"Wow, I read the reviews and thought I could get through an order without the upsell. I was trying to order a DCR HC96 camcorder. I asked if it was in stock and the guy was asking where I was from, said he had just moved back from a town near me etc... They he went on and told me about the "Demo" battery that was in the camera. My response "I have read some reviews about you guys and I was worried I was going to be upsold. If we can't get through the order without an upsell then I am going to call somewhere else" The salesmen says "uh.. well ok.. no problem." and talks about tapes etc.. then says "Oh you don't want to be upsold so we will skip that" I say I would like the 3 day shipping and he says "No, we can't do that.. you don't want to be upsold" he goes on about how hes ordering me a camera with the demo battery and no additional accessories. It say again "You won't sell me the 3 day shipping" he says "No sir, I can't do that... you don't want to be upsold" so I say "Ok, I guess I will call somewher else then" and I hung up.

BELIEVE the other reviews, these guys are rude and crooks. They show a low price online and try to upsell you before its all said and done!!"

"fast shipping, and great customer service! I liked everything I bought from this store, they have good deals!"

"ordered a camcorder, and it came really fast, plus the shipping cost was so cheap. I also bought accessories for amazing prices. this store is really good.I will def shop here again."

"I liked this place, they sell a variety of electronics, it's like the one stop shop!!"

"My letter to Yellowbeephoto.com:
Good Afternoon,

I am writing because I have just had the worst customer service/sales transaction I have ever had with your company. I waited on the phone fro 20 minutes, only to get a brief, hurried voice saying only "order number?". I expected a hello, or something after all of that. I told her the order number and got placed on hold without another word. 20 minutes later, another person asked me for my order number and proceeded to try to sell me more items. At this point I was sure that I would never buy from you again. BUT it got worse! After assuring the customer service (bah!) rep that I would only be spending the 300.00 for the camera, and not trusting this transaction at all, I decided to ask some more questions. It turns out that the camera I bought was in JAPANESE!! Not just the manual, but the camera it's self! This was mentioned nowhere in the online ad for this camera. I brought this up, and he told me that this is something they tell the customer when they call to confirm….which I was never told to do in the first place. I was merely calling because I was excited to get the camera and wanted an eta. So, I cancelled my order.

It gets worse! Then, laughing a little, I asked if I could talk to a manager. The representative of you company simply said "no" and hung up. Let's hope this is the end of it.

My advice to anyone planning on buying a camera from Yellow Bee Photo? AVOID THIS COMPANY!"

"WOW! EXACTLY THE SAME EXPERIENCE AS EVERYONE ELSE - REQUIRED A VERIFICATION BEFORE SENDING (READ UPSELL AND ACCESSORIZE) - WHEN I WOULDN'T ADD-ON I WAS TREATED RUDELY. THEY CANCELLED MY ORDER WITHOUT NOTICE - SUDDENLY THE ITEM "WASN'T AVAILABLE" AND WHEN I QUESTIONED THEM I WAS TOLD " I WAS ASKING ALL THE WRONG QUESTIONS!!!" MY QUESTION WAS WHY THE WEBSITE SAID THE ITEM WAS IN-STOCK AND THEY WERE TELLING ME THAT IT WAS NOT AVAILABLE. VERY VERY RUDE - TOTALLY FRAUDULENT IN THEIR OPERATION AND INTEGRITY - BUYER BEWARE!"

"HORRIBLE
24 hour shipping is a lie.
6 days later they try to hard sell you extras before they will process your order.
Customer service lies about what is included.
I was told that the memory card and battery did not come with the camera. Salesman insisted that I ordered the international version that doesn't include them. I hung up, waited on hold for another half hour and the next salesman said that it did include the items. Still wanted to sell more add on items. Not worth the money saved. Go somewhere else to buy and save yourself the trouble."

"I tried placing an order through this company over the phone, several weeks ago, but was never able to get through, i liked their prices, so I bought the camara off their website. I recieved a call about a week ago, a guy named john from yellowbeephoto explained to me that the phone lines kept crashing, and to compensate for the inconvenience, they sent me 2 free batteries and a free memory card for the camara I ordred. PRETTY SWEET DEAL!!"

"DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY!!! I REPEAT DO NOT BUY FROM YELLOW BEE PHOTO
I ordered the Sony cybershot H5 digital camera online and the price with shipping was $333. For my order to be shipped I had to call in so they could verify information and all this is good for is to try to upsale. They will not process your order until they have tried to sell you every overpriced accessory under the sun and when you don't want to purchase any of them they take on a severe attitude. When I challenged them on an extra $20 it would cost for processing my order and insurance I was told by customer service that I had an attitude and maybe he should cancell my order and I should go purchase my camera at Best Buy or somewhere else. If this is the treatment I get when trying to buy something from them I hate to think of what service after the sale would be like when they have your money already. They offer a low price and if they will actually sell it for that it won't be without undergoing much harassment. They are pushy and I don't trust them after speaking to one of their representatives. I am way more comfortable paying more and knowing I will get my merchandise."

"crooks, charged me $100 more than I paid while ordering online. I had to call them so they can "check my billing info". Instead they just tried to sell me everything else. I had do dispite charges and send the camera back, bacsue I won't pay 15% restocking fee that they don't even mention on their website while ordering... AVOID!!!!!"

"Bottom line (saves time reading): Low prices are just a lure, they force you to call them so they can sell you overpriced accessories (deluxe packages), which they may do even if you refuse.

I wish I had found resellerratings.com before I placed my order based on PriceGrabber's positive feedback.

Ditto to everyone else's bad experience with this store. The e-mail I sent them sums it up VERY politely (if you care to read it).

RE: Your Order Number 29###
Hello,

If the camera has not yet shipped as of your receipt of this e-mail, please cancel my order and e-mail me the confirmation number. Chalk the loss of a sale up to your current customer service practices, and think about improving the following:

1. Your web site states that most orders ship out in 24 hours; this [may be] true if most orders are under $200, as apparently you have a verbal confirmation policy for orders over $200, which is information you do not share with customers on your web site or via e-mail in any sort of timely manner.

2. Your "customer service" is more interested in trying to sell me items I don't want than simply answering my questions. That is the job of the sales department, not customer service. Furthermore, the attitude of one of your customer service agents ("Jonathan", ext 409) was disrespectful and arrogant.

3. Customer service needs to actually listen to the customer. After denying the "offer" to upgrade the package I ordered, I find that my package has been upgraded and the bill increased anyway, strictly against my instructions.

Again, please cancel my order if it has not shipped as of Friday, 1-26-07, and do not bill my credit card. E-mail me the confirmation number. I will follow this e-mail with a telephone call, per your policy, but this e-mail serves as notice to hold and not ship if you have not already done so.

Thank you,

G****** L*******

EDIT: Also check out http://www.sheddingsomelight.com/buy-cameras/cameras-strategies.html
they talk about yellowbeephoto's suspicious nature near the bottom of the page"

"Do not buy from this company! Placing the order went well and the price of the product was great. Everything was downhill from there. The next day someone called to "verify" the information but really was just pressure selling add-ons that I did not want and did not buy. The next day I received an email notice stating my order was on backorder. I called their customer service and was on hold and never spoke to anyone. In fact, initially I was the 5th caller with 10 minutes to wait. The auto voice counted down to 3rd caller and less than 2 minute wait then it started counting up so that after 20 minutes I was still the 3rd caller and the expected wait time was about 10 minutes. The next day I called 6 times. Two times I heard Hello, and the call was dropped. Other times their system counted down to the next caller and then a click and then a dial tone.
After I sent 2 emails I got a response and my order was finally cancelled.
The experience made me very tense and one I would not wish on anyone."

"Terrible service. Eight days passed and the order is still "in process". No communication except the initial email confirmation. "

"WARNING – DO NOT BUY FROM THIS COMPANY -- This company is NOT a member of the Better Business Bureau and I suspect it is because they know they will receive complaints from their deceptive and fraudulent trade practices. After dealing with them, I have to assume that this is because they are running a scam business. Their camera accessories are way overpriced (a basic camera bag costs $15-20 everywhere else and they charge $60), and their base cameras are underpriced. This place seems to be running the classic bait & switch operation.

