Based on the excellent ratings this company has received, I ordered a 42-inch plasma TV from B & H, including paying extra for their white glove in-home delivery - total out-of-pocket over $1400. The TV was delivered a week later, which I considered excellent, however when it was unpacked it turned out to have a shattered screen. I called B & H customer service while the delivery man was still here and was told to refuse delivery and that after B & H received the TV back I could either re-order or get a refund and I was told it would take about five days for them to get it back. The delivery man told me it would be shipped back to them that very evening. Nine days later, after hearing nothing from them, I emailed customer service. Two days later I was sent an email telling me my inquiry had been forwarded to "the appropriate department for review and processing" and I am still waiting, five days after my initial inquiry and two weeks after sending back the TV, to hear from them. If the TV could get here in a week, could it really take two weeks + for them to get it back? They have now had my money for over three weeks. I understand that the damage to the TV was not their fault, these things happen. But it was not my fault either. How long am I expected to wait empty-handed while they hold on to my money? I notice they seem to respond to poor reviews on this forum faster than they are responding to my email.  
Update 1/8/2007. In spite of Henry Posner's claim below and the email B&H sent four days ago, I still have not received my refund. I have had to file a dispute with MasterCard to get my money back from B&H. Damage to the TV was not their fault, but holding my money for four weeks and counting after the TV was returned to them is. Beware when purchasing big ticket items from this company.

This review was modified by its author, w84mike, on 1/8/07 10:42 AM.

Ordered a HD DVD player from this company. It was a new product that had not been released. B&H website said the product would arrive in 15 days. 15 days came and went so I called to make sure nothing was wrong with my order. The gentleman I talked to had no idea when the product was going to arrive. I asked to talk to a manager that may know. Another gentleman came on the phone and told me the product would be there by the 15th of December cutting it very close to Christmas considering they would not ship the product until the day after ground. Well the 15th came and went and on the 17th another phone call and I was told I would not get my player until the 28th of December. Well Best Buy had the players and every website was selling them in stock. I asked to cancel my order and was told my credit card would take over 7 days to credit so I would still not be able to buy the player elsewhere. It took two complaints to the bbb to FINALLY get the player shipped. It has STILL not arrived and it missed Christmas. I was not offered free shipping or overnight shipping. I ended up not saving any money because their shipping charges are very high. I have been burnt. I will warn everyone not to use this website.

First-time (non-U.S.) overseas buyers BEWARE. Their verification procedure is very strict and complicated. And their communication is slow too.  
 
They deducted money from my cc and refused to ship out my order. I only discovered it when I received my cc bill. They said they need my bank approval ... they got my money in their account for more than a week and still require my bank approval?????????  
 
If they have doubts on my credibility and my order, then they should have rejected my order straight away. Why treat it so trivially, deduct and refund money into my cc as and when they pleased?  
 
And because of this, I incur a few hundreds dollars loss due to foreign $ conversion rate. B&H said it is not their responsibility and refuse to refund me further.  
 
But I won't have incur have this loss if B&H is willing to ship out my order. In the first place, B&H shouldn't have deducted money from my cc liberally if they can't confirmed shipping.  
 
I'm sad that such a reputable big store, make my first time shopping experience with them a nightmare.  
 
This is too expensive a lesson to learn. I end up with nothing (no camera or lens) but money-wise poorer. I hope others won't be as gullible as me, believing in all the good reviews.  
 
 
7th December  
Losing US$330!!!! is no joke. Who am I to claim compensation from? So I have to pay for my folly for trusting B&H and all those great reviews?  
 
B&H should acknowledged that they shouldn't have deducted money from cc and held it for so many days, then refunded because their Verification dept won't proceed with my order.  
 
Overseas buyers, don't trust B&H with your order. You are better off buying from elsewhere, even if the prices are higher. The frustration dealing with B&H is too much and the money loss is even worse.

This review was modified by its author, Asianbuyer, on 12/6/06 10:07 PM.

Nightmare! I got gray market merchandise that was advertised as covered under a manufacturer's warranty. There was no warranty card or serial number. I sent it back and got another just like it. B&H insisted that the product was genuine but offered no proof. They claim that they identify all gray market items, but this expensive item (nearly $400!) was advertised as the real deal -- it could easily have been a knock-off. NY camera merchants are infamous for bait & switch and B&H is no better than they have to be.

