I’ve bought a fair amount of camera equipment from Adorama over the past couple of years and have never had a problem with them. They often have the lowest price and certainly an outstanding selection, have never tried to upsell me to a generic battery or camera case or some other accessory I didn’t want or need. But, until recently, I’d never had to contact them about an order. A few weeks ago, I bought a new camera, a Panasonic DMC-G1 (more about that in another post), and Adorama had the best price – $629 for body and 14-45mm kit lens. However, a couple days after placing the order, I discovered that Samy’s Camera had the body and 14-45 plus the 45-200mm lens for $769. That meant the 45-200 was just $140 more.
I debated for a while whether or not I really wanted the 45-200. I doubted I’d use it much, especially since I intended this camera to serve as a light-weight, walk-around camera and adding a second lens didn’t really make sense. In the end though, I thought I might regret not getting the lens at that price because if I decided later that I wanted it, it would cost me about $300.
Since I’d already placed the order, I decided to send an email to sales@adorama.com requesting a price match. I sent them the link to the camera on Samy’s site so they could see it was a legitimate price. I said I wanted to keep the camera (due to arrive the following day) and have them sell me the 45-200 for $140. Otherwise, I said, I’d have to return the camera to them for a refund. A couple days passed with no response.
The camera arrived and I really liked it and definitely wanted to keep it. So I went to Adorama’s web site and sent a message (using their contact form) to Customer Service restating my request and saying that I hadn’t heard from Sales. I got an automated response saying a real person would get back to me within 24 hours. Well, 24 hours came and went with no repsonse. In the end, I had heard nothing after 4 days, so I decided to return the camera for a refund and place the order with Samy’s.
The next day, I got an automated email from Adorama asking me to rate my purchase experience on ReselleRatings.com. So I did and was not shy about telling how unhappy I was. I soon got an email from RellerRatings saying that Adorama claimed the invoice number I’d used was not legitimate (even though Adorama had sent it to me) and that I must not even be a customer or hadn’t paid for the equipment! So, I sent a copy of the invoice to ResellerRatings and they straightened Adorama out on that score. Adorama also posted a reply to my rating suggesting that they must have replied and maybe I should look in my spam box. Also, how concerned they were about providing great customer service, blah, blah, blah. Not, of course, that they ever bothered to look up my account in their own computer system. As well, their post was several days after they camera had been returned to them and they claimed they hadn’t gotten it back from me. Fortunately, I’d gotten a tracking number and knew it was there.
Eventually, I did get my refund from Adorama, about a week after the camera had been delivered back to them. And, I now have my new kit from Samy’s. I never got any kind of apology from Adorama for the screwup though and never any reply to my emails. As I say, I’ve always been happy with Adorama until now. I don’t think they handled this one too well though. If I ever buy from them again, I will be damn sure that I am going keep what I order.
I should mention how Samy’s compared. When I ordered the camera, their web site said it was on backorder. That was OK with me – I was in no great hurry for it. But a day after placing the order, I got a call from Samy’s letting me know in person that the camera was backodered and was I sure that was OK? Took a couple weeks for the camera to come in and when it did, I got another call from them to say it was in stock, did I still want it, and was it OK to ship it to me that day? That is my idea of real customer service! Unfortunately, Samy’s doesn’t have quite the extensive selection that Adorama has, but if they have something I want, I’ll definitely order from them again.
