Vox Lucens

I can’t make up my mind. I cannot decide whether I’m really dull for not researching sooner, or really smart for seeing through the haze without researching.

I explained some of what I’m talking about in the last post. After writing that, I went out and had even more big fun.

You see, there were a number of other sites that offered good deals on the camera I was looking for. In looking through them, even before I placed my first order, I was struck by their similarity, especially in their credit-card-processing pages. That similarity was my first inkling that I might be dealing a slightly-less-than-aboveboard company.

Misgivings aside (since I was using a credit card with full fraud protection, if worse came to worse), I placed an order with another of these similar looking entities (Express Cameras). The deal wasn’t quite as good, but I figured there was little I could lose in trying.

I should take a step back here and note that I was smart enough to be cautious before placing any of these orders. For instance, there was no indication on these websites as to whether or not a battery came with the camera. I called one of them and was told it did not, and the batteries on their website were vastly overpriced, so I found a great deal (and a legitimate one–imagine that!) from another place and ordered my batteries there. I figured, to give these “companies” the benefit of the doubt, that they legitimately made money on the battery after selling the camera at-cost. I was smart enough not to fall for that one.

With that background information, we can proceed. Yesterday afternoon I got an e-mail from “Express Cameras” asking me to call them and confirm my order. (Notice the similarities to the first order? Don’t forget about that…) So I called them, and I got some guy on the phone who must have been sitting on a chair o’ nails. That is the only thing I can think of that would make a person so rude. He started with the normal stuff–identifying the camera I ordered, etc. Then he asked what battery I wanted. I told him I didn’t want one at all, that I had already gotten one from another company.

Sounding completely exasperated, he explained to me that I couldn’t use the camera without a battery, and why on earth would I buy one from somewhere else? “You have cameras at good prices, and batteries that aren’t,” I told him, “So I bought a battery from another source.”

“No, we sell everything cheap!” he corrected me. I was sick of arguing, and said with a good deal of firmness, “I. Do. Not. Need. A. Battery. From. You.”

At that point he was done. He tried to hang up, but I stopped him. Remember the deal with expedited shipping from the order before? I wasn’t going to let that slide, so I asked him whether that $40 I spent would mean that I got the camera in two days. “I don’t know,” he told me. “You’ll get an e-mail from shipping.”

As you can probably guess, I wasn’t satisfied. As he was hanging up–again!–I told him to wait. I talked over his repeated assertions that I would get an e-mail from shipping and said, “Do you have this camera in stock? Can I at least expect it soon?” He told me they did have it in stock, and hung up before I could ask anything further.

I was ticked. Ticked enough to do research. And what a treasure trove I found! I’m not the only one that has dealt with these people. “Bait and switch” is the name of the game. I called them back, and carefully canceled my order.

Here is where it gets fun. I checked my e-mail a couple minutes after that, and found one from “Express Cameras” (that must have come before I called to cancel) telling me that the camera I ordered had been oversold, would not be available for 6-8 weeks, and that they were canceling my order. Obviously this was the result I wanted, but it got me thinking. I would be willing to bet that they send this e-mail standard to everyone who refuses to buy their overpriced batteries and memory cards. If you don’t take the switch, you don’t get the bait, either.

That was a long story, and you are to be commended for bearing with me. I hope that you are as amused as I by this prolonged weirdness. It has a happy ending, though I paid more than I wanted to, and I have my new toy from a reputable dealer.

I am, as yet, a horrible photographer, but that has not stopped me from turning out a number of masterpieces (which I am calling my magnum opiates) so far. I would like to share those with you.

Self-Portrait

“Guy’s Night Out”

My collection of lifesavers from the USS Legal Education

” Still Life of Justice on a Black Background”

“The Thrill of the Hunt”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Pictures, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.