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?  

Warning to anyone considering using this company!!! B& H have incredibly poor customer service. They have taken it upon themselves to be the Internet Police for all purchases through their store. My first purchase experience was extremely painful. Their verification department couldn’t manage to get a message through to me. Apparently, phone communication was the only means acceptable. It’s hard to catch me at home when I’m at Work!!! They didn’t bother to leave a message on my answering machine let me know something needed to be done. After wondering why my order had not arrived, I contact B&H to discover the Validation Department. To finally satisfy them, I had to email them a copy of my driver’s license. Because I did not have access to a fax machine, I had to expose my personal info in an unsecured email communication. How’s that for risky?  
 
A later purchase was during a Jewish Holiday. I confirmed the order knowing that I would have to wait two weeks. A day later, I found the same deal through a company was actually open, so I tried to cancel the order. Unfortunately, you can’t do that via their website. So I called and left messages with their customer support department. I followed that up with an email message to make sure the order was cancelled. I called in early on the first day B&H was back live and what do you know, they had already shipped my order. So I end up eating the shipping, there and back. I believe I also paid a restocking fee!!!  
 
You would think I would have learned my lesson by now. Regretfully, I placed another order this past Tuesday (8/22/2006) with overnight shipping. Being an experience B & H customer, I knew that something would hold this order up, so I checked their website for order status on Wednesday. Sure enough the order had not been shipped. I called in and found that the Verification department decided to hold up the order because this was the first time I shipped to my work address. No call, no email, no nothing. They released my order after talking to me. Their only question was if I was authorized to receive packages at the designated location. The customer support rep assured me that the package would be delivered Thursday morning. This morning, I check their website just to make sure. Again I found that my order’s status has not changed. I call customer support and they tell me that the order was released too late in the day for overnight delivery and mention something about a power outage! I cancelled the order.  
 
If you decide to purchase from B&H be prepared. Order way in advance. Contact them to get your order released from the Internet Police. Pre-validate any shipping address you might use. Check your account to verify that your order was actually shipped. Or… Just go to another company and save yourself the headache. Consider yourself warned.

Placed an order on 8/4...Was scheduled to ship on 8/14, but didn't. Then on 8/15 I see that the UPS page says there's something wrong with the address. Upon closer inspection I realize I had put in the wrong zip code. No one contacted me about this and I had to initiate all the phone calls myself. In the end I couldn't even buy a new one to ship to me and have them refund the old one because the rebate had expired. Now I have to wait another 2-3 weeks for it to ship to NY and THEN back to me in CA.  
 
Edit: After posting this review, BHPhoto was kind enough to contact me about the situation and attempt a re-route of my package. But after the first few days of e-mail correspondence, suddenly I get no contact. No one tells me the package failed to re-route I had to make the phone call once again. And now for some reason they are rejecting their own order preventing me from getting a refund. Customer Service seems to not "assure" you something is going to happen when nothing ever does.

This review was modified by its author, dds14u, on 8/26/06 5:15 PM.

I have had quite a time making this order. I tried to use Paypal and though I have ordered from this merchant many times in the past and have even used paypal those times I have never in my life had so much trouble trying to get someone to take nearly $600 from me. I called the store itself and spoke to several different people who just continually gave me the same broken record answer that I had tried time and time again and did not work. They were very unhelpful. I finally had to spend more money to get it sent to my PO BOX. I must say that I am indeed a very dissatisfied customer. It is questionable as to whether I will be ordering from this merchant again. For the same price as what they ended up charging me in shipping minus all the hassle I can buy my equipment elsewhere. I have been trying to make this order for 3 weeks! That is absolutely unacceptable in my book.

I cannot tell if this camera is used or not, when I turned it on, the picture count was 214, it was not in the shrink wrap, and the small strap was missing. The camera works fine, and I have not had a problem with it.

This review was modified by its author, kc7199, on 6/13/06 7:53 AM.

I have heard rave reviews about B&H & placed an order as above.  
Where they failed me was their credit card verification I need as an International customer (based in Thailand).  
I followed the process they publish on their web for verification but that is not all they need. They also need to speak to someone at your bank to verify your credit card. I don't know of any other Internet vendor that demands this.  
 
A bit of a problem with a Thai bank in a time zone 12 hours different!  
B&H would accept no other method of verification, despite several attempts on my part &, in fact, I found them v bureaucratic in their approach.  
So I've cencelled the order & will go to Adorama.

I actually last did business with B&H Photo Video in November, 2004. In February, 2006, somebody made a fraudulent purchase using my information from B&H Photo Video in February, 2006 for a camera lens, sent it to my residence, purchased a return label and pickup from my residence (overwriting the lable which I affixed to the package for UPS return), therefore making the package return go to a 3rd-party rather than to B&H. B&H knows about this scam - they're the ones who explained to me how it works. Even knowing this, they're refusing to refund the money which they charged to my account. They're profiting from this scam, even if they're not a part of it.  
 
Don't do business with B&H if you value the security of your credit card information.