I ordered a silver XTI body only from B&H in the night. They charged my credit card immediately. However, they cancelled the order the next day while still holding the charges for at least 3 days!  
The price is around 20% lower than regular price. I am not sure if it is really a price mistake or what. But the experience is certainly no good.

I placed an order last night around 1 am to purchase Canon rebel XTi. The price stated $569 and I placed two orders right away, order#1005545657 and order#1005545598.  
 
I called customer service and they said the rebel XTi black will be on back order and the silver one will be ship the same day. If they think it's a price mistake, why didn't the customer representative tell me that my order will not be shipped due to price mistake?  
 
They don't honor the price of what they stated in their website. I don't think it's a price mistake, more like great discount/offer. They charge my credit card for 2x$583 (camera + shipping) already and did not refund it, saying that we need to cancel the order or pay the price that B&H wants us to pay.  
 
Now I left with 2 charges of $583 and no cameras, no tracking number, nothing. All I got is an E-mail from B&H basically saying that if I want to order, I need to pay to whatever they want to put or cancel it.  
 
Since I had limited budget and I had bought 2 lenses to accompany the cameras from other retailers, in a sense B&H doesn't give me any choice but to return the 2 lenses and buy their body without any lens (how am I going to take picture?). I am willing to pay, but I have a limited budget right now and the price was stated clearly $569 (both black and silver), if they make mistake, how can it be on both models (since they both have different SKUs)?  
 
I felt kind of dissapointed, I bought some stuff from B&H before and I was never dissapointed. I used to envy B&H as an honorable web store but not at this point in time. They will probably become more like Dell, put customer last and money comes first.  
 
If they can honor their price as most good companies do, I can probably give them 3 thumbs up and be their loyal customer.  
 
 
 

I, along with many others, were victims of a "misprint" on B&H's website. Truth be told, the misprint was a special promotion and the coupon code for that promotion made it out to the internet. Several people were shipped the item anyway, however, most were sent an insulting e-mail asking them to still purchase the item, only slightly discounted (20% off originally, down to 4% off)

B&H advertised a special promotion on their Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi Camera for 569.99. Given that this was without the lens, it was not a stunning price but still less than the competition. I do not know much about cameras, so I spent quite a bit of time researching and finally decided to pull the trigger. About 12 hours later I am told the order is cancelled due to a 'typographical error'.. but the thing that really gets me is that they charged my credit card anyway.  
 
My local Target and Petcos and Supermarkets don't have price errors - neither should you. But more importantly, you should not be charging credit cards for items you don't ship.  
 
Very unhappy that you wasted an hour of my time, and the refund on my card better show up quick.

Poor Customer Service. They take orders for a product for almost a full day at one price, then send out emails to some people telling them that the item is no longer in stock and that there order is on hold. Then they send out another email stating that the price was a mistake and they will not honor it. But they ARE honoring some of my friends orders at the supposid mistake price. Thats a poor way to handle your loyal customer base.

How to piss customers off, the BHPhotoVideo way:  
 
BH refused to honor the price they listed on their website for 15 hours. They were terribly slow to respond to inquiries and eventually slapped the customers in the face.  
 
1. Have a price for an item on your website for 15 hours (the XTi for $569).  
 
2. Take hundreds if not thousands of orders over night, and for 6 hours during normal business hours on Friday.  
 
3. Ship out some of the less popular silver models to customers for the $569 price.  
 
4. Send out emails to everyone else telling them they'll get the XTi but it is temporarily out of stock.  
 
5. Hours later, change your mind and send out emails telling the back-ordered items have increased in price.  
 
WTF?  
 
 
If it was a typographical error, why ship out a bunch of the silver models. They would have been able to search for the PEE06 ordered items and cancel them. I know they have every right to cancel orders due to typographical erros (as does every other website), but i'm not 100% sure that was the actual cause of this. Why take a lot of orders and not correct it right away... I wonder if the orders that contained high margin accessories were also cancelled. Either way, if they had the right to or not, they have a lot of explaining to do to a lot of upset customers.  
 
