"A&M stands for Awful Merchandise. I purchased a simple, cheap camera bag. Weeks after getting the 'please call to confirm' e-mail everyone else is talking about, I still don't have the bag. They say it's out of stock, although it still shows as in stock on their website. I suspect they are waiting for someone to steal one to send to me.

Buy nothing from A&M."

"Caveat Emptor. I can only say that these people are about as close to being crooks as you can get. I will never purchase anything from this outfit again.

I will not detail my experience, except to say that ALL of the reviews I read are accurate about their deceptive business practices. This is a classic bait and sell expensive "must have add-ons".

It's my fault...I was "blinded" by the low price of a Nikon D70 Body for under $600.

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, this statement is correct.

KRC Penn Valley CA"

"SCAMMERS! I had to cancel my order from this store. I guess I knew the price was too good to be true. I got the dreaded call us to confirm e-mail and when I did I was asked which battery I wanted to buy at inflated prices. I said none and the salesman hung up. Then it tokk an hour to get through to another salesman who told me there would be no warrantee! SCAMMERS! I was able to cancel my order."

"THEY SELL USED PRODUCTS!!!!
I was buying a camcorder, thank God I called to make sure it was new and not refurbished. A very rude person answered and after asking that question, he yelled "NO, THEY ARE USED. GOOD BYE!", and he hanged up on me. At least they are sincere."

"STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE!! I ordered a Nikon 5200 camera online, and like others received an e-mail saying I needed to call customer service to verify purchase. I had to go through 4 people and lots of wait time before my "salesman" came on the line. What a load of crap! Very high-pressure talker who tried to sell a battery and the "American" package. You see, if I didn't buy the "American" package, my camera would be shipped to me direct from Japan in 3-4 weeks. What a crock. I canceled. These people are vultures. Read the fine print of their sales policy, too. THEY take all rebates prior to selling an item. Horrible business practices."

"DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM THIS COMPANY!!!! I bought a projector from this crooks and ended up paying over 200 dollars more on their advertise price. They claimed the projector doesn’t come with any cables so I had to pay 80 dollars more if I wanted cables to come with it. Shipping was overcharged, almost 60 dollars just to ship regular mail. They said they insured every package, however it didn’t say that when I ordered it online. Button line, they make any type of excuses to bump your price up.

BE AWARE ALSO THEY HANG UP THE PHONE ON YOU ALL THE TIME! CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE WORST AND RUDE PEOPLE. "

"These people are crooks with no conscience . I placed an order via internet and received an email saying that I needed to call them to verify my personal information. I thought this was odd because no other sellers request this. So I called them and after they verified my name and address (a big put-on) they asked if I wanted to buy expensive batteries for my camera and also if I wanted to buy an extended warranty since there is no manufacturers warranty (a lie) on the camera. I said no to both, just ship me the camera please. After more sales pressure and more rejection of his offers, the clerk said "ok, the camera will ship in 3-4 weeks". He told me this because he didn't want to sell me the camera at the price advertised. Their website says "order now" for availabilty, intentionally being vague about whether it's in stock or not (which I think it is).
Anyhow, A & M Photo is a fine example of how NOT to do business. I'll never shop there again. What a waste of time."

"You wouldn't think a $20 camera accessory would cause much problems.

If it was ordered from A&M, you'd be wrong.

I was browsing the web, trying to find the best price on a recently discontinued lens adapter for my Sony P100. I guess one of the sites I checked prices on (half checkout, to see the shipping price) was A&M, because I got an email from the company, telling me that I could get free shipping if I completed my order through them. So I did.

A few minutes later, a buddy started pointing out a few review sites with all sorts of negative reviews on this company. But, for a $20 order.... I figured maybe I would be safe.

No so.

It started with a phone call at 6:30am.
"You realize I'm on the west coast, right?"
"I thought you were in Canada"
"?????"

Then he tried to get me to change my order, from a $20 adapter, to a $120 magnetic zoom lens (after I told him I had already bought my lenses). Told me all the awful, horible things about the product I wanted, but I stood firm, saying I only wanted the adapter. So he said ok, we'll ship out your order.

The next day, my order status magically goes to Out of Stock. So I try to call in to cancel the order, but just get answering machines. The next day (Friday), I call at 11am PST, and while the phone messages says their friday hours are until 5pm, their office is already closed. So I wait til monday to call.

Monday comes, I call in, give my order number, and:

"yeah, we don't have any of those left"
"yeah, so you might as well cancel, right? thank you"
"click"

No thank you, no good buy, just "click". I'll be phoning my CC company to make sure nothing fishy goes on.

Wish I'd done my research before ordering. Saving a few bucks on a $20 product was nowhere near worth the hassle I went through with these scammers."