I am convinced that this company must post all of these positive comments themselves because all of the negative comments are consistent with what I encountered with this company.

Also, this company’s website shows a picture of a nice looking store, but when you look closer, you will note that the building is computer generated. Also their website has a picture of the inside of the store that shows a huge building with conveyer belts, which I suspect was borrowed from somewhere else on the Internet. The final proof is when you search for information about this company, you discover that they operate under several fronts such as Yellow Bee Photo (YellowBeePhoto.com), All Star Distributions (AllStarDist.com), a.k.a. DigitalShopCart.com, a.k.a. Amazing Tomato Headquarters (AmazingTomato.com). Apparently YellowBee shares a fax with Digital Shopcart. Also some emails from Yellow Bee comes from ****@**** (they seems to have fixed this red flag) Yellow Bee's address on PriceGrabber is the 177B address, and Allstardist.com is registered at the 177B address. You can see a picture of the REAL yellowbee location at http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/h0251.htm

Like the other comments complaining about this company, I ordered a camera from Yellowbee online through their website and immediately received a confirmation email. When I checked on the status, it was real vague “in process” so I called and emailed multiple times to see what was going on. I never received any return phone calls and the only email I received indicated that I need to call them in order to verify my billing information BEFORE my order may be processed.

I tried to call and email multiple times in order to allow this verification, but they kept dodging me. They never returned emails or calls even though I warned that I was not happy with their service and I was considering canceling my order.

I discovered all of the complaints AFTER I started having problems and I realized that I was in the process of them about to try and upsell me, so I cancelled my order. I am convinced that they probably never even had this camera in stock and just have these killer deals on the web to lure in people so they can sell other stuff. Although I have gotten through to humans a couple times (after long waits) they promptly transferred me to either extension 406 or 407 which is NEVER answered by a human. Also, when I demanded to speak to a manager, I got some song and dance about how I need to talk to someone in this other department and they quickly transferred me before I had a chance to say anything. Their website says “very easy to reach a manager directly” but I have a sneaky suspicion that this is an operation run by a handful of people out of the hole-in-the-wall office front. I expect that they fabricate all of the positive reviews so that their overall rating is high enough to make it seem legitimate and to bury the negative reviews (which ALL seem to be very consistent in the details of the complaints). Also, please note that although this website claims to have “millions” of customers, it only has about 100 comments on Pricegrabber.com and all of those comments are from August 2006 to the present (indicating that this company has not been around long).

Please pay the extra couple of dollars to shop elsewhere. It is not worth the headaches that you will have just to TRY and save $20.
"

"On Tuesday 10/31, I called to place an order for a Sanyo HD1a for $562 plus $14 shipping. (not the very best online price, but I had read many horror stories about Brooklyn based camera shops so I ordered from YellowBee because there were some positive reviews online) I spoke with Mende who politely tied to upsell me to a larger memory card, extra battery, and extended warranty. When I said no he said to go ahead and just order online. Soon I got an e-mail that said please call back there was a billing problem so I called and spoke with Elle who politely tried to upsell me an extra battery, etc. I refused and she said OK the order would ship.

The next day I received another e-mail saying there was still a problem with the billing so I called and spoke to a another gentleman who wanted to confirm that my shipping address was different than my billing address (same thing I had confirmed the day before) He also tried to sell a bunch of extras , but I said no thanks.

Two days later (Friday Nov 3) I went online to check the status of my order, and it said "awaiting authorization" I called and this time spoke with the Sales Manager Mr. Thomas. This guy was polite, but he gave me the hardest upsell I have ever received in my life, telling me (among other things) that the battery that came with the camera was only good for powering the clock (total B.S.) After a relentless onslaught I kept my cool but refused to buy anything more. He finally agreed to ship my order.

The camera arrived a few days later in perfect condition. The price was great, and overall the staff at yellowbeephoto was professional and polite, but be ready to go through some work if you don't want to buy a lot of extras. "