"My experience with Butterfly photo has been one of my most frustrating experiences with a company that I have ever had.

My frustrations originally started when after placing an online order of a digital camera, a suprise gift for my wife, I received a phone call from them. Since I did not return this call immediatly the order was delayed. The purpose of this phone call was to try and convince me to buy more items from them! In order to actually get them to ship what I ordered I had to sit on the phone and listen to their sales pitch on batteries and memory etc. Then I discovered that my wife heard the message they left, ruining the suprise.

This morning I have discovered that they double charged my credit card for this order, over drawing my account. After speaking with one of their support people (who transfered me in the middle of speaking to him) I talked to people in their billing department who essentially told me it is my problem that my card is overdrawn (and thus will be charged a service fee). The supervisor named Jim said "my personal finances are not their problem". I guess their mistake impacting my personal finances has no bearing on this whatsover. They claim it is not their responsibility to refund any charges I am assessed, but I believe it is their responsibility to make valid and accurate charges to my credit card, something that they failed to do. For a company that claims superior service on their I have gotten NONE from them. They have gone only as far as the law required of them (reversing the original bad charge) and no farther. I was hung up on by Jim and xfered in mid sentance by a man named George. This is customer service?

My recommendation is to buy from a company with a better reputation such as newegg.com, the cost savings is not worth the frustration (and in this case not worth the service charge!)"

"I ordered a Sony DSC-W5 digital camera. On the next day I got email stating that my order was canceled "as requested". The website shows the status of the order is "in processing". I contacted the customer service and they said that my order was canceled. The person I spoke to could not explain why my order was canceled.
On the same day I bought the same camera on Ebay for the same price.
You will waste your time if you try buying from Butterfly Photo.
I will never do business again with Butterfly Photo."

"I will never do business with Butterfly Photo again. I placed an order with them last week for a pair of Canon 10x42 IS L binoculars. I received a confirmation email immediately. I did not receive any further emails. Today, I went to their website to check the status of my order. It showed up as still "processing", even though their online ad showed the item as available.

I called their 800 number and, after waiting, spoke to a customer service person. He simply told me that my order had been cancelled. I had to ask him why it was cancelled, and then he told me that the order was cancelled because they could not obtain the product. The item has a $100 rebate from Canon that expires two days from now.

I checked their website, and it still shows the item as "Available" today.

I just placed my order for the binoculars with 17th Street Photo and had a UPS tracking number within 30 minutes."

"I ordered a Powershot A95 on Saturday. This website was the cheapest I found. I picked ground shipment 5-10 days and they sent me 2 day shippin from NY to AZ. It got here today, packed brand new and working great. I'm very satisfied with this. Great price, shipping."

"I ordered a Sony DCR-PC1000 MiniDV camcorder from Butterfly Photo. I have read good things about these guys from the various online digi-cam forums. After doing some research on the lower priced options from pricegrabber, I decided on this company. It was only $10 more than the lowest price anyway. It ended up saving me about $460 off the retail price from Sony (incl. tax)

As with the norm with Butterfly, I got an email the next day asking for a call to confirm. The CSR "Mike" asked if I wanted any accessories (tapes, etc) to which I said no thanks. He didn't hard sell at all. He then asked if I had any questions, followed by confirmation that it would ship within 48 hrs.

I paid for Fed-Ex super saver shipping and they sent it 2 day which was a nice suprise. I ordered late Monday night and had the camcorder in my hands on Friday.

The two things I didn't like about this transaction are;
1) The backhanded way of trying to get you to buy extra stuff by making you call to confirm your order. (they can't all be like Newegg.com I guess) I can put up with this because I saved over $400 on this deal.

2) The camcorder came in a Sony box, sealed by tamper evident Sony tape....BUT it had a slightly smaller seal under that which had been ripped open. The box had been re-sealed by someone, either to check contents or for some unknown reasons. Everything was intact though, and pristine, no fingerprints on anything (I inspected it well)

Bottom Line;
I got a genuine, NEW product (w/ US warranty) at a nice discount from retail sony prices! I'm satisfied, and very glad I didn't have to dispute anything with them!
"

"I ordered a Canon PowerShot S2 IS after seeing very high ratings on ResellerRatings. Everything on the 7/1/05 order confirmation e-mail looked fine, but then I received another message on 7/3/05 saying "Thank you for your on-line purchase. We hope your shopping experience was pleasant. Please contact us regarding Your order BFW190112 ." I sent a reply saying I didn't understand why they couldn't discuss any problems in an e-mail, and would they please respond. Today, 7/6/05, I have heard nothing in return from them, so I cancelled my order.

