1/5

posted Feb-28-2008

"Sadly I didn't know about resellerratings.com BEFORE I became another of a seemingly endless line of abused customers... Much like others have reported, I received a phone call the morning after placing my order online, ostensibly to "confirm my shipping address". Once that was done I was asked "what KIND of extended warranty, batteries, etc I wanted". Of course I wanted none and trying to remain polite, asked whether they actually had the camera I ordered in stock - as listed on their website. Iwas told that theyu did and that it would ship "right away" and oh yes, there is an additional $20 charge for shipping insurance.
Since the guy had confirmed that they had the camera I ordered in stock, and the price seemed reasonable, and I had already read the extent to which others had NOT received their orders, I decided not to argue over the extra $20.
Package arrived three or four days later and included a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CAMERA, a cheap tripod and AA batteries. The invoice was for the amount of the camera I actually ordered plus the $20 "insurance" charge all rolled into one and written up as though I had actually ordered all this other crap!

I'm still waiting on my credit card co. to send me a dispute form and in the meantiome I requested an RMA # to return this other stuff. The woman I spoke to re: returns told me quite matter-of-factly that the camera I ordered is no longer available - though it is still listed as "in stock" on their site today! - so they sent me this other "package". In order to get an RMA# I am supposed to sign a form that specifies that all returns are subject to a 15% restocking fee - presumably including items that were never ordered.

What boggles my mind is that I've now read dozens of similar stories, written to the NY attorney general as many others have already done, and these people are still not in jail!

I've made hundreds of purchases online, many for expensive and delicate equipment, and never encountered such blatant criminality before.

Needless to say they never sent me an RMA number since I wrote on their form that I would not pay any restocking fee for merchandise I never ordered.

So now I'm waiting to see how well the credit card co will protect my interests.

The only good thing to come out of this is to have discovered this site - resellerratings.com.

Much appreciated."

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1/5

posted Mar-13-2009

"INITIAL REPORT (1 OF 2)
I place about 3-5 orders a week from merchants through websites. At least half of these are new to me. So I'm speaking from experiance when I say my experiance with FotoConnection was very bizarre. I submitted the order through the website, which is standard. Then I checked my email today ( two days later ) and saw two emails from them, both sent today telling me to call them and verify I placed the order with them. I called them immediately, the time was 5:13pm Eastern Time Zone according to http://time.gov. The voice recording said they are closed, even though their hours on Fridays (which is today) are given in the email: Sunday and Friday
10:00 AM EST - 6:00 PM EST Time. So there has already been a delay in this order about a half a week which is unacceptable. The item was not even expensive - only $158. I'd rather pay $20 more, which is what I'm about to do, and order it from a reputable company.


FOLLOWUP REPORT (2 OF 2)
I was able to cancel my order without any charges, but I believe my personal information was compramised because of this order.

It took 6 calls to finally cancel the order. The first 3 calls I was put on hold with music for my "personal representative" Victor who never picked up. I then repeatedly called and insisted I cancel my order to the initial phone answerer who finally transferred me to a new rep.

After submitting my first review to this website regarding my experience with FotoConnection I have received sales emails from "Calvin from Fotoconnection.com", who I NEVER dealt with, and whose email address is calvin@eshopperpro4.com where there is NO WEBSITE AT ALL (http://eshopperpro4.com returns 403 FORBIDDEN!). Additionally the party who registered this domain has chosen to block the public from seeing the registrant's information in the Whois database, evidenced by InterNICs BLANK entry for this domain:
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=eshopperpro4.com&type=domain.
This domain is also not included in the information collected by NY BBB: http://search.newyork.bbb.org/reports.aspx?id=79450
Why would a company send me a legitimate email from a person I never dealt with from a very suspicious domain? They wouldn't. My hypothesis is FotoConnection transferred my information to a malicious third party opperating in the personal information market; this third party then contacted me ("Calvin") hoping I'd respond, which would verify my email address and green-flag my information on their list. As an internet security specialist, I am very aware of such practices.

Obviously I did not respond to the email. I will never deal with these people again. I'll also be reporting my information compramised to my credit card company and requesting a replacement account first thing in the morning at breakfast. Working with FotoConnection has been a singularly unique experience for me and probably the worst online ordering experience I'm likely to have for at least a decade. "

This review was modified by dack on March 23 2009 10:46:48 PM

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1/5

posted Mar-22-2009

"This company goes beyond bait and switch with their deceptive tactics. First the did the thing that is being done by all too many low price sellers: In order to complete the order that you placed online you must call an confirm the product. At this time you are offered a number of high-margin add-ons. I believe the seller probably lied to me when he said the BenQ SP820 that I was purchasing from them would come with only a 500 hour bulb instead of the usual 2,000 hour bulb and that I could upgrade (for a price) or buy bulb insurance (again for a price). When I declined that and other offers the salesman politely said that was fine. Three weeks later when I called them about my projector they told me they had been having trouble with their supplier and that they could get the projector from another supplier at a higher price. They had no idea when the projector from the original supplier might arrive ... two weeks, three weeks, maybe more. I cancelled the order and ordered the product from another seller from whom it arrived within a week."