When Dell and other websites have price mistakes, they compensate the customers for their lost time and frustration with some kind one time use coupon.. something to "make it right." BH photo just tries to upsell you... laughable.  
 
If BH Photo spent half the time on real customer service that they spend on monitoring and denying negative reviews on reselleratings, they could avoid this all together. Good to see BH can't reply to my emails, but they can deny my claims here on reselleratings. They rather "appear" to have good customer service here.  

This review was modified by its author, USFmarine, on 11/4/06 9:37 PM.

Ordered the Rebel XTI for a great price, turns out it was miss-priced, so a day after my order is processed, I get an email saying they made a mistake, but would sell it to me at the full price $200 dollars higher. Problem is I wasn't sure I could afford to upgrade to this camera from my current Cannon Rebel XT unless I could find someone to buy my XT, so I ordered it with that plan in mind. Over the weekend I sold it to my brothers in-laws for $400, which worked out for both of us. But when I got home tonight and read my e-mail, I got this message. Now I'm stuck without a camera, or I have to see if I can get my old one back. Customer care wasn't too concerned. They assured me I could get my old one back, no problem, but they couldn't even offer me a better price then general public to make up for the mistake. Didn't seemed to concerned about my problem, so long as their mistake didn't cost them.

This review was modified by its author, MandolinJimmy, on 11/6/06 2:48 PM.

I ordered a digital camera on 10/13/06 with UPS 2 day air, but UPS deliverd as 3 days ground.  
I was very disappointed.  
B&H said they'll ask UPS for a refund. But so far I haven't heard anything from B&H.  
I'm waiting to see how B&H can let customer happy.  

This review was modified by its author, qianr, on 10/27/06 8:58 AM.

I had horrible service on $2,000 purchase. they messed up the shipping even though I paid for 2 day. Refused to make good. Extremely rude on the phone. Never again. Henry is not telling the whole story in his reply. No where on their page do they say you have to be home to sign. When I told them that on the phone the "customer service" reply was "everbody knows that." The bottom line is that they messed up a very important deadline, managed to blow a surpise gift, and were completely arrogant about it. The partal refund he alludes to was $6.00. The good news is that my sister-in-law decided to buy the same camera. She got a better deal at a local camera shop and B&H lost $1,800.

This review was modified by its author, byrdshadow, on 10/19/06 2:17 PM.

PLEASE READ before buying from B&H:  
 
SERVICE  
This company has ZERO people skills and little care for cust satisfaction.For internet users, this will, most likely, not be a prob. But my experience with this company within a period of 24hrs have proven to be THE MOST frustrating experience I have had with a retailer  
 
PURPOSE  
I have sent friends to B&H, but my personal experience was abysmal.They seem to have no decency or regard for their customers.They fit into a "9-5" mentality with no real interest to serve their customers.My impetus for writing this review is to serve in contrast to the other reviews that have been written here, and allow other people to see through all the sugar-coating. Hopefully, someone at BH will have the humanity to appropriately instruct their workers how to speak and deal with customers and avoid issues that I had to endure  
 
THE ITEM  
I PURCHASED a $2000 Nikon D200 camera within 7mins of speaking to a salesman at BH. It could not have been a quicker sale.I knew what I wanted, I simply asked them for some discount or faster shipping  
Sales Rep#1: "No.That's it"  
I asked if I can get his name if I had any questions, his reply:  
"Just call anyone here can help you”  
 
PRICE MATCH  
B&H DOES NOT do price matching. Don’t waste your time. All the ensuing phone calls and frustration I went through came from a very simple issue: I wanted to add the 2yr ext warranty from Nikon. The price from BH was $150. The common discounted rate was $85-$120 which I asked them to honor. It started simple…”give us the names of the companies you saw, and call us back.” I did this: camera shop $85, berger bros $119, J&R $99, and thebestthings $129.  
 
