"I had the exact same problem as numerous other people on here when I purchased a Garvin Nuvi 660. They tried to sell me an SD card for it and insisted that the system would not work without it. After waiting for two weeks and then being told that it would be back ordered for another 5 weeks, I just cancelled the order.
Never again!"
"all those people that have been conned, i highly suggest you go to Better Business Bureau or http://welcome.bbb.org/
and file a complaint, i have already done so, with enough complains, the bureau will do an investigation"
"I also got the email to call for my Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS, but after reading all the reviews here I called and cancelled my order. I had absolutely no problem cancelling the order."
"Purchased a Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS. Received an email to confirm via phone. When my wife called in they misrepresented what we purchased and tried to sell my wife a $20 SD card for $60 to make up the difference in price from the 750 model to the 760. After we declined their order upgrade, we received an email indicating a 3-5 week back order. When confronted about the bait and switch, they became very hostile and basically indicated they could care less about my and as a result their business. I will never do business with this company again and will recommend the same to others."
"Exact same story as every one else here...a very unethical bussiness with 86PhotoVideo. Save yourself and please don't deal with these con artists...
Similar experiences with:
86PhotoVideo
bway
fotoconnection
techondigital
"
"Ditto the stories below. Ordered a GPS unit and next day got e-mail to contact them. They tried upsell with high priced memory card, which I declined. Within 5 minutes of the upsell attempt my unit was on back-order. My order wasn't listed in my account with them. Plan to call and cancel order on Monday."
"Instead of waiting around to experience any possible negative issues, I decided to write and send the following messages to the company.
Dear 86th Street Photo & Video
There were just too many negative comments about your company including now I see posted a bad BBB report, and supposedly bad language et cetera coming from representatives of your business if a customer does not go along and purchase more than one orders. I simply could not move ahead with my Order # 546281-W, and prefer that you simply CANCEL Order # 546281-W effective immediately before having to move through all the possible mind stuff and or emotions people posted. I could see if a dozen people wrote negatives, then I would think that would be normal of any business, but with hundreds of almost daily reports including a bad BBB report persuaded me to at least write and request that you CANCEL my Order # 546281-W. Sorry.
-- Additionally, I went so far as to cancel my Credit Card so no transactions can occur. Again, sorry.
Order # 546281-W
Email Received: Monday morning, April 28, 2008, 12:19PM the following email arrived.
Order # 546281-W
Following your request. Your order with our company has been cancelled. Your credit card has not been billed. All your sensitive data were deleted from our system.
Thank you,
86th Street Photo & Video.
"
"I fell for their 5-star rating, too! I placed my order on-line for a Panasonic Lumix 18x optical on 4/06/08. On 4/07/08, I received an e-mail that I needed to contact customer service to complete my order. I was out of town, and did not call until 04/09/08. The service rep claimed I had left part of the expiry date off of my CC info. I'm quite certain that was a ruse to get me on the phone since I always triple check all my CC info before I complete my order. Sure enough, he tried to sell me an extended life battery for the low, low price of $99 (with order only), and a high speed memory card for $79. I refused them both. He seemed reluctant to finalize my order, but finally gave in when he realized I would not add anything else.
Within 30 minutes of completing that phone call, I received an e-mail from the "shipping department" stating my product was out of stock for 3-4 weeks, and if I wished to cancel the order, "click here."
I chose to keep my order in place.
On 04/20/08, I logged into the site to check the status of my order, and funnily enough I didn't have an order pending or shipped. So I e-mailed them to check status. No answer was ever received.
Today, 4/24/08, I called them, and spoke with customer service. He informed me the product was on backorder for ANOTHER 5 WEEKS from today!! So, I asked him if it was "really" out of stock, or if they just don't want to ship to me since I would not add to my order. He hung up on me!!
I called him right back and cancelled my order!!
Please do NOT buy from this site - you will be sorry!!! "
"How does this company stay in business? We ordered a Cannon G9 from them because they had the best price. What they didn't tell us was that the camera was already back ordered 5 weeks when we ordered it. I was willing to wait because of the great deal. I had a bad feeling and asked the lady on the phone to tell me about the battery. It turns out they sell the camera with a "15 minute" battery. That won't even make it through a birthday party. No where on line does it mention the worthless battery. You have to pay an additional $150 for the real battery. The customer service was horrible as well. Email requests are responded with a request to call their customer service line. My average wait time was 30 minutes. The first time I reached help, when I asked why my camera was back ordered again, he hung up on me. The second time was a short 20 minute wait. She was more polite but still didn't volunteer any information regarding the battery or why it was backordered. I presume that they were selling the cameras they had in stock to other customers willing to pay more. The website now has the camera priced much higher than I paid. I was warned about this company before and I should have taken their advice. I just wasted 3 weeks waiting for a camera I believe they had no plans of selling me."
"SCAM ARTISTS! STAY AWAY!!! Not only was my order stalled due to 'verification' but when I called them I was accused of lying when it came to proving that the item was in stock. I have a screen shot to prove it but the representative was not interested in this. Instead, he insisited that I apologize before he cancelled my order. Are tese guys for real? How can scam like this exist? They are not the only ones. Stay away from Broadway Photo as well. "
"Boy do I feel stupid! Absolutely same story. I tried to order a Garmin GPS that was $100 below the sale price at Circuit City. Same thing: confirmation had no price and no item number on it. Received an email saying I had to confirm the order and talk to KevIn. Kevin said that only the house number and nothing else came through on the shipping address (my screen shot shows it is clearly there). He then tells me he "noticed" I didn't order an SD card and offers it to me at an exorbinant price; I decline and ask when it will be shipped and he says it will be shipped as soon as he gets it down to shipping. Ten minutes later I get the email stating that it is backordered and the inventory had unfortunately gone negative in the time since I ordered (not possible since they had been closed for three days for shabbat/Passover.) Now I can't get into the login I created to cancel it, I can't get them to answer their phone and they have my credit card number. I fell for the 5-star rating. Dumb me. "
"This place is a major SCAM! I only wanted to order the camera and not all the high-priced accessories that they tried to up-sell me on the phone right after I placed my online order. I soon received the first "temporarily out of stock" e-mail. Since then I have received 2 more e-mails pushing it back each time. I called and talked to someone today who refused to give his name and then hung up on me. He was a complete jerk. I called back and I asked for his supervisor and he refused to transfer me. When I told him I'd report him to the BBB, he said juvenille things like "oooh, I'm scared." RUN FROM THIS PLACE. I'm just bummed they have my credit card number. "
"Ditto everyone else, 2 minutes after the failed upsell the email arrived advising of the backorder. "
"This website is a scam. I ordered a camera but no accessories. I got a call the next day pushing me to buy accessories which I declined. Two days after the call I got an email telling me the camera was back ordered. Three weeks later I got another email saying that the camera is still backordered for 6-8 weeks even though their website is still selling the camera (and at a lower price). Three weeks after this I checked their website for the status of my order and found nothing. They had canceled my order. I emailed them asking what was going on. They replied with a standard cancellation request even though I had not asked to cancel."
"I have had the same experience as everyone else. Order placed, refused 'up-sell', placed on backorder. And now it's impossible to reach them to make sure the order gets canceled. Their "customer service" hours are constantly being reduced and the wait time on the phone is interminable, if I happen to reach them between 11AM and 2PM."