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On a related note, I'm having an unpleasant experience with the BH used department. Purchased a LX7 graded 8, which is described as "may exhibit "dings" or finish marks", but the camera arrived with a huge dent/gouge on the bottom corner, enough to expose the raw metal and bulge the metal casing out on the sides, and make the entire camera pretty creaky. After googling a bit, it turns out that as opposed to KEH, BH is super liberal with their grading. The only thing they offered was for me to send it back at my cost. The listing also indicated that the shoulder strap is included, and it wasn't. Their CS department said they could send out an original, and after I accepted, I waited 10 days for them to say they only have offbrands. I was like which offbrand, and haven't heard back for 5 days and counting. I've already sold the camera locally for what I paid, but I guess I've grown so used to good customer service at most places that it has left a sour taste in my mouth.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:21
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daspope posted:Just wanted to post to say that Adorama's customer service has been terrible. Sent me a defective flash, which I contacted them and they requested I contact Nikon to get a repair estimate. Unfortunately they gave me Blackmagic's phone number for service. They have a 30 day return for products so I sent it back in, however I am still losing about $20 in shipping from the process. Even if Nikon could fix it, its lovely to make a customer wait for an undetermined amount of time and play phone with two companies. Adorama changed management years ago and their CS went downhill as a result. I would only buy things from them if they have it in stock and I can hold it in my hands. And even then I wouldn't because I support Palestine  I traded in some used gear a while ago, and they offered me $20 for a 6 month old, brand new lens I got for $180 because they said it had fungus in it. I went to adorama's used section online and they had that lens listed for $100 in 10/10 condition, I could read the serial number. I posted that as part of a 1 star review on their google page, and they deleted the page, tweeted at me, then when I wouldn't bite they called me. The CS manager said that it wasn't the same lens, that it had been sold as part of a lot, and offered me a $10 store credit to change my review. They're far more focused on selling memory cards and cleaning wipes to tourists these days. red19fire fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 01:08
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On the topic of complaints, KEH has always been super prompt in replying all my emails but on my latest one regarding a return, I haven't even gotten a reply after a week! Not to mention how troublesome and buggy their site is now. They really shouldn't have bothered updating.
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Aug 19, 2014 02:45
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I've had good luck calling keh directly for returns or damaged items. Also it's depressing to hear adorama is such poo poo. I have been to the store in NYC last month and they were willing to pull out about 10 different tripods for me and my dad to try out. Although they said that their online stuff is handled through a warehouse in NJ so that might explain the difference in experiences.
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Aug 19, 2014 13:04
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This might have popped up before in the dork room, but I found it pretty interesting. I fell victim to the full frame vs crop gear envy pretty early in my photographic pursuits and I might have made different decisions if I had seen something like this. I love my 6D, but I might have been better served to stick with my t2i for a few more years and spent that money on better glass/lights/etc first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHYidejT3KY
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Aug 21, 2014 17:22
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I want to take that guy's stick and smack him over the head with it. The party line in the dorkroom for as long as I've been reading it is that glass is more important than the sensor, though it's easy to lose sight of that message when a new body comes out and everyone starts slobbering about it. But if you ask everyone says to blow your wad on the lens. So maybe you should have asked more questions.  I'm still rocking a t1i, it's poo poo by everyone's standards but I have fun with it as long as I keep it at ISO 800 or lower.