Since they had rather good reviews and satisfaction feedback on ResellerRatings, I didn't expect one of these call-back ploys, and I have no interest in doing business with people who aren't straight up with their (potential) customers. I have no idea why they wanted me to phone, unless it was to do some high-pressure add-on selling. I can't imagine ever considering doing business with them in the future unless I got a really good explanation and justification, and an apology.

(16 July 2005) After cancelling my order with ButterflyPhoto, I ordered from Profeel. To my message of cancellation I received the same boiler-plate reply mentioned above, to which I sent another e-mail saying I had cancelled. Again I got the canned response, around noon July 7th. At 1832 that day I got a Shipping Confirmation, to which I replied with another notice of cancellation. (Profeel had already delivered the camera, with no hassle or extra shipping charges.) Delivery of the cancelled order was attempted on 11 July, which I refused, but my credit card had already been charged, and not to ButterflyPhoto or to the "BDD Solutions Inc." they specified in their order confirmation, but to a "Digital Acquisition Cor." I consider this to be a case of fraud, and I would never consider having anything to do with ButterflyPhoto, except for reporting them to the FTC, BBB, Visa, and, of course, ResellerRatings."

"Do not order from this company, they have the worst customer service and order communication I've ever seen. I only waited 3 weeks before I cancelled the order (took me 3 attempts at doing that), but had zero communication during that time. They did not answer a single one of the emails I sent them. I think their problem is that they don't stock items until you order, and they probably don't restock until they get lots of orders for an item. Basically, you could be waiting weeks/months before you get anything. I can't honestly believe any positive reviews about this company, they must be all fake. They are insanely rude on the phone, hanging up on you, etc. I will never again order something based on price and average seller ratings. If you order from them, be prepared to wait a long time before your order ships (During which time, the item has become cheaper at more reliable sellers).
A very unhappy customer."

"Initially, I was nervous about some of the negative reviews, however I still made the purchase because of the good price. I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 7900. Their price was considerably lower than other stores. As other reviewers mentioned, they did call me. However, they did not try to force any accessories on me. I did end up talking to a few different people because I had some questions, and all of them were not exactly friendly. Maybe not all out rude, but far from friendly.

Bottom line though, I got my camera is less than a week, I wasn't charged anything extra, and I wasn't harassed about buying accessories. As far as future purchase, probably not. I would rather pay a little extra and get friendly customer service."

"Ordered a Canon S2IS Sunday 6/26/05 vie email. Called Monday to confirmed my order was told it would ship that day. Was asked if I would like a set of filters I responded no thanks, he said thank you and hung up.Received my order Tuesday 6/28 at 2pm in very good condition. Will buy from them again."

"I ordered a Nikon D70 knowing that many of these sites may be shady. Butterfly seemed to be trustworthy, etc. so I chose them. I called to check availability and guarantee on shipping. Two different sales people confirmed that the camera and lens was in stock at the time. I then immediately placed the order and received confirmation to my email. My credit card was charged right away (not as its stated on the site where I would be charged when shipped). Two days later (Friday 6/24) I hadn't received a shipping tracking number so I called and was informed that the camera was not shipped. They said it would go out today (Friday) and they were 'nice enough' to upgrade me to 2 day shipping. I later checked the order online and discovered they upgraded it only to 3-5 day shipping. Monday (6/27) I still haven't received a fedex tracking number so I called again. After being put on hold for quite some time, I spoke with a sales rep. He said the camera was not in stock and there was nothing I could do but wait. I then asked why I was told it was in stock and why it hadn't been sent out yet. He proceeded to yell at me and told me to "stop with my wall street interviewing." In his haste he gave me two options, to either wait or cancel. I cancelled immediately and will never buy from this site again. I highly recommend against them. "