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3/5

posted Mar-20-2009

"update to review below: a representative called after the review below was posted and was very sincere and apologitic. he spoke to those involved and noted that he will attempt making improvements to the experiences that I had. it is very respectable that he took the time to discuss it with me. my ratings will be slightly increased to reflect this.

Avoid this seller!!! I can't go into enough detail on here but to summarize: very poor response time, poor communication, unhelpful staff, complete lies regarding products and availability. It took 2-3 weeks (after trying to upsell, substitute, etc) before I was able to get them to cancel the entire order. Very unsafe merchant to deal with based on their truthfulness and helpfulness!"

This review was modified by riverae on March 20 2009 01:39:07 PM

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1/5

posted Jul-02-2008

"Two words: Stay away!

My fault...I almost always check resellerratings but didn't this time. Wish I had, as these guys are bait and switch artists.

I checked my order 3x before submitting. I thought it very strange that all I got was an Internet Invoice number, not an order sheet of what I ordered.

Think about it, how many times have you purchased something over the Internet and NOT gotten a product information/order sheet?

I ordered a digital camera which they shipped without a name attached. Since it went to a college mail room, it was very difficult for my daughter to get the package and took multiple phone calls to sort out.

This was a minor event, however. They featured a "buy one-get one free" weekend special on memory cards for the camera which I ordered. The price they were asking was strataspherically high for a single 1gb card. For two, it was a so/so deal. I ordered it only so that my daughter would have memory cards when she got the camera and could use it. Otherwise, I would have purchased them from someone else.

When the camera showed up with only one memory card, I e-mailed customer service. The only reply I got was "Closed". When I sent a second e-mail, that was changed to "Contact customer service via phone."

Notice the trend here...they don't want to leave a paper trail. no invoice, no returned customer service e-mail from their customer service site.

After 10 min on hold the customer service rep basically told me: "You have to pay full price to get two for one. You got a good deal..a discount, then quoted me something like $154 for a single 1gb SD digital memory card at full price.

These guys are BAD news. Everything you've heard about the shady characters in the NYC photo business applies.

The reason they had to close this forum to new posts is because of "bogus" thumbs ups on FotoConnection being posted...go figure who is doing that."

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1/5

posted Mar-20-2009

"Terrible... ordered on Friday, told will ship on Monday. 1 week later called, told it had not been in stock (showed in stock when ordered, and still does) but will ship next day. Got a tracking number, told it was shipped twice, but it didn't, all they did was print a label. 2 weeks later, still not received. They just lied all the way thru."

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1/5

posted Mar-08-2009

"On 8 January 2009 I ordered a Lens for my camera from FotoConnection.com. A couple of days later I recieved a phone call wanting to upsell me on several things. I finally agreed to the USA model of the Lens I had ordered and thought all was well. NOT!

I paid extra for three day shipping, a week went by with no word and no lens, I contacted them and they said it would be drop shipped by Nikon because it was back-ordered. THREE WEEKS later, I get a box in the mail. In it is another smaller plain cardboard box, my lens, without lens or butt cap was wrapped in bubble wrap and rolling around inside the box. Since this was my first experience with buying a lens, I had no clue that this was not correct until I talked to my sister who is a photographer.

I was blown away that when I called they said at FIRST, they would replace the lens caps, AND send me a three piece filter kit. However, before that phone conversation was over, they renegged and said that I should buy the caps locally and they would send me A lens filter for my trouble. NOT acceptable.

Over the next week and a half I emailed them with no response, I finally called back and they denied having recieved my email. I Re-sent the email at that time and he recieved it while I was on the phone with him. I explained that I wanted a NEW Lens, IN the original box, WITH Lens cap and butt cap and that I also wanted the three piece filter kit for my trouble. After much discussion, he finally agreed. He also agreed to refund the shipping costs for me to ship back the first lens and filter.

At this time, I have recieved a new lens and a three piece filter kit, but have not been refunded the shipping and have NO IDEA if I have the USA model for which I paid an Additional $50.