"I ordered a Canon Powershot S1 IS because the price was inticing ($279). I ordered online and had received an email from them indicating that shipping was free on my next order. I received an confirmation email and a few days later a salesman called with all sorts of distorted information about the camera. He convinced me to order a 256 Mb compact flash card because the card with the camera would only hold 10 pictures, a rechargable battery pack, because the batteries that came with the camera would only last 7 minutes and an addtional warranty because the warrantywith the camera was only for 90 days. All of these were not true. The batteries are actually good for about 120 pictures and the card will hold from 18 to 337 pictures depending on the resolution. When I registered my camera at the Canon website, I saw that the warranty was really for a year. For these additional things I paid $160 plus 15.99 shipping. The shipping was supposed to be free and the other items I could have purchased for less than half what I paid with better quality. I have been unable to contact A&M, either by being cut off or on endless hold, never hearing a real voice.

I realize now that I was drawn in by the price, and should have known better than to trust an outright lying salesman (salesman 39 205). I will never order another item from this company and wouldn't recommend it. I did recieve the camera in a few days and like it so far. "

"I just dont understand why no one reports this company to the Federal Trade Commision
www.ftc.gov

Its as simple as that. The way these guys do business is simple. They advertise at prices lower than their own cost price, and unless you purchse their BS high priced accessories, theyll give you the runaround saying that its either a non US model, no accessories, or if you agree to that, that they will ship it. This is all only to find out later that the order is on backorder so they dont lose money on their stupid loss leaders. Pretty lame, and its just another bait and switch tactic."

"I proceeded to order before i chekced out this site, I dealt with the sheister over the phone and he told me the product was in stock, then hassled me for 10 minutes in the heaviest new yorker accent ive ever heard in my life. I felt like i was talking to my cousin vinny. I just got an email from them and they said it wasnt in stock and they wouldnt charge me so i called up my parents whos credit card i used to order and told them to check their recent charges and sure enough they charged me, I am going to proceed to press charges very soon. Fraud, false advertising, anything on these guys I can get I will, anyone wanna help me out here?"

"scam artist and cons, company was called top choice digital, they changed the name to avoid all the un happy people. They conned me with the 5 yr warrenty on a Nikon for 120$ What a joke, If I ever make it to NY I hope to find one of these very bad thieves.
My e address is ****@**** , Im sure there are enough of us who were scamed for a suit."

"I wish I had found this site before. My experience didn't seem so bad as the others posting here though. The day after I placed my order, I received the infamous upsell call. I was told that the camera I ordered didn't come with a battery or charger and that I should order them for an additional $200. This would push their seemingly low price well above the price on the same camera at other places that I have shopped before and know to have a good reputation. They have a tricky little scam going. They have a rating site at digitalsaver dot com that lists their other bait and switch operations like broadway photo and some stars to make you think that they have a user rating system in place. I was duped, but feel a bit wiser as a result. To their credit, their rep Matthew was polite and even sent a quick email confirming that my order was canceled when I told them to take a hike."

"Awful! Worst customer service ever experienced. Totally scammed us. We did a frugal search to buy a camera. This store came up with cheapest price ... however they called us a few days later and pressured us into buying a package by misrepresenting prices of items in package available at outside stores. When we received, invoice did not have itemized breakdown of camera plus accessories so they would not permit us to return "additional pressured to buy" items. Told us we could only return whole order with a $70.00 penalty charge. Representative on the phone, name Mark extremely rude and abrasive."

"Terrible service. I ordered a Sony digital camera from them. They weren't the cheapest, but seemed to have a good returns policy, so I go ahead and order. Later I call them to change something on my order and they tell me they can sell me some product for $100 more with a "long life" battery, a case and a superior warranty. No information on quite what "long life" means, except their conjecture, so I check online whilst I work out if it's something I want, and get cut off. A week later the product arrives - the $100 extra product with a case, warranty & "long life" battery. The case isn't in the package and the "long life" battery turns out to be the std battery which ships with all Sony cameras of this type. I think they have the wrong product (I never asked to purchase this in the first place), so I call up and tell them their mistake. They offer me a replacement case, and another battery because they screwed up, but I'm insistant I want the original $100 package which I ordered. They tell me this package is just a camera - no software, no charger, no cables. There is NO mention of this on their web site for the product. I start pointing out that they never mentioned this on their web site and the person on the other end starts getting abusive to me about keeping him on the end of the phone because he needs to get home to his kids, and that I'm getting a great deal that I can't get anywhere else on the web, and why can't I be satified with what I (didn't) order? I told them in no uncertain terms I would never purchase from them ever again, and would return it the product, even though it would end up costing me more. Beware - false advertising on their site. Atrocious customer support, bait & switch tactics. Not worth the effort. I only wish I'd found this web site before I purchased."