Great experience! I felt a need to post a review since my decision to buy from US1Camera was based on reviews from this sight. I received a "Best Price" from PriceGrabber.com and was skeptical at first. I have read reviews about other vendors shipping grey market or refurbished products and did not want any part of this. US1Camera shipped me a Brand New camera with a full US Manufacturer's Warranty. I ordered on a Saturday night. I received an email indicating to call and verify order. I called and was asked a few questions about my order. The salesperson asked if I needed any accessories, I said no. That was it. It shipped on the following Tuesday and I received it on Friday. I received a UPS tracking number by email and tracked it all the way to my door. Sweet! I bought the Fuji S602 for $512 + $24.95 shipping (total: $536.95). I saved more than $200 over retail. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
This review was modified by its author, machnica, on
12/14/02 9:50 AM.
I ordered a sony trv-50 on 12/10/02 but after verification and repeated assurance that it would ship on the 13th it still did not. I cancelled the order.
I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 4300 from them and they delivered exactly as promised. I was skeptical b/c they offered an extremely low price for the camera and I was expecting to get a refurbished or non-warrantied one. With all the sketchy merchants who try to add on extra shipping or provide you with grey market merchandise, it is hard to trust someone. I am happy with them and would buy from them again.
One very minor annoyance (and this has been voiced by others), they send you a confirmation email and then a later "verification difficulties" email that requires you to call them. My order is straight forward so I'm not sure what this was about (maybe it's fraud related. Either way, they didn't push more merchandise and had straight forward answers to all my questions.
I'm very satisfied. I previously ordered the same Canon Powershot G2 from Bilibi, before I read these reviews and realized that they were one of the scam artists who cancel your order if you don't purchase overpriced accessories. So I was a little gun shy, but these guys were great. I got the usual 'call to confirm your order' where they gave me a medium sell on some things I didn't want. Then they said ok, the camera will be on it's way in a day or so, and it was. It arrived in great shape, I watched it cross the country with the UPS tracking number they provided. All warranties were US as expected, no gray market here. I'd buy from these folks again.
I purchased a Minolta DiMage 5 camera from US1Camera in June at what appeared to be a "too good to be true" price. I was thoroughly satisfied with the experience.
I called them directly to go over the details (US-model camera, brand new, full warranty), and rather than take my order over the phone, they requested I submit it via the website. OK, I did that, and received an email a few minuted later requesting I call them to confirm the order. I call and confirm, and get a very soft sell on accessories, told them I wasn't interested, and that was that. I got a shipping number the next day, package arrived a day earlier than expected, and camera was brand-new in perfect condition.
In all phone conversatiuons they seemed very friendly and very professional. No nasty sales tactics, just good products at great prices. I'm shopping for a camcorder now and will probably purchase from them again.
I purchased a Sony F717 digital camera for $799.99 plus $24.95 UPS ground shipping. I called prior to making the purchase to make sure the camera was not a refurb, return, or non-US warranty product. The pre-sales staff was friendly in answering my questions. I ordered the camera on-line and the price was the same as stated on my phone call. No other fees or charges were applied. I had heard rumor that they may charge a random “handling fee” but this was not true in my case. The camera was by far the cheapest anywhere and the price has actually gone up in the past few days (getting near Christmas time). It took a few days in-house for them to process my order and credit card info. My credit card company actually called to confirm the charge. I checked their web site every day to check the status. Some times it stated “please call to confirm your order” or “please call to expidite your order”. I did so each time to only have the customer service person tell me that everything was ok. So why did the web site tell me to call?!? One time I called they did ask if I wanted to add any accessories to my order. I said no and they didn’t hound me anymore. I did get an e-mail confirming my order and another one with my UPS tracking number. I watched as it slowly made it’s way to my house. $24.95 shipping is cheap so I didn’t expect it to be here the next day. I received the camera in it’s fully sealed retail box and it is indeed a US warranty model. Everything works great on it and I have a positive feeling about the company. I will buy from them again in the future. My only semi-complaint is their order status web page doesn’t tell you much.
I was somewhat nervous about ordering from a low price mail order company given the generally negative feedback.
However the deal went through without a single hitch - I got the usual "need to confirm your order, and by the way do you want to buy any accessories at a great price" - told them I was upgrading and already had them. Immediate response was "That's great sir - I'll make sure it goes out tonight". And it did.
When I received it (by the way I got a UPS tracking number) I checked it over and it was perfect - no fingerprints on it, no sign at all it had been taken out of the box.