I would like to be refunded the $32 shipping I paid, the $10 three day shipping I paid for the original lens and I would like to know if I recieved the USA model. I don't believe I did and since that is the case, I want my $50 difference back. This lens is NOT marked ANYWHERE on it as a USA lens.

_________________________________________________

Ok, so FotoConnection asked me to update this. They finally refunded the 49.99 for the USA Upgrade, however, they did NOT refund the shipping as promised. They did give me a 3 pack UV filter. Big whoop. So, I am still out the shipping for the used lens they originally sent me. I am never ordering from this company again. THey also tried to twist my arm into rating them and me as very satisfied. NOT gonna happen at this point. Buyer Beware!"

This review was modified by Designing1 on May 20 2009 12:14:38 PM

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1/5

posted Jan-17-2008

"Dear Sirs:
Kindly reference: Order 258030, November 29, 2007, and Order 264501, December 10, 2007


On December 10, 2007, I purchased a Silver Sony H9 digital camera from FotoConnection (FC). The camera was charged to my American Express credit card. The sale was conducted over the telephone. After the initial sale, another high-pressure salesman got on the line and tried selling me the works. A five-year warranty was first offered at $129.00. After my two refusals at lower prices, I was offered the warranty for $49.00. I ordered the five-year warranty. The salesman was very specific about a $9.95 shipping charge. When asked how much it was to insure the shipment, he quoted me $8.00. He then said that the battery that came with the camera would only last for 15 minutes, and I would need to upgrade the battery, at a cost. At that point I lost confidence in the credibility of FC. When I then told the salesman to cancel my order he offered to include the long life battery at no cost, and would ship the camera Priority Mail at no extra charge. This camera comes from the factory with a long life rechargeable battery. At the time of the sale FC offered a free camera carrying bag, a table tripod, and a lens cleaning kit. I was not sent an invoice. I therefore checked my American Express account, finding I had been overcharged by $24. There was no sales tax. I called FC and asked them to itemize the billing. The camera price was as quoted. The warranty was $20.00 more than quoted, and the shipping insurance was $4.00 more than quoted. I have received an invoice, but the individual item costs were never itemized. It was too late to cancel my order, so I ate the $24 in charges.

True to their word the camera arrived within a week. The problem was that the camera body was black in color, and I ordered silver. FC offered to exchange the camera, but the transaction would take longer than four weeks, and I would have to pay return shipping. FC then offered me a $25.00 gift certificate if I accepted the black-bodied camera. I took their offer figuring it was a swap for the $24.00 overcharge. When I tried to fit the camera in the provided free case the camera was too large for the case. FC claimed they never advertised the size of the case. They never offered to exchange the case for one of suitable size. I have since found that the silver body was a farce. Sony claims the silver camera is only offered for sale through Sony Corporation.

On December 10, 2007 I ordered a larger carrying bag for the camera. I applied my FC Gift Certificate to the purchase. After an attempt to charge me postage, I had to reminded the salesperson that free shipping was offered for this item. My FC account shows a December 10 Order Number 26501 as “verified”, with no action since the order date. My American Express credit card was billed $14.00 on December 10. The bag was $39.00, less the $25.00 Gift certificate. This item was in stock. I have called on three occasions to find when the item was shipped. On each occasion I was given a different shipping date. I was also told that I would receive an email with a tracking number. I have never received the tracking number, and still not received the camera case.

FC does not appear to have good business ethics or creditability. It seems like they have no intent of honoring the Gift Certificate. I ask for your assistance in having them honor the sale. Having the $14.00 returned is not an acceptable solution. I sent this letter to FC. Their response was to cancel my order for the large camera bag.

If I have not received the camera case by January 10, 2008 this article will appear on my URL, alphabetically listed to appear in the vicinity of your Google search. Needless to say, American Express will also be asked to intervene.

"

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1/5

posted Feb-18-2005

"straight up bait and switch Brooklyn grey market.

They will not give you the price you see on the net, they'll call to pressure you to "upgrade" to the US version, which in most cases is just the product itself, and if you do bite, and buy the product from them, customer service is a guy who bounces you into one voice mail box after another, then hangs up.

Leaves you feeling like you need to wash your hands after talking to them.

Don't buy here. "

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1/5

posted Apr-07-2009

"They are horrible. I ordered a camera back on march 25th. I got a call the next day and they tried to sell me add-ons. I declined and was told the camera would ship that day. I called today (2 weeks later) since I didn't receive the camera and was told the product was gray market and now unavailble - if I wanted the US product I had to pay $100 more. since this is an overdue gift I begrudgingly agreed. I was told order would ship within a few hours. I just checked - order still not sent. Went on line hundreds of e-mails saying this company is a scam - I just cancelled my order. don't waste your time."

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