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  • Report:  #995843

Complaint Review: Getondigital.com - Brooklyn New York

Reported By:
Darren - Banks, Other, Australia
Submitted:
Updated:

Getondigital.com
2277 McDonald Ave Second Floor Brooklyn, 11223 New York, United States of America
Phone:
1 888 472 1177
Web:
Www.getondigital.com
Categories:
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
I ordered a Canon 28-300 IS USM for $2000. I live in Australia and was flying back home the following day so I called them to see about express delivery to Los Angeles. I spoke to Ralf who asked me why I wanted to buy such an old model lens which Canon had recently discontinued. He then told me about a brand new Sigma 70-300 that had just been released for $1499. He said he could provide a professional filter kit normally $299 and a tele-convertor normally $680 and a 5 year warranty with annual cleaning service all for $2400. Alarm bells should have been ringing. When the package arrived the next day a found a sigma lens selling on Amazon for $144, a Vivitar tele-convertor worth $100 and a Vivitar filter kit selling on Amazon for $20. Despite asking if the warranty and cleaning service was available in Australia and being told it was, I now discover the annual cleaning service is only valid in the USA.. I was back in the USA a week later and called Ralf. He at first denied the incorrect items had been sent until I informed him I had contacted Sigma and Vivitar and had confirmed all the prices. He then agreed I could send it back. When the second package arrived, I now had a Sigma 70-200 mm lens, again not what I ordered. This time I also had a Sigma 2x converter but no filters. I again called and got Nicholas who claimed to be the owner. I told him I still had the wrong lens and no filters.. He told me they had upgraded my lens to one that was so new, few stores even knew about it. I said I was unable to find it on the sigma website. I was told to look at the bottom of the box for a PE code. This signified the new lens. He also stated his paperwork showed the filter kit was included. After much arguing he agreed to send me another filter kit.. Being suspicious I called sigma and provided the box barcode and lens serial number. The guy told me to "get my money back and run". Sigma stopped producing that lens 2 1/2 years ago and the PE on the box meant the box was recycled. I again called Nicholas to inform him of my displeasure. He told me that although the lens was not a 70-300 as ordered it had an equivalent zoom of 300mm. Again utter rubbish. On a APS-C camera it has an effective field of view of a 300mm lens but not the zoom of a 300mm. My Canon 5d is full frame anyway so this is all irrelevant anyway. I told him I wanted a refund and would return all items. He informed me that because it was outside the 7 day return window it would cost me $477 to return the items. I would have to pay the additional money via money order and once the items,had been returned they would refund the $2400. I told him there was no way I was giving him another $477 on top of the $2400 I had already paid.

What I have ended up with is a lens worth $900 on Amazon, a filter kit worth $20 and a 2 x converter worth $250 and a warranty/cleaning card worth nothing to me in Australia.. These guys are scam artists and nothing more. The filter kit turned up today and again is selling on Amazon for $20. I will call them one last time tomorrow in the hope. My next step is to lodge a formal complaint with the attorney generals office of Brooklyn and the Federal Trade Commission. I will also post this on as many websites as I can find and will write to as many magazines in the hope they publish my letter to warn others. With a bit of luck I can ward off as many potential customers as I can costing them far more than the $1200 the ripped me off for.


1 Updates & Rebuttals

Josh

Rolla,
Missouri,
U.S.A.
This is extremely well known

#2Consumer Suggestion

Sun, January 13, 2013

There are several reputable places that sell cameras that are based in New York.  They are Adorama, B&H, and J&R.  They have the lowest legitimate prices you are going to find.  Everything else is a scam -- particularly any smaller outfits in and around Brooklyn.

I suggest sending everything back to them (tracked and insured, signature required).  Then call up your credit card company and dispute the charges.  They should refund your money pretty quickly.  If you want to avoid these scams, read "How and Where to Buy Photo Equipment" on Ken Rockwell's site (use Google).  It has quite a long discussion of how the Brooklyn-based scam dealers operate.  There are dozens of them, they have operated for decades, and what they are doing is legal, so you are not going to get far with the FTC.

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