I have been trying to buy a Canon PowerShot SX100 for about 4 months. I just want the lowest price. I regularly check these online search engines who’s specialty is to find the lowest price:
Price Grabber: http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/
Price Scan: http://www.pricescan.com/
Biz Rate: http://www.bizrate.com/
Ubid.: http://search.ubid.com/
Nextag: http://www.nextag.com/
Wallet Buddy: http://www.walletbuddy.com/
After searching these sites for the camera often a link will appear to another search site. I have noticed that about 4 or 5 stores regularly appear on these sites with the lowest price. They are all identified as “Featured Sellers” and they all have the same practice. They will not send you your order until you call them to supposedly confirm the order. I have ordered this camera from all of them. Here is what happens. First they try to sell you batteries for $100. I decline. Then they try to sell you a memory card for $70. I have already bought several for $15. Then they tell you that the camera on their site is a “Gray Market” camera. Not the US camera.
Warranty is Japan, not US. One store said the menus are in Japanese, not English. Most of these stores list the camera with the US Canon part number. I just ordered this camera from http://www.techondigital.com/. When we got to the Gray Market part I tried to confirm that the Japanese version has the same part number as the US version the tone on the sales person changed. I can only describe it as being muscled. I used to sell cars. These tactics are as bad as the worst car buying experience. I finally agreed to the order of the Japanese version. I later logged into the site and find my account has no open orders. I have wasted countless hours on this. Multiply this by the thousands of products that they are likely doing this with and the scale warrants some attention. I almost forgot.
I have reported these stores practice to the search engines? They are still being reviewed after 2 months. The fraud starts with the search engines. All negative reviews are not published. Downfall of online shopping?
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