MISINFORMATION  
The first "problem" they had once I got these prices was the following:  
Sales Rep: "You have the price of the ‘Nikon WARRANTY’ and NOT the "Nikon SERVICE Warranty"  
Me: You’re joking right? Humor me, whats the difference?  
Sales Rep: "The SERVICE Warranty gives extra services like camera cleaning and is more comprehensive.The other "WARRANTY" just covers defect parts  
Me: "OK. I will check which item the price is for, and call back.... what is your name?"  
Sales Rep: "just speak to anyone here...everyone can ‘help’ you"  
 
I called each and all the warranties were "Service Warranties" Item# NKN 5700. The “Extended Warranty” for the D200 doesn't exist! I called B&H back, explained that I spoke to the above "sales rep" and that the plans all match. At this point BH said they would only deal with J&R's pricing, but the price on the website was $149. This is true, but I contacted J&R, 1800-806-1115 and spoke to Tony x1050 - for a price of $99(This was a ZERO hassle price,and I was ONLY buying a warranty not a $2100 digital camera!)  
 
THE "SERVICE MGR"  
After they refused to price match J&R, I demanded to speak to a service mgr. The service mgr (who I found out the next day does not exist) "Murray Motty" explained the "policy" to me, I told him the sales reps have been giving me a runaround about what was req’d to receive a price match, and while I complied with all they asked, in the end, they still refused to honor it. Getting the price quote from J&R was unacceptable.Why would J&R send me the quote so I can give the business to another store? I am simply asking for a better price on a warranty for a camera I just paid $2100 for... “are you aware, I am arguing about $50?” All I was asking that BH treat me like a customer. He can easily check the cost on the item, and see if it is "reasonable" to offer it to me for $99. His reply: "obviously, you know the cost price better than I do..." Me: "Please don't patronize me"....He told me to get the quote from J&R and fax it or he could give me $20 off! I told him, why would I go through all this trouble, just to give him the business? I will just buy it from J&R...but the point of the conversation and the point of everything written here is NOT about money, it is about treating people with decency...and that is what I repeated to him before hanging up telling him "Thanks for your "help"." (I bought it from J&R)  
 
CONCLUSION  
I will never buy anything from BH again. It is not worth the frustration and lies. It is not worth losing my dignity to give people who only care about their bottom line and not about the people that serve their business. I have NEVER had that experience at J&R or any other reseller. The point of this review was to clearly define the character (or lack of) of people working at BH, had I contacted 1 person - I would never have written this..but the fact that I had been through over 13 people, 6 salesmen, 3 phone operators etc...leads me to believe that no one takes an interest in their job or their customers at BH. I tried to file a complaint, and only got a fictitious person "Murray Motty." It was only out of shear morbid curiosity that I persisted in contacting BH to find out the extent of their lack of character, and had I had an alternative, I would never have purchased the camera from them  
 
B&H "CUSTOMER SERVICE” MOTTO:  
"Call back and speak to someone else"

 
My Experience with BH wasn't that great at all.  
 
03/09/2006 - placed an order for EOS 30D, 24-70, 580EX (totalling up to 3000 USD). submitted both copies of credit card via web site form.  
 
05/09/2006 - money was taken from my credit card account  
 
08/09/2006 - order status still displayed as "Processing". I got a bit worried and sent an email to Customer support, asking what's wrong. They replied it's being held by verification. Emailed verification.  
 
11/09/2006 - answer from verification that the bank did not verify the billing address. Replied to the mail with the billing address (almost the same, just couple of extra spaces - may fail automated verification process, but can't everybody in Dublin knows it's the same address). Send another request to verification using web site form.  
 
12/09/2006 - got reply from verification that the bank did not answered yet (THE MONEY WAS TAKEN A WEEK AGO!). sent another mail with bank details.  
 
15/09/2006 - Got a reply from verification that the bank did not answered yet, suggesting me wiring the money. I spoke to the bank - bank said that if the credit card is charged that means billing address is correct. They also suggested not to wire the money. I also sent large email to customer support asking them for advice (enquiry no INQ279616) still no answer.  
 
18/09/2006 - no reply for my letter from customer support. Impossible to get through to them on the phone (waited 5 times for 20 mins - no joy).  
 
Tried to phone customer support for a week, couple of times a day - no joy at all. If you wanna talk to customer support be prepared to spend more than 20 minutes on the phone.  
 
Questions:  
Question 1: why wasn't I informed that there was a problem with verification?  
Question 2: why was money taken _before_ verification finished up?  
Question 3: Bank told me if the transaction was accepted, then the billing address was also verified. Why there is an additional verification process?