Addict
Digital Liquidators LLC
Millennium Camera
Preferred Photo
Prestige Camera
Quest4Cameras
Regal Camera
Wild Digital LLC

Address:
337 East 89th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11236

Principal:
Ben Z. Cohen, President

Phone Number:
(718) 338-1800

Additional Phone Numbers:
(718) 338-0634
(800) 951-9542
(718) 338-1352
(800) 709-4491
(866) 407-3425
(800) 432-2180
(800) 572-6152
(718) 338-0634
(718) 837-5999
(718) 837-2666
(800) 819-6661
(800) 819-6661
(253) 423-3535
(718) 645-4800
(718) 645-6944
(800) 685-5140
(718) 663-7123
(917) 852-6536
(800) 957-6628
(866) 277-6257
(718) 210-1496

Fax Number:
(718) 338-3029

Website:
Digital Cameras, Camcorders, Projectors, GPSs....@ broadway photo

Additional Websites:
Buyetail.com
AMPhotoWorld.com
Home page-Digital Cameras, Camcorders, Projectors, GPSs....@ CameraKings
DigitalLiquidators.com
www.preferedphoto.com
PreferredPhoto.com
PrestigeCamera.com
RegalCamera.com
WildDigital.com

Additional Locations
This firm also does business at the following locations.

2922 Avenue L
Brooklyn, NY 11210

315 East 89th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11236

5014 16th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11204

1412 Avenue M
Brooklyn, NY 11230

321 East 89th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11236

325 East 89th Street, Suite 110
Brooklyn, NY 11236

[Socalgal]

nomaxim is correct, by the way - Broadway Photo doesn't participate in our Merchant Member program and they don't advertise here.

Originally Posted by photos122401
They actually accept advertising money from these shysters.

Where are you getting your misinformation?

[burychka]

As happens from time to time, my wife just found an unbelievable price on a camera that is in short supply, indeed almost unavailable at all from known legitimate retailers (B&H, Canoga, BuyDig). I checked immediately here and found Camera Kings is a new alias for Broadway Photo et al. 45 RR reviews of this "new" company seem to have been posted since about the first of September '09, most in October. Almost all of them are not just good, but glowing!

On close inspection, though, virtually all of these new reviews are also new RR members with no other reviews. To me this is suspect. Also, they seem to be the same writing style, or more specifically like the same person trying to sound like different people.

I don't have a solution to this new problem. Clearly RR has only limited ability to detect fake reviews. The linking of new companies to their former selves is a big help. New users, though, need to be aware that unscrupulous businesses can and do engage in ballot box stuffing, clearly following the joke, "Vote early and vote often!"