bad experience with B&H Photo

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17302165
Can you just send the package back to B&H then purchase from Adorama?

Which puts another open box unit into the B&H inventory; they will have to sell it for less and will need to recoup the loss by increasing prices!

I don't see them doing anything to cause a bad experience. So they wouldn't give you a battery, oh well.

I have always had outstanding service from B & H. I will never buy my camera gear from another company.

$10K in 4 YEARS? I just spent $25K at Adorama and $1K at B&H in the last 4 days. And I asked Adorama for batteries to be "thrown in", and my request was denied. I had to pay for them. On a $25,000 order. In one day. If that offers you any perspective.

One more thing about B&H... I was on the phone with their customer service department this afternoon. For Henry's sake, let me just mention that the man I spoke with has a name that reminds you of chocolate. That guy spent almost an hour on the phone with me, helping me align all the purchases I've made over the last 10 years that they still have records of into a new account, since I changed my phone number. An hour. With me. On Cyber Monday. And my most recent order, placed less than 4 hours ago was only $500.

B&H automation and customer service probably cannot be matched by any retailer in any industry, nevermind the photo industry. And one would be hard pressed to find a more professional and even keeled representative for B&H than Henry Posner.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love me some eBay prices. And I'd buy the rock bottom lowest price all day long... if I could trust the seller with the lowest price. But I can't. And obviously you can't either, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered trying get B&H to give you a battery. You'd have just bought your gear from the cheaper dealer (where they remove the original battery and sell it back to you).

When you step up to ten times your 10K in ten years, maybe then your loyalty might have an impact on the general POTN readership. But I doubt it will have much impact on B&H. I've easily spent well over $100K at B&H alone over the last 10 years, and I recently submitted a bid solicitation to their corporate sales department, requesting a quote for the $25K in items I ended up purchasing at Adorama, because B&H corporate sales didn't consider my business to be big enough to bother dealing with. Welcome to reality. $10K or $100K, this is peanuts compared to the size of regular and continual orders B&H handles for government agencies.

We need some perspective here. I am just as guilty of believing my dollar is the most important one. Because it is. But only to me.

B&H, and Henry Posner in particular, will be the first to tell you that our individual dollars are equally important to B&H. So with that in mind, consider building a relationship with B&H and Henry, rather than a public fire to crucify them with. It might work out better in the long run.

And I wish B&H would lower their prices. Seriously.

Because I want to experience more of that good customer service like I got over the phone today from the man who has worked there for 11 years.

I have great experience buying from them. Probably spent close to 10k with them this year alone.

I had been buying from them for ten years. Never anything but good service.

I've never had anything less than the best of service from B&H, and Adorama too for that matter, as well as Camera Canada --your experience may vary.

hard to believe that somebody,had bad experience in dealing with B&H....i have only nothing shorter than outstanding deals...and bought most of my canon lenses and bodies and paid for brand new, less that for refurbished lenses ordered directly from Canon...good to have peoples like them in NY metropolitan area.

All this over a battery you can buy for $12 on Amazon?

Curious about the other times you've asked for help and been refused.

I'm actually surprised that B&H didn't "price match" with the extra battery since I've read praise from other POTN members in the past where they called in and they just granted a price adjustment. So the decline of this request may have been due to the fact that since you already received your order, they would've had to generate a new order/shipment for the battery alone. Perhaps if the order hasn't been shipped yet, they would have been more willing to include the extra battery.

With that said, I agree that this was all at B&H's discretion since price matching or deal matching is not something that they guarantee. I do believe though that if this was a price match (not deal match), they would've refunded the price difference.

Personally, I like to never look at prices again once I've decided to buy something.

My question is what are you trying to prove? Trying to screw BH? Trying to rant and rave about you not getting your battery? Whats your point? Okay BH didnt price match your bundle, MOVE on!

the key issue as someone pointed out was that the OP was "asking" for a price match although from his behavior it seemed like he was demanding one instead. The proper thing he should have done was to cancel his order and go with adorama if he was so inclined to go with the more competitive retailer.