I ordered a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 II film scanner and paid 95.50$ for the international shipping. The shipping is suppose to take 5-7 business days using USPS Global Express Mail. It has been almost 4 weeks and the item did not arrive yet! I contacted customer service through email and their response was that it might take between 2-6 weeks!  
 
This is not what I anticipated while placing my order, it clearly says "5-7 days" on their web site. Due to this reason, I missed a deadline to publish photos that I was suppose to scan with the ordered scanner. This is my first order from them and I was expecting a better service, now I will have to think twice before ordering from B&H Photo-Video-Pro Audio again.  
 
Update:  
 
I received the package this morning, it arrived at the customs on the 15th of April. That is approximately 40 days from the day of shipping, not 5-7 days as I was expecting.

This review was modified by its author, Prodigy, on 4/18/06 2:04 AM.

I ordered a camera stand from them and the column was misshipped. I repeatedly asked them to send a replacement but they refused until they got the part back from where they sent it. They made the mistake and I should not have been made to wait. Finally, after a month and a half and many emails and phone calls, I got the missing part. I didn't even get an apology. This is unacceptable service.

this was the second time i ordered the same headphones from this dealer, the first ones were defective.. To my utter disgust, the headphones they sent me back had the excact same issue! The left driver was loose and rattled. When brought to the attention of customer service, their response was lacking to say the least. They basically said send it back and maybe buy it locally instead, when i've spent countless thousands of dollars at their store.

This review was modified by its author, emil_s, on 3/28/06 5:56 PM.

the search engine is horrible. Processing time is long. Many items are out of stock. shipping process takes too long. Asked them question about placing order with a reabate check, got three different answers which none of them actually worked  
Sales rep Angelor just accepted the order , charged my credit card and hung up. Got to call customer service again to clarify the details about applying the refund check.  

This review was modified by its author, vovkinson, on 8/26/08 12:24 PM.

I ordered some AKG K26P headphones from B&H, expecting a pretty reliable purchase judging from its reviews here at ResellerRatings. I received this package today, and ordrered it over TWO WEEKS ago. It wasn't painless either.  
So I placed the order and received confrimation of the order on a Monday, and after periodically checking throughout the week, my order never went past "Processing". I didn't want to seem too paranoid so I gave them a few days to contact me. It came to Friday and I still had heard nothing. I decided to call Customer Service, but they close at 1pm (I was ready to call at 1:20)! I understand this is partially my fault I guess, but their limited hours makes it hard to contact them. So I emailed them, inquiring what was wrong with the processing.  
On the following Monday, I get a response that they are denying my credit card. Keep in mind I had to contact them to get this information (their notification was a response to my email). Though I have done this successfully with other online orders, I wasn't completely surprised considering I was using a Gift Card from a large bank (Basically a credit card with a limited, prepaid balance). So I call customer service and get someone who talks so fast I can't understand; in addition, he is crass and unfriendly (the first words are not even a hello, just a blunt inquiry of my order number). He asked for the billing address and of course it was denied. After a few minutes of utter confusion, I was able to freely speak, and explain that the gift card is not tied to an address, trying to describe the concept of the card (You'd think a reasonably large company has come across these cards, seriously!). I gave him the number of the bank and within 10 minutes on hold it was approved. Finally.  
Ok so after packaging, my package was shipped on that Wednesday (they were closed on Tuesday, I have no idea why but they do it often). I specified UPS 3-5 Day shipping, and the target date was supposed to be that Friday. Ok by me...and as Friday reached the afternoon my tracked package says: THE APARTMENT NUMBER IS MISSING OR IS INCORRECT. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION. Umm...ok? I live in an apartment but clearly specified it on my order. Now the rest is just basically UPS not being able to process and deliver until Monday...but why was there an address problem? I am just speculating, but it seems clear it was some error by B&H providing the information, as my invoice "Ship to" address has NO APARTMENT NUMBER! Thanks again B&H!  
Well, I am happy I finally got this product (it works fine, so at least I don't have to send it back).  
In conclusion, while my order may have been reasonably complicated with the "Gift Credit Card" and the fact that I live in an apartment (sorry), I still don't understand why customer service has to be so limited and (in my experience) not friendly and satisfying AT ALL! I had to contact them every time there was a problem (keep in mind I gave them 5 days from order to notify me). Finally, though the gift card kind of asked for problems, I've used them in other instances and had perfect ordering processes. You'd think I wasn't the first one to use one of these! I'm sure this company is great and painless as long as you don't have to deal with customer service (or, apparently, live somewhere other than a house). I will credit they finally complied and the order was smooth besides these complications, but I am quite dissatisfied with this one, thankfully I wasn't in a hurry to get the package.

Had major problems with billing, company would not ship to a different address then my billing address. They required me to modify my billing address to match the shipping address to process the order.  
 
In addition to this, I chose the 'white glove' shipping, and they did not do what they said would be done. Their site says that I would be contacted when the order was close to being delivered to schedule delivery, which did not happen. I only found out that the order was in town by contacting them, and getting the shipping information directly from them and then contacting the shipping company directly.