"Samys.....always great service"

"Everything was excellent all around. I am very satisfied."

"Always purchase from stores unless I can't make it in. Where the website has a wider product assortment & delivers fast and free."

"First off. i went to Samys in Culver City. got what i needed and went home realized that i forgot my wallet there and right in the morning i called and they told me my wallet was there. Was sooo happy that they found it. came in to pick it up and found that $400 was missing from the wallet. talked to the manager and everyone there. they said that it was a customer that (found) my wallet and bring it to them! (which was on the check out counter) that was BS. for once if it was a customer they would take all the money not just half or not take anything at all! never went back again. went to the one on fairfax cant find anyone to help me. soo now im looking online at the site. saw something really important thought everyone should know... the price on an open box is the same as a brand-new one!!!! they do said that it might not comes with everything original packaging lmfao!!! same price... really??? btw... i did bought a lens there 18-200mm called in first and they told me $600 went there they said $800 but walk out of there for the price someone told me over the phone which is $600!"

"The store employees at Fairfax are rude, openly hostile, and will absolutely refuse to sell you a camera if they don't like the looks of you. That's if you're lucky enough to get someone to talk to you. In LA, there are only two opinions of Samy's: The minority position is, "Oh, it's the greatest camera store on earth," but the majority position seems to be, "I hate that f-ing place and will never step foot in there again." And that includes most of the professional photographers I know.

I reluctantly accompanied a friend there this summer - he's a staff photographer for a major media conglomerate and he just got a fat bonus, and he was going to impulse buy a Leica M9 for no other reason than he always wanted one, and he was tired of carrying around his gigantic Canon bazooka. He was based in New York, and had never been to Samy's, but someone told him if he was gonna buy a Leica in LA, he had to go to Samy's, and they'd help him quickly master the use of his new camera. I told him we'd be in and out of the store in 15 minutes, with no camera in hand. We were in and out of there in about 6.5 minutes, and without a camera.

He told three salesmen, "I'd like to purchase a Leica M9, and I need some advice on lenses." We were ignored by the first one, the second one asked, "Do you have any idea what the camera body alone costs?", and the third said "Why do you need a Leica? What could you possibly do with that that you can't do with a Canon Rebel T4. You just don't buy a Leica because you're going on vacation or to take snapshots of your cat. You need to do some more research, bud." And then he just walked away.

I have walked into Samy's four times to buy a camera, each time knowing the exact model I wanted, and I have never been able to complete a transaction with those wackos. I can hardly imagine their online business is any better since they only grudgingly have an online store that will never have the status of B&H.

My friend ended up getting a Leica X1 instead, and bought it on Amazon with free overnight shipping and no sales tax."

"Purchase camera at a great price online. Got a call about 1 hour later to verify that I had placed the order (expected up-sell but didn't get any of it). Camera and bonuses arrived as expected. Don't know what all the complaints are about."

"I bought I nikon d300 from samys off Fairfax saleman also sold me 5yr warranty. He said at any time before 5 yrs I can being back the d300 for full price upgrade for new camera I asked him if I understand this correctly he said yes it would be on there computer files. I drive 200mile to get a run around they would not validate the warranty saleman sold me. Only thing they offered to do was to buy it from me for $300 or sale it on ebay........best of all if it was broken they would send it out to be fix...but no upgrade Thats it. Like to know who putting the money in their pocket for warranty that don't exist. I going to the b.b.b filing a clam. PS. I had 25k in pocket to buy more camera gear just lost all my business. If I spent the $ first they might have remember this warranty they sold me +BS.xx"

"I went to order the Nikon D800 which they said they had in stock. This was my first order with Samy's Camera. I placed the order, credit card went through, and received a call almost 2 hours later stating that since I was a first time customer, I didn't pass their security (even though my credit card had been approved) and I needed to pay via PayPal or Wire transfer, I said we could try I different card, but under no circumstance was I going to do a wire transfer and I didn't have a PayPal that I could use for the purchase. They said there were no other options. I told them to cancel the order which they did, however when I went to another business to purchase the item, my credit card was rejected because the Samy's charge and cancelation flagged my credit card account. They didn't seem to care if I wrote a bad review, they already had several they said. I'm thinking they really don't want to stay in business if they will easily give up a 3k order without a blink. Take your business elsewhere. "

"I just ordered a Nikon D800 and lens from Samy's Camera yesterday for overnight delivery. Received an e-mail from them with the purchase information listing the items and price, etc. The payment was to be processed using my Discover Card.

Just now, I received an e-mail from Samy's that because this was my first purchase with them, I would have to use an alternate form of payment - either Paypal or wire transfer.

As a follow-up, I just looked at my Discover Card account and see that Samy's has submitted a charge for the full amount of the camera purchase, even though they say I have to use another form of payment. So now I have to wait until they remove the "pending" charge so I can purchase the camera from another site.

What morons! (Of course just about EVERY merchant does this, which is incredibly infuriating!)

This is just BS so I'm taking my business elsewhere and I would suggest others do the same! "

"Bought a lens and returned it. Took FOREVER for them to process my refund. 30+ minute on hold time in the middle of the day on a Thursday before I even got a hold of anyone. Was not informed of the 15% restocking fee when I asked for a RMA - had they told me that I'd have kept it since the price has gone up.

The first guy I initially spoke to was a rock star, but later didn't want to be bothered by my once a week emails.

Oh well will stick with B&H."

"I got a good deal from samy's camera. I had read the reviews' of samy and they were not so good. I was not sure if I should get it from samy's or not. I decided to try my chance and I am so happy that I did that. I got my camera four days after I ordered it and I am happy with doing business with samy's."

"I ordered over a holiday weekend and because of that they were slow to process my order and the website didn't provide much feedback. Because the item (a hard to find camera) was listed as out of stock almost as soon as i'd ordered it I figured I might be in trouble. I wasn't. I called and they apologized for the slow shipping and overnighted my camera for free! The guy said an issue was that they were expanding and it took time to catch up. He was very friendly on the phone and I ended up being satisfied. The camera is great and the guys was nice. I think a real problem is that they still aren't set up to handle the volume of orders that might come in over a holiday weekend and that the website doesn't give good status updates. The customer service made up for that though. "

"Frustrating experience with fraud verification, but ultimately they found a solution."

"Was trying to find a rare Canon super telephoto lens. I called every big operator in the US or checked their websites. No one had it. Then I found Samy's Camera. One Samy site said they had none and the other said two. So I called. The gal, after checking inventory, said that they had one. So I ordered it expecting that this was a ruse to hold me on a line until they got one in. But what the heck, I decided to give Samy's a try. But it arrived right away, Fed Ex, with free shipping! Couldn't belive it. Didn't spend a lot of time on the telephone waiting. Thought they had good service. The only downside is that they don't have an order tracking system so if you are concerned, you can just log on and find out what's happening. But once they ship, they do send a tracking number."

"I've been looking for a particular film camera and Samys.com happened to have it in stock and in the exact camera I wanted. It was an easy site to navigate and FAST shipping! Love my new Lomography camera!!"