"Placed order and was sent E-mail to call Victor to confirm. Did so, and was treated very professionally.
Victor offered some accessories to compliment the camera, but since I already had an Olympus that used the same battery and had a spare and a Canon that used the same filters I declined. He accepted my refusal without any sort of undue sales pressure and was politely told thank you and the order would be shipped the following day. Received shipping confirmation and tracking number as promised. Camera arrived on due date extremely well packed and all items as packed from manufacturer. HIGHLY COMMENDABLE!!!
Judging from some of the negative reports I read and the manner in which I was treated, I can'thelp but wonder if the complaintants caused the friction and brought it upon themselves.I would not hesitate to deal with Butterfly again or recommend to others to do so. All in all a very pleasant shopping experience."

"Placed my order last Thurs morning for the Panasonic FZ5 with ButterFly Photo. I have read so many consumer reviews on all the discount stores & actually placed an order with Broadway (low price, of course) before finding out about "Resellersrating" reviews on these stores. I discovered the consumer reviews too late that night & stayed up until 2A reading all the horror stories in disbelief & asking myself, "What have I done!?" The next morning I called them 1 minute after they opened their lines to cancel the order. The guy was obnoxious & intimidating & actually tried to tell me I was "rude" when it was just the opposite. And, yes, he tried the switch & bait + tried to hard-sell me on everything under the sun. Boy, what a relief to get out of that order (how in the world do they stay in business?!). I then searched a little longer & found ButterFly Photo, read the reviews, & decided to take the plunge. It turned out to be the most pleasant sale I've ever had. The salesperson was nothing short of courteous, gracious, & far from pushy, just merely telling me what he had to offer. So, I placed the order & thanked him for being polite. I checked my tracking order that night & the camera was shipped out the same day & they estimated arrival the following Tues. I originally was only going to buy the camera, but he was so pleasant, informative, & non-pushy I wound up buying a protective UV lense + lith batt (on sale for $49). I received my FZ5 today (Monday) 1 day ahead of schedule. Funny thing, I thought I'd check the tracking today just to see the status. The message said my shipment was loaded onto the FedEx truck at 12:08P & I should receive it by 4:30P. I looked at the clock, it read 12:12P. 3 minutes later the doorbell rings. Guess who? I practically hugged the delivery woman. I opened the box, everything was new & pristine, in their individual packages, & in perfect shape. I immediately called my sales rep, George (ext 211) & told him how pleased I was with the entire sale & that I hoped this call was recorded because I wanted him (& his supervisor) to know how polite, kind, gracious, & courteous he was. I also told him I intended to write positive reviews in the "dpreview" forum as well as "Resellerratings". Also, contrary to others experiences, no one called me later to try to sell me more merchandise. Of course, he was very grateful for the much-deserved praise. Will I do future business with Butterfly Photo? Yes, & only with George.


"

"I bought a Pentax *ist DS with lens at this online store.
The price was the best I could find online. Much better than both B&H, DELL, Circuit City, etc.
I called to verify the item was in stock and would ship quickly (it did). However, I got a rather annoying upsale talk, being asked to get the extended warranty, extra lenses and what not. I did manage to get the price of this warranty to "the lowest the store could afford", but refused it anyway.
I also found that placing the order on the web was a bit risky, with no warning such as "Your order will be placed after you click CONFIRM".

PROS: Good prices, fast delivery, good packaging.
CONS: Annoying upsale pitch, poor website design, when ordering."

"I ordered a Panasonic FZ20 digital camera from Butterfly Photo. When I got the e-mail, asking me to call to confirm the order, I became concerned. I'd been reading reviews that talked about high pressure sales of "extra stuff," etc. Very much on my guard, I talked to George, in customer service, who was extremely polite, helpful, and friendly. He made only one suggestion, an extra battery, which I had already planned. The price for the items I purchased, and for the shipping, were very reasonable, and my camera arrived two days early (one day instead of three). I will buy from Butterfly again. "

"My transaction went very smoothly. I purchased a Canon Digital Rebel (300D) and it was shipped very quickly (I got it in 3 days on regular shipping). I did get asked if I wanted a 3-yr extended warranty. There was no pressure when I declined. I would buy from this store again."