I would never buy from them again. I ordered a Nikon D100 for a good price. They also said that they had a lense that I wanted but was hard to find since it was discontinued. When I received the package, the lense was backordered. I called customer service to cancel the backordered items (which also included UV filters and another lense) and they told me it was shipped but had no tracking number. I called three days later and asked a salesman when the backordered items was going to be shipped. He said they didn't have it and tried to sell me another lense for $500 more than I could get at B&H. I talked to three other people before they were willing to cancel the backordered items. I would pay a little more to buy from someone more reliable.
To help pay back others who have helped me with their reviews, I thought I’d take a few minutes and submit one about us1camera.com. I’m an amateur photographer and regularly shop online and was looking for the lowest price from an honest dealer for a Nikon Coolpix 5700. After weighing ‘too good to be true’ low prices with my natural urge to get a bargain, I finally decided on us1camera.com. My experience was actually quite good and I would recommend them to anyone. Here’s a summary of my experience:
Wednesday – 8am – Finally decide to splurge and get the 5700. Place an order online at us1camera.com. Their price was appeared to be the lowest that I could find for a USA warranty Nikon product.
Wednesday – 10:30am – Sales rep calls to confirm order. Not pushy – he does inform me of accessories and warranties, but I politely mention that this is my fourth Nikon digital and I have all of the CF cards, etc. that I need. No problem...he says it’s on the way.
Wednesday – 4pm – Get an e-mail saying that I need to call and confirm the order. “Great”, I think – here comes the bait and switch. They’re probably going to say that it’s out of stock, or there’s a delay, or who knows what else. I did have to hold for a few minutes (but it’s an 800 number, so they pay) and finally got through to a salesman. He tells me that my order has already been confirmed (see previous entry) and that they simply made a mistake by sending out the e-mail and the camera is on the way. Fair enough – we all make mistakes and I won’t hold this one against them.
Thursday – 3pm – Get another email that the order has been shipped and tracking information will be available on their website.
Friday – 8am – Tracking information is available on their website (and UPS.com) and I can watch the progress that it makes on the way to my house.
Tuesday (following) – UPS man politely brings the camera to my door. Pleasantly enough, it’s new and perfect as I expected. I could have had faster delivery for more money, but I wasn’t in a huge hurry. UPS ground was fine with me.
Bottom line -- Great price (one of the lowest) and great service. Ordered on Wednesday, delivered on the following Tuesday. Could have been faster had I paid for overnight delivery but that’s my choice.
I am planning the purchase of a video camera in the coming months and have no hesitations about buying from us1camera.com.
My online shopping experience with this company was very satisfactory. I would definitely shop with them again.
They processed and shipped my order in a timely fashion -- I placed my order after business hours (approx. 8:00PM) on a Monday evening and it shipped on the following Wednesday morning only one full business day after placing my order. I was a first-time customer too. The goods were received in fine condition only two days following that (09/26/2002). I've been very happy with the purchase of my Nikon CoolPix 5700 digital camera.
I had to contact them once via email to ask that they confirm the UPS tracking number, since it didn't show as valid when I first checked it on the UPS website. However, this was a shortcoming of UPS's abilities to update their online tracking in an efficient manner and NOT due to any incorrect information from US1Camera. The tracking number checked out fine after UPS updated their website.
Addendum: After posting this rating, I noted that the "Technical Support" rating was a 5.0. I want to clarify my responses to the Survey portion of the review process, since I don't believe that this rating accurately reflects my comments.
I specified that I had "NO" contact with Technical Support for this company. I DID contact their Customer Support via email to inquire about the UPS tracking number. Since their was no issue to resolve, I rated this as "Good" and said "DON'T KNOW" to any questions regarding rating them at dispute resolution, since I have nothing upon which to rate them for this.
It seems that Resellerratings.com has chosen to lump "Customer Service" and "Technical Support" questions from the survey into one "Technical Support" heading on the ratings page. This is misleading and should be corrected at once.
I think ResellerRatings.com could do a better job of interpreting their survey results and not require raters to go back and double check the way it's interpreted and then have to go back and explain what they really meant to prevent the wrong impression from being made on reviewers. ESPECIALLY as it relates to "Technical Support", since this is a VERY important part of the online review upon which I rely when determining whether or not I want to deal with a company. Who cares if the price is low if their Customer Service and Technical Support stinks or is impossible to deal with!
Please fix this and let us all know when it's been adjusted to accurately reflect reviewers' comments. You could do a much better job here, guys.
In order to prevent any misleading impressions from being made, I'm removing any reference in the survey to my contacts with Customer Service. I advise future raters to NOT fill out this portion of the survey, UNLESS ALL of the multiple choice values apply to your transaction. It could lead to the rest of us getting the wrong information about the company and may actually work against what you wanted to say.
It seems that removing the above references does NOT remove the bogus 5.0 rating at the top of the form.
