Broadway Photo / Prestige Camera “Bait and Switch”

It’s hard to believe that companies are still pulling the old bait and switch on customers. It appears the practice is still much alive today as it was ever. I will tell you a little bit about my experience purchasing an LCD Recently.

 

I did a search online and found a review site at the top of the Google search for the model of LCD I was looking for. I took a look and saw the LCD advertised at the lowest rate on the web thus far.  There were two companies actually with very low prices. One of the companies Broadway Photo out of Brooklyn, NY offered a slightly higher price but free shipping. I went with the second choice Prestige Camera who had a lower advertised price and the numbers worked out in my favor. I purchased the LCD on their website. The next day I receive an email saying that I need to call them to complete my order. I call them up and they ask me if I want a wall mount and HDMI cable. I tell them I have both, which I did, they then tell me I am all set for my purchase. I said thank you to the man on the phone. Before I got off he says something else, “would you like the Japanese version or the U.S. version?” I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that at first until I started asking him a bunch of probing questions. What’s the difference? Well the Japanese version apparently was just that a LCD from Japan with Japanese remote, warranty, and paperwork. The U.S had the standard U.S. remote and a valid U.S. warranty. Ok well I thought that was pretty easy of course the U.S. model since I live in NY. Then the sales rep proceeds to tell me that the U.S. model is $100 more than the Japanese model. Woahhh…..

 

 

Wait a minute….. Did you just tell me I really bought a Japanese LCD without knowing it? The model numbers matched the U.S. versions on their website and there was no mention of it anywhere actually on either Broadway or Prestige Camera websites. Why do I keep mentioning Broadway Photo you ask? Well their websites looked extremely similar to each other. My first reaction was they are the same company. Through my exploration I saw that of all the places two random companies could be on the web wasn’t it ironic that they both were on the same block in Brooklyn.

 

The story goes on… So the man on the phone goes, “have you ever heard of grey market product?” Well yes actually I have. I actually know a lot about grey market products as I worked for one of the largest resellers of computer hardware and software products in the world. I was a purchasing agent at one point and worked alongside a man that purchased grey market product from all over the world. He proceeds to tell me this is a grey market LCD from Japan. Ok, my next thought is this doesn’t sound ethical. I asked to speak to a manager at which point I was told I was speaking to the manager. Then he said I’ll transfer you to customer service…. Oh yeah it gets better.

 

I waited 10 minutes for CS to pick up the phone where I tell this guy that they are bait and switching me. He say’s call it whatever you want we don’t care if you buy the LCD, go get it somewhere else. I tell this guy he should honor the price I paid for a U.S. version LCD and he again told me he didn’t care if I bought it or not. I let him know I was going to file a complaint and he didn’t care about that either.

 

So here I am expressing my freedom of speech to break you all free from the constraints of poor and unethical business practices. It is up to each of us to help protect each other from companies and the people that run them unethically. I am sure that Samsung wouldn’t be too happy to find out a non-registered reseller of their product is selling grey market in NY.    

 

Here are their websites:

 

www.broadwayphoto.com

www.prestigephoto.com

 

The list goes on…

 

The story gets better…. Someone made a video about Broadway Photo. Check it out it will definitely interest you especially the part where he tells you all the company names they run under.

 

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