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.

I ordered two Nikon lenses, including a "Nikon USA" 135 mm f/2,8. I first received a confirmation that my order was ready for shipping, then I was informed that the 135 mm was not available, yet I finally received the two lenses, which arrived quickly BTW.  
 
Unfortunately, the 135 mm lens was found to be defectuous "out of the box" : a small piece of metal with the shape of a triangle of about 1 by 1,5 mm being "prisonner" well inside the various glass elements of the lens, and definitely staying immobile at the same spot. Obviously a manufacturing defect of the lens which did look brand new, and one which probably for some reason fooled the production line control at Nikon factory. Very surprising and unusual, but that sort of things can happen.  
 
After some difficulties (no reply to my emails in particular), I was given a return N° and a promise that the return shipping cost would be reimbursed. That finally looked like good after sales service.  
 
Yet, things were difficult since I had the lenses shipped to my place in France, and I had naturally already paid the local custom and VAT, invoiced by UPS at 125,61 Euros for the 135 mm. Also, this 135 mm is among the 35 mm products which Nikon announced a month ago they definitely stop manufacturing.  
 
I shipped back the lens, which was not too easy, and with the tracking N° I could know when it was back in BH Photo Video hands. This was good, because BH Photo Video ignoring my various emails again, it was difficult to hear from them that they had the lens back, and I never had any confirmation or appreciation about the defect.  
 
Now, my big worry is that this lens is no more manufactured, and now appears as "back ordered" or "out of stock" with every resseler, including BH Photo Video. And, in spite of my various emails and phone calls, they are unable to answer the KEY QUESTION : "Please, beyond what you can read on your computer, what are the REAL chances that this lens will actually be back in stock". I am desperatly trying to pass this message, but they obviously don't understand it or merely ignore it.  
 
Now, if eventually they don't get the lens, they will refund me for sure, but I will have paid 125,61 Euros for nothing and not counting the original shipping cost, and it will be by then definitely too late to buy the lens from a different source.  
 
What I find very difficult with BH Photo Video is the carelessness of their "Customers Service". I have quite a few emails which never had replies, promises from their sales men given by phone which are not held. So, I decided to contact directly by fax the "Customers Service" Manager, a certain Mr. Mike Engel as I was told (with a copy being sent to a well known photography magazine), hoping I would finally get some attention from the service.  
 
Unfortunately I was not. Yet, the positive thing was that I was informed by an anonymous person from the Customers Service that the refund of my shipping cost had finally been done. This is definitely good news, although I am not sure this would have been done if there had not been the copy to the magazine. But, BH Photo Video seems to definitely ignore the obvious problem of the lens availability, and its serious consequences for me if they cannot send a replacement one.  
 
I believe they could probably still get a replacemnt 135 mm from Nikon USA, even if the stock situation of this product may be tight now : I suppose that Nikon USA could probably prove to be helpful to them in this regard, in view of the very unusual problem found with the lens. But, BH Photo Video biggest effort in this respect seems to be just looking at their computer's screen, which says imperturbably "back ordered".  
 
A month has already passed, and in spite of all my efforts, it seems more and more likely that, as a result of their inefficiency, I will loose 125,61 Euros, and at the same time any hope of getting that so much sought after 135 mm lens.  
 
A most frustrating and time consuming experience so far...  
 
UPDATE :  
I regreat Mr Posner somewhat aggresive/mocking tone. His "now-antiquated manual focus AIS lens" terms seem irrelevant.  
 
"He will NOT be out any money" : he forgets I WOULD LOOSE 125,61 EUROS if the lens is refunded instead of replaced.  
 
BTW the lens covered by Nikon USA guarantee is supposed to be repaired/replaced if faulty.  
 
"B&H has at every inquiry responded to cooljd's e-mails" : sorry, this was definitely not so !  
 
Had a first excellent experience with BH PhotoVideo (smooth & VERY fast) but you are OK it seems IF you don't meet a problem. Maybe good service basically but Customers Service lags behind.  
 
Hopped for a more objective/constructive reply. Mr Posner answer seems to do little more than confirming my observation that BH Photo Video do not listen to customers.  
 
Will check myself if Nikon USA can provide the lens to BH PhotoVideo, specially in view of the unusual defect found. Too difficult for them ? But "I" have little choice.  
 
If Mr Posner could help in providing a phone N° for Nikon USA, I would sincerely be very grateful (honest) to him.

This review was modified by its author, cooljd, on 3/7/06 2:08 PM.

I received a catalog from B&H Photo on Friday, Feb. 10th 2006. In this catalog was a 56" HDTV listed for $1995.00 which I was interested in. I called B&H Photo where the price was confirmed by the sales agent and the order was placed. With shipping the amount came to $2269.75. My order confirmation arrived via email with the order CONFIRMATION NUMBER 161993810. The amount of $2269.75 was charged to my bank account. The transaction was complete.  
 
The next day, Tuesday Feb. 14th I received an email from B&H informing me that they had made a mistake and the price was $1000 more.  
 
I tried contacting B&H about this issue but was given the "run around" several times. I left a message on the voice mail for the sales manager. This message was never returned.  
 
This price of $1995 was quoted not only by their catalog and web site but also by the sales agent that took my order. I was quoted this price THREE TIMES.  

Buyer Beware  
 
I bought a Kenwood surround sound system from them, IT WAS USED AND DID NOT WORK, yet then tried to pawn it off as a new one, it even had an old DVD disc still in the player. Tried twice to call and get returned but they do not follow thru.