Consumer Alert! A&M Photo World and Inoax SUCK!
We are taking a break from your regularly scheduled silly Jessica ramblings to bring you this camera buying horror story.
So I decided that since Case and I are going on a relatively inexpensive vacation this year, I would use my savings to buy us a new fancy-schmancy digital camera. Yes, we have one already but as I said the other day, it doesn’t have a zoom, etc…
I have also been having a great time taking pictures lately, as you can tell by my blog. I think it will be so much fun for Casey and I to look back at this point in our lives and have a photographic timeline… Also, I would like to take a class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education or something… maybe then I can take “real” pictures.
Seems like a pretty harmless plan, eh? Uh nope.
It started out pretty well. We did some research (Casey) and picked out a camera pretty easily- the Canon G5, with 5 megapixels and a 4x zoom:
ooh. 
So we went to this site, A&M Photo World, and bought the camera.. so far, so good. Then, I get this email that I have to call “Chad” to confirm my order. Weird…but maybe I typed something in wrong or something. So I call them up at work and I am put on hold for 58 minutes. (put it on speakerphone and continued working…)
I wish I hung up when I had the chance!
This guy, Chad, was the rudest customer service person I have ever encountered in my entire life. He was so condescending and pushy that I thought about just hanging up on him.
He begins, “I can tell that you have never bought a camera before. Let me tell you a couple things.”
“Um…Ok.” What??!
“I am sure you don’t know this, but that battery is a piece of crap. It only lasts about 20 minutes. blah… blah… blah…” (Complete fabrication, I learned later…)
“No… that’s ok. I will see what it is like when I get it.”
He then tried to sell me a memory card. “You will only get about 4 pictures on the one that come with that camera. You would be an idiot not to buy this one. And it is half off when you buy the camera. Didn’t you see the promotion?”
“No…” Shut up!
“Blah… blah… blah… Do you want the 1 year or 5 year warranty? This camera is shipped directly from the manufacturer- do you know what that means? I am sure that you don’t… that means that there is no warranty with the camera. blah… blah… blah…”
Gah!! It was unbelievable. So I asked him to cancel the order and hung up. I actually got tears in my eyes, he was such an asshole.
We had the exact same experience with another site, Inoax. They are probably the same company with a different site or something. Poor Casey was the one who was harassed this time though.
Bottom line: Inoax and A&M Photo World do have some of the lowest prices on Yahoo shopping and BizRate. (I have a feeling that they doctor the reviews on those sites because they have horrible reviews, lots, combined with glowing reviews. It does not add up.)
However, AVOID A&M Photo World and Inoax like the plague!! They do not actually let you buy the camera online- you just plug in your information and then they make you call so that they can hassle you to buy more stuff. It is not worth it.
We bought our camera at Amazon and got $50 towards a future Amazon purchase and $25 dollars towards online printing. Why didn’t we go with Amazon from the beginning??!
We also decided to call and get a new credit card so that those two companies do not have our information. Other customers had said that they cancelled their order but their card was still charged and they couldn’t get the charge removed, etc… It is sorta a pain to wait for our new cards to come in the mail but worth it.
Thank you for your patience. We now return you to your scheduled programming.
July 21st, 2004 at 9:27 am
Ew. That sucks so bad. I hate mean customer service people, especially the ones that try and keep you on the phone FOREVER…
but yay for your new fancy camera! take a picture with it! right now!
July 21st, 2004 at 11:31 am
How sad. I was always taught that customer service meant giving people an enjoyable shopping experience. I’m glad you were able to get a new camera, though! There’s nothing more fun than a new camera!
July 21st, 2004 at 1:31 pm
Oh my god that is horrible! I’m in the market for a digital camera myself, so thanks for the info! And good thinking about the new credit cards…
July 21st, 2004 at 3:03 pm
Wow. What a raging asshole Chad is. Does he know what that means? I’m sure that he doesn’t…
July 21st, 2004 at 4:18 pm
Yeah, since when would a canon camera suck at all? even my little 3 year old powershot still rocks!
i am so sorry about that experience. i used to work in customer service, but with insurance, now with that we used to get some a-holes on the line that would really be frustrating, but with regular consumer CS i can never understand rudeness…
i sure hope it all works out with the cards too! and way to go amazon! (thats where i had bought my powershot forever ago, nice little cam, but my new nikon kicks its butt in the zoom department! yay zoom!)
July 21st, 2004 at 9:20 pm
MMMmmmmm. Want to seelllll the oldd one to someone?
xo
August 31st, 2004 at 3:44 pm
I just bought a videocam from them, and they screwed me…charged over $150 more than listed…
Oh, well, I’ll have to contest the charges on my credit card, and file a BBB complaint!
November 12th, 2005 at 3:49 am
I just orderd a camera from them last Thursday it was supposed to be an overnight delivery and this is a canon eos 20d. I looked at there bizrate etc reviews and they were fairly ok, so I ordered it, I was told that I would get the camera by today however I have not heard from them even when I paid them 109 us$ extra for shipping. I agree the coustomer service sucks, why does someone not come up with true and correct reviews in these sites like bizrate etc
January 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
All these companies are the same bunch of losers. I’m going through the same aweful experience. I wish someone would track this Ben Z. Cohen down and do some vigilante justice. Here is what I got from the NY Better Business Bureau
Name:
BROADWAY PHOTO
Additional Business Names:
A&M Photo World
Best Camera
Camera Addict
Cameratopia
Digital Liquidators LLC
Ghu, LLC
Millenium Camera
Preferred Photo
Prestige Camera
Quest4Cameras
Regal Camera
TheDigitalExpo
Tronicity
Wild Digital LLC
Address:
337 East 89th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11236
View Location Map
Principal:
Ben Z. Cohen, President
Phone Number:
(718) 338-1800
March 15th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Ran into the same scam with another family of scam businesses starting with 8th St Photo & Digital (Shlomi Albaydadi, owner of them). See my blog for the full run down. Complaining to the “authorities” doesn’t do any good . . . these bums (my word) haven’t violated the law since they didn’t take any money or charge your credit card. I’ve reported these guys (filed “official” complaints when I could) with the FBI, FTC, New York State Attorney General, Kings County D.A., New York City Consumer Proctection Agency, and New York Better Business Bureau. It would seem to me that when you see case after case of the same complaint you would think somebody would want to put these bums out of business.