Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- From: "Neil Harrington" <not@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:50:10 -0500
"Rita Ä Berkowitz" <ritaberk2O04 @aol.com> wrote in message
news:11pmmtpochjd9ab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Neil Harrington wrote:
>
>> I'm surprised to see that. On www.bizrate.com they rate four green
>> smilies, but not nearly as high a grade as some others (87-91%
>> positive and 8-10% negative depending on the period, which is not so
>> good).
>
> Bizrate isn't one of your better rating services. Hey, if they give a
> good
> rating to Abe's of Maine you know they are fixed. There is no beating
> www.resellerratings.com for accuracy.
Bizrate has been reliable for me, though. They have many times more user
reports than Resellerratings.com, probably because they ask for such reports
at so many sites.
And I don't just go by the bare ratings, I read a lot of the user
complaints. Some of them for some sellers seem probably legitimate, others
less so. For example, when I look at Buy.com's complaints, most of them seem
to be about slow shipping or Buy.com's use of USPS--which is often the same
complaint. That scores as a complaint just as if it were about cheating the
customer, and has the same effect on the overall rating. But I usually don't
care about moderately slow shipping, particularly on the sort of items I
usually buy from Buy.com, for example CompactFlash or SD cards, which I
already have loads of but just buy more because they're on sale and/or with
good rebates. I know Buy.com won't cheat me, and judging by the complaints
some other sellers do rip off customers in one way or another. Being cheated
is what I want to avoid.
And their shipping is not always slow. Last Wednesday I ordered a Belkin USB
2.0 hub from them and it came on Friday. Admittedly, that is unusually quick
for Buy.com.
As for Abe's of Maine, I've never done business with them but I know they
had a terrible reputation. On the other hand, so did Beach Camera, which now
has excellent ratings on Bizrate and has also gotten thoroughly satisfied
reports in rec.photo.digital. And I was astonished to hear that BuyDig.com
was described as a "sister company" of Beach--could hardly believe that at
first, but BuyDig now lists itself on its site as a "division" of Beach. If
good companies can go bad, I suppose bad companies can become good, even if
it seems less likely. Maybe a change of ownership, or change of management?
Maybe just coming to realize that not cheating customers is really a better
way of doing business?
>
>> There was a short period when they were using a hybrid shipping
>> arrangement, some other carrier to your local post office which would
>> make the actual delivery. That worked out very badly, thanks to the
>> other carrier which often delivered to the wrong post office or just
>> lost the shipment. Buy.com always promptly made good on lost
>> shipments, and since they dropped that arrangement I've had no
>> problems with them at all. A few months ago I did have to return one
>> item, and they sent me a prepaid UPS shipping label for it, which was
>> very nice and more than I'd expected. On another occasion I had a
>> problem with a rebate, one of those double-rebate things. I got one
>> rebate but not the other, e-mailed Buy.com about it and since they
>> apparently couldn't do anything about the missing rebate they just
>> refunded that amount. So that was certainly fair.
>
> The other issue with Buy.com that really isn't a problem, but if they use
> a
> merchant in your home state they do/should collect sales tax.
They've never shipped to me from within my state. Actually I never realized
until you mentioned it that they operate by drop shipping. So that's
interesting. I'd always just assumed that they had their own warehouses
spotted all over the place.
>
> Yep, that's how customer service should be handled. We issue a UPS ARS
> label if/when our customer shave an issue that requires having the item
> sent
> back. Going the extra mile to please a customer eliminates a lot of
> problems
> and returned merchandise.
>
>> I continue to buy from them with 100% confidence regardless of their
>> ratings. My experience with them has always been good.
>
> I don't have any complaints about Buy.com's service since I think it was
> excellent. I refuse to deal with merchants that distribute or sell your
> personal information without your consent. They did this years ago and
> lost
> me as a customer.
I just looked at their privacy policy (I hate to read those damn things as
they go on and on and on) and it looks like it's fair now, whatever it was
before. I can't say I read the thing exploring every detail, though.
>
>> Example: my next big purchase will be a Nikon D70s. BuyDig.com's
>> price for that camera today, with 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 DX Zoom-Nikkor,
>> is $1,026.00 with free shipping. And yes, that's USA warranty.
>> Adorama's price is $1,199.95, also with free shipping. So is B&H's.
>> That's a $174 difference in favor of BuyDig.
>
> You might want to consider Cameta Camera since they are really reliable
> and
> trustworthy. I've bought a few grand worth of stuff off of them and they
> have been great. Oh, and they even have the best prices on the factory
> sealed D2x at $4,500. Some of these other crooks advertise it cheaper and
> sell you the camera without all the accessories. So, when all is said and
> done you paid more getting what you should have instead of buying from a
> reputable dealer. I would recommend Cameta for the D70s.
Yes, absolutely I agree about Cameta. I've dealt with them for years, long
before they started on eBay. Just recently I bought a Coolpix 5400 from them
on eBay, advertised as a display model never owned by a customer (it came in
a box marked "refurbished," but I think that's just a catch-all term and I
fully trust Cameta's description).
I will probably get a Nikon D2X at that, about the same time I get my new
Mercedes S600 (which is to say, not any time soon). ;-)
In the meantime I continue to add to my digital Nikon collection in much
more modest ways.
>
>> Again, my experience with them has been very good, apart from the
>> short period when they tried that hybrid shipping scheme. Compared to
>> eBay? I dunno. My experience with eBay sellers for the most part has
>> also been very good, but then I do read the seller's feedback
>> carefully. I would agree that eBay sellers generally ship faster than
>> Buy.com, which I appreciate but since I'm rarely in a big rush for
>> the item it's not terribly important to me. The fastest shippers in
>> my experience are BuyDig.com and NewEgg.com, at least when NewEgg
>> uses FedEx. They now offer UPS as an alternative, which is cheaper
>> but usually slower, sometimes a lot slower.
>
> You bring back memories! I remember buying Western Digital IDE drives
> from
> them back in the day when they were Egghead. They had the best prices on
> 540MB HDs when they first hit the market..
Now that's interesting! I remember Egghead but never realized they became
NewEgg, just never made that association at all. That does (finally!)
explain the name "NewEgg." They are absolutely first-rate to deal with, if
you haven't done business with them lately, and they're where I get at least
95% of my computer parts.
Neil
.
- References:
- Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- From: RBTGT
- Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- From: RBTGT
- Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- From: Neil Harrington
- Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- From: Neil Harrington
- Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- Prev by Date: Re: Does a digital camera exist tha hast....
- Next by Date: Re: OT: Human greed
- Previous by thread: Re: Powersellers get away with MURDER!
- Next by thread: International Shipping
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
