Stargatephoto - You won't believe this!

[Jana1506]

I just had the most disturbing experience with www.Stargatephoto.com. I totally ignored my husband's advice to purchase from a reputable merchant and went to this cheap site I found. I ordered my camera and everything seemed fine until I got a call about an hour ago from Stargatephoto wanting to confirm my order. Well, turns out they did not only want to confirm my order but pressure me into purchasing expensive, overpriced accessory and such. I told them I am not interested and that I'd just want the camera. The guy tells me, well if you buy "item X" I will upgrade to a new camera. :o Come again? New camera? Isn't this what I ordered all alone? He tells me no, it’s refurbished and if I buy the expensive accessory I'll get a new one. So I tell that guy forget about it and cancel my order. Of course I call Visa right away making sure they did not charge anything. Then I go to tell my husband what happened and he calls that guy back. The dude hangs up on my husband. Then my husband calls back again and asks why they were just trying to sell me a used camera and the dude answers "It does not say anywhere it's new, or does it?" :confused: So my husband tells him that one would expect that merchandise not labeled as "used" or "refurbished" would be considered new, especially when bought from a retail business. So that guy pretty much tells my husband to f**k off and hangs up on him again. (Really, I'm not making this up!).
I now have my camera on order with Adorama for only $20 more and I feel a whole lot better about it.

[daisyrose]

:o Thanks for the warning! I'll bet you'll be watching that Visa bill like a hawk for awhile!

[Canay]

Oh my gosh...what rotten service! It doesn't say that it is new??????? I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life!

Now what have you learned here...we should always listen to our husbands...they are always right...darn it!!!!!

[Jana1506]

Now what have you learned here...we should always listen to our husbands...they are always right...darn it!!!!!

LOL .. You crack me up! :D

[Lauren]

Funny, their "About Us" page says everything is new. I guess that's not somewhere that counts in their "anywhere". :roll: Unfortunately I've heard quite a few stories like this of the cheap Brooklyn photo places - I'm sure I read that most of them are owned by the same company so I'd just avoid the lot myself!

[diannerigdon]

%$rassle*frassle/& scammers. UGH. I am so sorry but I am glad you figured it out before you lost that money on a USED FRIGGIN CAMERA! Oh that makes me so mad.

[Jana1506]

Little update:
I wish I had done all this research before, but I just looked them up and they have a bad rep all over the web. They also sell as Wawa Digital, Accessories Land, I.N.S. Digital World, Stargate Photo, and The Camera Whiz out of
Brooklyn, New York. Not nice guys!

[Dani~B]

OMG yeah always go to the bbb.org site to check out a business you are not familiar with
I listened to dh and bought mine from B&H and even then I was antsy until I had the camera in hand. Thanks for heads up and a good PSA!

[ina]

B&H is a good site with a great reputation. I know a lot of pros order from there. Adorama is another good site, too.

Tip for next time: If you ever find a too-good-to-be-true deal on a website, always always check them out here first: http://www.resellerratings.com/

[Jezza]

That is a terrible experience :(

[abbysmommy]

Unbelievable!

[Merkeley Designs]

Oh wow Jana, I'm so glad you were able to find all that out before you ended up with a used camera. What a rotten experience and awful store.

[rsk]

Thanks for warning us Jana.

[Betsy]

With our first baby on the way, DH got it into his head we NEED a camcorder. So he started looking at digital camcorders online, and reading tons of reviews. LOTS of reviews said the same thing you just experienced, that they tried to go with a cheeper place, and then got HEAVY pressure to buy extremely overpriced accessories. And the store refusing to sell you the product you originally ordered, at the price you originally ordered it, is illegal. They'll often get around this by telling you the item is out of stock, after several high pressure phone calls to buy the accessories. This is illegal. But, most people give up and either cancel the whole order and pay more elsewhere, or give up and OK the expensive accessories.

The cheap cameras are a way to get you to their site and order, the overpriced accessories they pressure you into purchasing is where they make up the money.

[SaraAmarie]

I have heard of this happening. My DH was pretty nervous when he was ordering his camera (don't remember where), thankfully everything went well. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience!

[Jana1506]

Betsy, this is exactly what happened. This is a bait and swich operation and I fell for it. I feel so stupid. But I have learned my lesson. No more cheap balling. When it comes to electronics and such we are all better off going to a store we trust, purchasing locally is probably the best option when available.

After reading some more reviews about the Brooklyn band I also decided to cancel my credit card. You just cannot be careful enough with these people.

I've been online for nearly 10 years now and I have never had an experience like this before. I thought of myself as internet savy and smart enough to avoid scams. I'm just glad I'm not out of money because of those guys. I cannot stress enough how important it is to research a store before buying on the net. There are many store review sites, go to each one of them and read the reviews, don't stop after just one because it may be misleading.

I really hope that by posting my experience I can save someone else from having the same experience or worse get taken by one of these crooks.

[Betsy]

If you'r not out any money, you ARE one of the smart ones! Consider yourself pretty Internet savvy with a good deal of experince under your belt!

You know, in some of the reviews about camcorders that talked about these schemes/scams, they also had contacted their state attorney's general office to actually get what they ordered, at the price they ordered it. But, in your case, I don't think you're interested in refurbished goods, anyways...

[rubberduckie]

Oh I had an experience very similar, but not quite so bad when purchasing my camera. Once we decided on a make/model. We Froogled it after checking everywhere locally. We found one quite a bit cheaper than everywhere else & ordered. Then luckily, we were surfing the net a bit more, stumbled upon a review site for photo dealers & discovered this company was known for selling stripped or even grey market cameras. DH called customer service (next morning) and sure enough it was an Asian version of the camera without the standard accessory package. Luckily we were able to cancel that without too much trouble & purchased it elsewhere.
Shared the story afterward with my father, who said some of those places have been around for years. Before internet, they used to do the same type of business out of classifieds & ads in photo magazines. Hope this saves others some trouble & I hope you don't have any further trouble either.