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Aug 21, 2014 17:39
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Expensive glass is definitely more important than an expensive body, but I really enjoy my expensive glass a whole lot more on my full frame. On the wide end there is a huge difference between APS-C and full frame, and the amount of distortion you are going to get to achieve the same FOV is actually really noticeable. I also shoot with an 85mm A LOT and it's just too tight to fill the same role on a crop. I feel like he makes his argument in that video without ever really explaining any of the benefits of full frame other than "it's bigger, and who really cares about that?!" There are a lot of variables to choosing the right set up to fit your style of shooting and basically none are discussed in that video.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:00
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Adorama sucks. They for some reason thought it was a good idea to send me a $450 package covered in their logo and not require a signature. It got stolen off my porch. I contacted them and it happened to be Passover. You would think a company as big as Adorama would make an effort to actually function during a holiday that billions of people don't celebrate, but you'd be mistaken! Although they did have a person to answer my e-mails and basically tell me "sorry but we aren't going to do anything until Passover ends" and imply that me expecting customer service was disrespecting their religious beliefs. It took like two months but finally they sent me a replacement overnight for free and I will never buy anything from them ever again. And I had my mind blown the other night when a photographer I met who has a ridiculous portfolio and is getting ready to attend the School of Visual Arts and intern with Harper's Bazaar told me that the only setup he has shot his entire portfolio with has been a Nikon 50mm 1.8 on a D800 and a single Alien Bee light with some $30 umbrella he got off Amazon and occasionally a reflector. Gear honestly means nothing. The only reason he has the D800 is because the agency he worked with a lot forced him to upgrade from a D5100.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:24
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Adorama sucks. They for some reason thought it was a good idea to send me a $450 package covered in their logo and not require a signature. It got stolen off my porch. I contacted them and it happened to be Passover. You would think a company as big as Adorama would make an effort to actually function during a holiday that billions of people don't celebrate, but you'd be mistaken! Although they did have a person to answer my e-mails and basically tell me "sorry but we aren't going to do anything until Passover ends" and imply that me expecting customer service was disrespecting their religious beliefs. It took like two months but finally they sent me a replacement overnight for free and I will never buy anything from them ever again. Dont Jewish shame. Its a big loving deal of a holiday. gently caress you. They even warn people that due to holidays when they are closed. Just because billions of people do not celebrate Passover, doesnt make it any less important to those of us whom are Jewish. Go gently caress yourself. Glad your camera was stolen.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:38
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Adorama sucks. They for some reason thought it was a good idea to send me a $450 package covered in their logo and not require a signature. It got stolen off my porch. I contacted them and it happened to be Passover. You would think a company as big as Adorama would make an effort to actually function during a holiday that billions of people don't celebrate, but you'd be mistaken! Although they did have a person to answer my e-mails and basically tell me "sorry but we aren't going to do anything until Passover ends" and imply that me expecting customer service was disrespecting their religious beliefs. It took like two months but finally they sent me a replacement overnight for free and I will never buy anything from them ever again. Passover isn't 2 months tho
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Aug 21, 2014 19:40
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I ship things to my office, like an adult.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:49
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Musket posted:Dont Jewish shame. Its a big loving deal of a holiday. gently caress you. They even warn people that due to holidays when they are closed. Just because billions of people do not celebrate Passover, doesnt make it any less important to those of us whom are Jewish. Go gently caress yourself. Glad your camera was stolen. Wow, holy poo poo dude. An international company should not completely shut down for a religious holiday. That's just lovely business. I work for a small local business run by Mormons and they refuse to be open or let anyone work on Sundays because of that and it's ridiculous there too. ansel autisms posted:Passover isn't 2 months tho I never said it was? That's just how long it took them to resolve things.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:52
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Wow, holy poo poo dude. An international company should not completely shut down for a religious holiday. That's just lovely business. I work for a small local business run by Mormons and they refuse to be open or let anyone work on Sundays because of that and it's ridiculous there too. You must be one of those insufferable atheists. Go gently caress yourself. Plenty of businesses not affiliated with religion shut down on xmas, thanksgiving and other major US Holidays They took 2 months cuz any jerk can claim theft of shipment.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:54
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mr. mephistopheles posted:And I had my mind blown the other night when a photographer I met who has a ridiculous portfolio and is getting ready to attend the School of Visual Arts and intern with Harper's Bazaar told me that the only setup he has shot his entire portfolio with has been a Nikon 50mm 1.8 on a D800 and a single Alien Bee light with some $30 umbrella he got off Amazon and occasionally a reflector. Gear honestly means nothing. The only reason he has the D800 is because the agency he worked with a lot forced him to upgrade from a D5100. I've worked with several photographers who put out amazing work who use setups like a used D300, a 1980s era manual focus only Zeiss 85mm they found on craigslist, a couple ancient vivatar flashes, and that's it. You can achieve great things in photography without spending a lot on gear. It doesn't mean that gear means nothing though. Professional gear allows you to be versatile and adapt to shooting in situations where you need to get the shot no matter what. Decent gear also takes a beating way better than cheap stuff, my 50mm 1.4 and 35mm f/2 have both broken twice during "light" use but my 24-70 has been dropped more times than I will ever admit and has never needed a repair. There is a reason professional journalists don't walk around with a T2i and a nifty 50 and it's not because all of them are pretentious hacks that think they can rely on gear over their own creativity.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:55
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mr. mephistopheles posted:Wow, holy poo poo dude. An international company should not completely shut down for a religious holiday. That's just lovely business. I work for a small local business run by Mormons and they refuse to be open or let anyone work on Sundays because of that and it's ridiculous there too. You work for 'em because you aren't an alpha who makes his own business. Run the world your way bro.
