I placed an order for a Canon M41 after clicking on bizrate and seeing all of the positive reviews. I started to have my doubts after a high pressure salesman tried to sell accessories at twice the general market price. I told him no I just wanted the item I ordered at the price advertised. I was told it was not in stock and they would ship it as soon as they got it 10-14 days. I've sent numerous emails back and forth and always been assured it would be shipped. My patience at an end I called again today 5/7 and was told it was not available it was discontinued the order would not be shipped. I pointed out that at the time I ordered it there were many other merchants offering that model camera. I also pointed out that you could go to their web site today and it says it usually ships in one to two days. The customer service rep responded that it doesn't say it's in stock. I pointed out the unsuspecting web customer could go through the entire ordering process at the web site and order the camera without ever being appraised that it was out of stock. That is fraudulent and misleading.
In case you wondered about all of those positive reviews. At the end of placing the order they ask you for a review of the ordering process on their web.in exchange they promise to send you some free gifts of photographic accessories. Don't believe it! You will receive nothing from this company and they will get a positive review that they can use to mislead other potential purchasers. Once you get away from the Bizrate reviews you will find all of the complains about this company.
Once you place your order with this company instead of an order confirmation you would receive from any reputable company you receive an order confirmation that says "This order confirmation does not constitute a final offer or contract. All orders are subject to management review and approval. If there is a pricing, stock error or the order is found to be invalid for any reason, the order is subject to cancellation by management."
So although you will be assured in emails or calls that your order is coming at any time they can cancel it for any reason. This prevents you from ordering from an alternate vendor since you are being assured that it will be fulfilled.
So this seems to be a scam company that designed their whole process to mislead the consumer. I do intend to notify the NY State consumer agencies in charge of monitoring fraud. It will be interesting for them to find out from ajrichies records if they ever sold any of this model camera in the January to May time period that elapsed. They may have only if you larded up your offer with all of the accessories their salesman was trying to push off on you at twice market value. Maybe they never ship the original order - only the high priced accessories. I don't know. I'll leave it to the government agencies to get to the bottom of this scam.
You are warned. Stay away.
Ted
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