NEW CAMERA WOES

[bobspark]

Be careful if your thinking of buying a camera over the internet.

Valuebasket seems to come out the cheapest,with a long warranty,and on their website they spout wonderful reviews.

Anyway since taking my money almost a month ago ,no camera has arrived although it showed as being in stock.

So looking at reviews elsewhere you get a very different picture.

That said for some people they came good,but the bad reviews seem really really damming.

Perhaps they will eventually send my camera ,but the wait has taken the lustre of the purchase.

Blow the £100,to £150 saving next time it will be John Lewis and nothing less.

Hope this might help others not to make the same mistake as me.

[alexl94]

I'd ask for a refund straight away, or if they refuse i'd try and get the money back through whatever payment method you used if possible.

I'd suggest having a quick look at Harrison Cameras as I found them to be reasonably priced and I have bought a few second hand lenses from them that come with 1 year warranties and they have been absolutely faultless.

[bobspark]

Yes thanks I have just asked for refund by e-mail. I'm not holding my breath though,as what I have read in other posts this may be one tricky outfit.

If Im right this outfit is going to get the attention of the British news media sooner or later.

May have to put this one down to experience.

But If Im wrong I will apologise and let the forum know.

[Welsh_kai_boy]

Value Basket kept fobbing me off with delay emails, eventually I cancelled and then put a claim through my credit card company. Amazingly they did refund back the money to my card.

 

I can recommend SLRhut in the states for very very good service and costs. D5500 @ £400

[bobspark]

Yes at the time SLRhut and Valuebasket where having a price war between them dropping the price every day.I choose the wrong one Valuebasket on the premise of a 2 year warranty.and the union jack motif on the web site,plus a base in Lancashire.

Valuebasket say they will refund my money in 7 days.

Reading threads or woe on other forums ,it seems stock may come from Hong Kong,and not from this country.

Anyway lesson learned.

[Welsh_kai_boy]

Don't be put off by your experience with VB, SLRhut rock and the guy on the phone was very helpful.

Edited 11 May, 2016 by Welsh_kai_boy
Spelling

[bobspark]

Yes thank you ,refund went back into my account today,so all is well.

I must be more careful in future.

[sigarland1987]

With cameras etc. I am still a great believer in going to a shop such as London Camera Exchange and actually chatting to someone about the camera, getting a chance to try it and then generally purchasing it there rather then going online. 

[Troubled]

I got a Canon 7d Mk II from portusdigital (they do grey imports I think) for an excellent price.  Excellent service too.

[Lady Elanore]

I got a fair bit of camera gear recently from Manchester Calumet. They certainly aren't the cheapest, being more or less on par with Jessops prices, although they do have some nice offers that can add value (mine attracted an extra £225 of store vouchers (bought me a nice grip ). I also could claim a total of £535 back from Canon as part of their cash back offer. I don't know if imports attract these deals?? Anyhoo, Canon kept refusing to pay out on one of the items I bought as they claimed I was using the wrong on-line form to claim. This was nonsense as it was not possible to claim on the wrong form as Canon use drop down menus to pick the items you have purchased and are claiming for. So to make a short story a little longer, I contacted the retailer and salesman I had dealt with (John Willis at Manchester) who not only got involved but contacted the head buyer for the Calumet chain. The senior man then sent 2 rather strongly worded emails to Canon asking them to get their fingers out and stop being so stupid. Eventually Canon agreed and I got my final payment.

 

So I guess the moral of the story is, sometimes you do actually get what you pay for. I very much doubt Jessops would have fired off a missive from a top employee.

[swedishskoda]

I took a chance a few months ago and bought a lens for my Fuji X1 from pro-vision uk. Their price beat all offers here in Sweden and many in the UK as well. Payment through Paypal gave me at least a feeling of security. And it landed in my mailbox after four days which was impressive. Lots of Canon and Nikon stuff, too.

[JGrindel]

Its great getting a good deal online but sometimes spending £20 more to get it from a store locally it saves your bacon and also gives you a physical contact if something was to go wrong! 

[OldTrilobite]

If you buy from, for example, John Lewis you do have the comfort of reliable support. But JL prices are not the cheapest.

 

For various reasons I have favoured Pentax (now Ricoh) cameras for decades.  I have found SRS in Watford to be very fair sellers (and buyers of trade-ins). They give a two-year guarantee on new Pentax gear (most sellers only offer one year), but SRS also handle a wide range of other makes. They are better informed than I have found Jessops to be.  Downside: Watford is a dump and the drive there from Cambridgeshire is tedious, even in a Fabia!