{"id":620,"date":"2009-12-23T11:57:47","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T16:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=620"},"modified":"2009-12-23T13:05:47","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T18:05:47","slug":"buyer-beware-sky-point-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"BUYER BEWARE: IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Rule of Thumb:\u00c2\u00a0 When buying photographic equipment, check the price at B&H Photo, Adorama Camera, and Amazon.com (all three are linked and recommended at my main photography site<\/a>). If an item is selling for significantly less than at these three companies, something is downright suspicious.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine is looking for a Canon 7D. Prices from reputable dealers are generally in the $1700 price range. He found it at SkyPoint Digital for $879, an apparent savings of over $800. I told him that a price that low raises all kinds of red flags for me. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I might believe someone can sell the 7D for $1600 (and it would probably be gray market<\/a>), but not $879.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So I Googled SkyPointDigital, and came up with a lot of news, all of it bad.<\/p>\n

Thoughts-of-Dave has a good article<\/a> with lots of links.<\/p>\n

ResellerRatings.com has a collection of really bad reviews<\/a>. Every single reviewer (as of today’s date) gives the company the lowest rating. It is not unusual for a company with a number of bad ratings to start another company with a different name. That means it is risky to do business with a new company without a good ratings history.
\nThere are several complaints<\/a> at Ripoff Report.<\/p>\n

And then there are the people that post their own painful story<\/a> on their web site. (You’ve got to love finding “Professor Piggington’s” in a web site’s name.)<\/p>\n

Here’s one person’s review from Reseller Ratings.<\/p>\n

“Like all of the reviews that I read on this website I have fallen victim to Sky Point Digital’s bait and switch tactics. I placed an order with Sky Point Digital for a Canon Rebel XSi with an 18-55mm lens kit for $539. I received the phone call the next day to confirm the order and I received the same salesman speech telling me that what I ordered did not include a battery or charger or any interfacing cables but that I could get all of that with a special package for ONLY $899. I thought that what I had seen on Amazon included everything and it was still under $650 so my gut was telling that something was not right. I got the salesman’s name and direct extension (Mike, extension 7014)and I told him that I wanted him to email me an itemized list of the products that he was trying to sell me so I could research the items first. He told me that he’d have it to me within the hour…that was exactly a week ago and I still have not seen it. They did, however, ship me the merchandise and they have charged $899 to my credit card. Before calling Sky Point Digital this morning, I called my credit card company and told them the story. I told them that I wanted to return all of the merchandise to Sky Point Digital and I wanted Sky Point Digital to issue me a full credit. I was nervous though because the shipping slip says that if I return the merchandise, there is a MINIMUM 10% restocking fee and the refund would exclude all shipping fees. The credit card company said that they could file a dispute, but they have to abide by the company’s return policy and would not be able to prevent him from charging me the restocking fee. So I called Mike at Sky Point Digital and told him that I felt like I had been scammed. Mike quickly transferred me over to customer service. Kevin at customer service gave me the run down on why what I got was a good deal. I told him that I was looking at Amazon at that exact moment at the exact same merchandise for $629. Believe it or not, he actually got onto to Amazon’s webpage while I was on the phone and confirmed that he saw what I saw! He told me that I could return the merchandise but he would have to charge me $180 for shipping fees and restocking!!! That does me no good, it’s a waste of my time! So for now, I’m filing a dispute with my credit card company to pay only the amount that originally agreed to and not for the full $899.” <\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sky Point Digital is fairly new. The BBB links them with Bingo Cameras<\/a>, another online store with bad reviews<\/a> at Reseller Ratings.\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

There are several companies with excellent reviews and good prices that you can deal with a know you will get what you pay for.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rule of Thumb:\u00c2\u00a0 When buying photographic equipment, check the price at B&H Photo, Adorama Camera, and Amazon.com (all three are linked and recommended at my main photography site). If an item is selling for significantly less than at these three … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.jimdoty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}