1/5

posted Sep-11-2008

We bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi Digital Camera from an online retailer called EnterprisePhoto.com. We chose this company because they were selling the camera for about a hundred dollars less than the competition. The website said that it had free shipping and the camera was listed to include a battery. Everything looked good and so we ordered it.

The next day we got a phone call from EnterprisePhoto.com. They wanted to know if we wanted a battery that lasts for 2 hours or a battery that lasts for 4 hours. These batteries that they were offering us cost EXTRA on top of the price of the camera. At first they told us that the camera didn’t come with a battery and that we would need to purchase one of these extra batteries in order to use the camera. I then mentioned that the website said that it was supposed to come with a battery. Then the guy on the phone started saying that yes the camera comes with a battery but it’s only to store the settings and you cannot take any photos with it. I told the guy that I didn’t want any extra batteries, and I only wanted what we originally paid for. The guy on the phone then said that if I didn’t order the extra battery my shipment was going to take 6 to 8 weeks to arrive when it was originally supposed to be here in a few days. At this point, I just told him to cancel the order and forget about it. That’s when the guy on the phone said that we would be charged a 75 dollar cancellation fee (even though they haven’t shipped OR charged me for the product yet). This fee wasn’t listed anywhere on the website. The guy on the phone also started to get a really nasty tone with me and so I hung up on him and called the company back to speak to a manager. They finally got a manager on the phone and I told him what happened. He said that because of the trouble he would charge me the 4 hour battery for the price of the 2 hr battery. I figured I had no way out of the situation without losing money so I agreed to the offer.

When I got the package a week or so later, it didn’t include two batteries. Instead, it had one battery and I looked at the model number of the battery and it was the exact same battery that ships with the standard camera box that you would get if you bought the camera directly from Canon. It basically wasn’t a special battery at all. Upon calling Canon, I found out that they don’t even make any 2 or 4 hour batteries and they never heard of any other companies making them either. These Canon camera batteries aren’t sold or advertised as having a certain amount of time that they will stay charged.

I called EnterprisePhoto.com and spoke to another customer service rep and told him my situation. He apologized and said that he would send me that 4 hour battery as soon as possible. I then asked him for the model number of the battery that he was going to send me and it turns out that it was the same exact model number (NB-2LH) of the standard Canon camera battery that I already received in the box! I then told him this and asked him to just refund me the extra amount of money that they charged me for the battery. At this point, he told me to hold on, and put me on hold for over 40 minutes before I hung up. The battery that they were going to send me costs only about 50 dollars online and they basically charged me 135.99 for this battery that should have already came with the camera anyway.

I then promptly went to the bank and tried to get the money disputed through them. I also found out, by looking at reviews online, that this company uses these types of "bait and switch" tactics very often and they have lots of negative reviews. I wish I had read these before I ordered, but I learned my lesson that I should read the negative reviews before ordering from a new website.

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