PLEASE DISREGARD THE TECHNICAL SUPPORT RATING. IT HAS NO BONA FIDE VALUE AND WAS MISINTERPRETED BY RESELLERRATINGS.COM!!!!!
This review was modified by its author, conqueror, on
10/10/02 8:08 PM.
These guys are crooks and should be prosecuted for fraud and false advertising. They play games with orders by trying to sell overprized junk. If you don't buy it they mysteriously run out of stock. They are crooks.
This is funny - on their web site they say "Customer Service has Always Been And Will Be Our Number One Priority". Here is how it works - when you place an order on the site, they send you an automatic E-mail telling you that you still have to call it in.
The E-mail is filled with phrases like "We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for shopping at us1digital.com where your satisfaction is always guaranteed."
Importantly, neither on their web site, nor in any of the E-mails they mention whether the camera you are buying is a U.S. or International model.
Then you call. After 8-10 minutes on hold, someone says "How may I help you?". God forbid if you try and express slightest dissatisfaction with this procedure - they will simply hang up on you.
Then, after a week of waiting - no one ever communicates to you about your order status - you call again. They look up your order and tell you it's out of stock. You tell them the web site says it is and they say it's a different model - the US model is available and the International model that they say you ordered is not. You tell them you actually ordered a US one. They tell you that you are not very smart. You tell them you are not amused with being told such things. They tell you a lot more and a lot less pleasant things. You cancel the order.
I found a Minolta Dimage S404 for a ridiculously low
price of $399 on US1Digital. Nowhere on their site
does it say that this product is an import and doesn't have a warranty in the US. The site says they are IN STOCK and ship in 1-2 days. So I order it. I get an e-mail that tells me to call an confirm my internet order within 5 business days. I call the next day - they are closed for
the Jewish Holidays (not posted on the web site). I call the first day they return to work and sit on hold for quite some time. (Their recorded message says "Customer service is our number one priority" What a pile. When I do get a person, the first thing he does is tell me that the camera is backordered for at least 3 weeks. I said the info on the site said they were in stock. He says those are the US model and they cost $100 more and ship right now. I go along with this (he included a case for the camera in the price) and have my order updated. I check back on the site a few hours later to track my order. The price has changed but it hasn't shipped yet. I notice a product code on the e-invoice for the camera. I paste it into a search window on US1digital's site. The $399 camera is displayed (this is the camera I'm paying $499 for). I call to find out what's going on with this. I'm told that they can't advertise the HIGHER priced camera (WHAT???). Every other e-tailer has it on their site. I'm told that my order has shipped, but the status on my order is 'processing'. I ask for a tracking number and I'm told it takes a few days before their system is updated. It's been 3 days.. still 'processing' my order.
I called them again to find out the status on my order.
This time I went to Customer Service. It took some time for the person on the other end to get my order number correct. Once that was accomplished, I was promptly put on hold. When she returned I was told that my camera was on BACKORDER ! What??? I was told that it had shipped 2 days ago. She told me it was backordered and that she would ship it out next day air (for no additional $$) and I would have it by Friday (I'm writing this on Wednesday). I told her to cancel my order, since it had not been shipped yet. I was going to buy the camera from some other place because I was tired of them lying to me and using bait and switch tactics. She assured me that I will have my camera by Friday. I told her -- If it's not here by Friday, then I'm going to cancel my order.
My recommendation --- DON'T BUY FROM US1DIGITAL
Author's Product Rating
I too got the run around that I had to call to verify order. Listened to a 1/2 hour of high pressure sales pitches to buy higher priced accessories. Finally got them to ship me the 4 Kodak DX-3600 cameras I wanted. Shipping was high ($68.91 for a box the 4 of them) but they shipped promptly and I had plenty of time to wrap them.
I placed an order (Order No. US5115214) from US1Digital for an Olympus C-2100 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera through their website on February 24, 2002 for a total price of $484. 90.
2. On or about February 27th 2002 I received a telephone call from a US1Digital sales representative who informed me that they were out of stock for the advertised "foreign" madel C-2100 and that they had the "American" C-2100 with a warranty for only $700.
3. I told them I would wait the stated 3 -4 weeks for the restocking of the "foreign" C-2100 without a warranty, and they said that they would fill the order.
4. On or about March on or about March 14th 2002 I accessed their website and my account to try to track the order. My account indicated that the order was cancelled.
I have sent two e-mails to their sales and customer service departments asking why the order was cancelled and requested that they reinstate the order and ship me my camera for the advertised price (which is an outstanding price considering the camera normally goes for anywhere beyween $700.00 and $1400.00).
Same story, different sucker. How can the public be warned.