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Aug 21, 2014 19:57
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Musket posted:You must be one of those insufferable atheists. Go gently caress yourself. Plenty of businesses not affiliated with religion shut down on xmas, thanksgiving and other major US Holidays I'm not an atheist and you need to chill the gently caress out. And obviously there's a formal claims process and I had my verification from UPS that it was legitimately stolen in life a week. Adorama just dragged their feet and I kept having to call and email them.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:00
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I bet Adorama and BH both lose money closing their checkouts on religious holidays (and even weekends I think?). So it's really kind of admirable that they would go to such lengths for their religious beliefs. I don't see how them being closed on Passover is any different from Christmas closures and whatnot, the only issue is that it took 2 months for them to resolve it.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:00
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So tired of loving pushy Christians closing on Christmas. Get a GRIP LOSERS.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:01
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mr. mephistopheles posted:I'm not an atheist and you need to chill the gently caress out. And obviously there's a formal claims process and I had my verification from UPS that it was legitimately stolen in life a week. Adorama just dragged their feet and I kept having to call and email them. So you are just insufferable by nature, good to know  You need a lesson in religious tolerance. The world doesnt revolve around your orders of camera gear. Next time, ship it to work
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Aug 21, 2014 20:03
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I think you'd be hard pressed to find an international company that doesn't have 24/7/365 online or phone customer service. Storefronts close but businesses don't typically shut down completely for an entire week. Also a shitload of places are open on Christmas now because they found out it's profitable so uh? Sorry for being a raging atheist religion hater I guess.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:05
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mr. mephistopheles posted:IM A WHITE CISHETMALE THINGS HAVE TO ALWAYS GO MY WAY. ftfy.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:06
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The Passover thing doesn't bother me one way or the other - they want to close shop for some reason for a time, whatever, as long as they warn people in advance, which I'm pretty sure they do. I've never bought from Adorama, but B&H puts big notices all over their website about not doing any work (processing orders, replying to correspondence, updating the website / what's in stock info, etc.) if you go there on a Friday. B&H is closed for Passover, too. Not for 2 months, but yeah, they're not going to answer the phone during that time. The not-required-signature thing is about 50% the fault of the shipper (i.e. Adorama) for not requiring it, and 50% the fault of the courier, for having corporate policies that clearly and obviously increase theft risk. I'm going to assume the courier in mr. mephistopheles' story was UPS, because out of all of the couriers I've ever interacted with, every bad story comes from an interaction with UPS. The couriers don't consider the person receiving the goods to be their customer - the shipper is their customer. Any customer service is going to suck if you're not considered to be the customer, which is why it's basically impossible to get anything out of UPS in terms of apologies or even acknowledgement that there's a problem. Telecommunications companies and municipal utilities talk about the last mile, the service infrastructure (wires, transformers, sub-stations) that goes between a bit of corporate property and the customer's house / place of business. Courier companies don't talk about the last mile, but they have a similar set of problems. UPS can consistently get my order from anyplace in the USA to their depot in my city in Canada in about 2 days, year-round, and that's pretty impressive. But they consistently and spectacularly fail to get it the literally-about-one-mile from that depot to my home in anything less than 3 days. Musket posted:I ship things to my office, like an adult.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:06
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ExecuDork posted:The Passover thing doesn't bother me one way or the other - they want to close shop for some reason for a time, whatever, as long as they warn people in advance, which I'm pretty sure they do. I've never bought from Adorama, but B&H puts big notices all over their website about not doing any work (processing orders, replying to correspondence, updating the website / what's in stock info, etc.) if you go there on a Friday. B&H is closed for Passover, too. Not for 2 months, but yeah, they're not going to answer the phone during that time. It's not just not processing orders on friday - one of them (maybe both) actually shuts the shopping cart portion of their website down on friday evening.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:26
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I just wanted to apologize to Musket and anyone else I offended. I didn't think hard enough about what I was saying and whether or not it was culturally insensitive. I wasn't expecting to get attacked so personally and hostilely and I got overly defensive. I should have just apologized immediately instead of trying to justify or further qualify what I said. I still think Adorama's customer service was abysmal even ignoring the holiday, but I shouldn't have conflated my frustration with that with their culture. It was a dick thing to say and I'm sorry. I try to be aware of things that are important to other people even if they aren't to me personally, and nothing drives me crazier than dipshits trying to tell other cultural or racial groups what they are allowed to be offended by, but in this case I hosed up.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:51
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Musket posted:Dont Jewish shame. Its a big loving deal of a holiday. gently caress you. They even warn people that due to holidays when they are closed. Just because billions of people do not celebrate Passover, doesnt make it any less important to those of us whom are Jewish. Go gently caress yourself. Glad your camera was stolen. Wow get hosed (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 21, 2014 21:51
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Pham Nuwen posted:Wow get hosed This post is the equivalent of a bench-clearing brawl finally calming down, then the fat middle reliever from the bullpen finally makes his way to home plate and sucker punches someone in the back of the head.
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Aug 21, 2014 21:54
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Huxley posted:This post is the equivalent of a bench-clearing brawl finally calming down, then the fat middle reliever from the bullpen finally makes his way to home plate and sucker punches someone in the back of the head. I like this post.
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Aug 21, 2014 21:59
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I'm totally down with all religions, especially if they get official holidays. Less time at work is a victory for everyone. Not requiring a signature for a delivery though.. that's just plain crazy. I'd cry a river of tears if my lovingly selected lens never showed up and I had to wait for a replacement to ship.
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Aug 21, 2014 22:14
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xzzy posted:I'm totally down with all religions, especially if they get official holidays. Less time at work is a victory for everyone. Requiring a signature is totally on Adorama, but there is usually an extra charge for it. But shippers are often lazy about this stuff, and the people buying from them even more so. Most people don't want anything more complicated than a set of radio button in the shopping cart to choose how fast the stuff is delivered. Bitching about the courier's policies is pointless. For every person that complains about stuff left of the porch, some one else complains about not being able to be home to sign for stuff. This is why serious businesses have their serious business shipments sent to an office, a mailbox service, held at willcall, or otherwise find ways to have stuff reliably and securely delivered. edit; I work for [big shipping company], and if anyone wants any tips on how to get stuff shipped to you that I didn't mention above, I can provide some. There are a lot of interesting things people have come up with to deal with these sort of issues. Beowulfs_Ghost fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 22:43
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I just got a lens delivered by UPS yesterday that the sender marked as signature required, so I stayed home all day to get it. UPS guys hands it to me and I ask "don't I need to sign something?" He's like halfway across my yard and says "naw man it's cool" No it isn't cool, it's the whole point of requesting a signature so there's proof my package actually makes it to me
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Aug 21, 2014 23:19
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Or, put decent primes on your crop and avoid the "expensive" part altogether (relatively speaking anyway).
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Aug 21, 2014 23:35
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Claw Massage posted:I just got a lens delivered by UPS yesterday that the sender marked as signature required, so I stayed home all day to get it. UPS guys hands it to me and I ask "don't I need to sign something?" He's like halfway across my yard and says "naw man it's cool" He probably figured that if the thief was already waiting inside your house for UPS to arrive, you had bigger problems than your lens being delivered. I think it's pretty much just a "don't leave that poo poo on the porch" flag though, since they let anyone sign any name they feel like signing anyways, it's not like you have to bust out ID.
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Aug 22, 2014 00:22
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Beowulfs_Ghost posted:Bitching about the courier's policies is pointless. For every person that complains about stuff left of the porch, some one else complains about not being able to be home to sign for stuff. This is why serious businesses have their serious business shipments sent to an office, a mailbox service, held at willcall, or otherwise find ways to have stuff reliably and securely delivered. I don't mind having a signature requirement for expensive stuff, but I don't like how B&H doesn't allow for a redirect so you can pick up packages at a different facility. There's a UPS store near my house that's convenient to get to, but instead I have to go all the way across town into a grungy industrial area for the main UPS location.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:10
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loving noobs. Sign up for UPS My Choice OR get a mail box at a UPS store. There is a fee for rerouting with UPS My Choice and I think its free if you have a mailbox.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:22
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UPS My Choice rerouting is exactly what B&H forbids. 
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Aug 22, 2014 15:28
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There's a free version of UPS My Choice, and one of the free options is "Hold for Will Call," which I've done many times with B&H packages.
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Aug 22, 2014 15:54
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Bubbacub posted:I don't mind having a signature requirement for expensive stuff, but I don't like how B&H doesn't allow for a redirect so you can pick up packages at a different facility. There's a UPS store near my house that's convenient to get to, but instead I have to go all the way across town into a grungy industrial area for the main UPS location. The thing about UPS Stores is that UPS left the franchise structure there from when it was Mailboxes Etc. So if you want stuff delivered to a UPS Store, the owner of the store expects to get paid for providing you that service. The most straight forward way is to rent a mailbox from them. Using UPS My Choice or other means to get a package rerouted to a UPS Store you don't have a mailbox at will in some way have a fee attached. But since they are franchises, there are exceptions to that rule. Bubbacub posted:UPS My Choice rerouting is exactly what B&H forbids. That is really weird. There are no-reroute flags that can be built into the tracking numbers, but those are usually only used in for specific things like prescription drugs or documents with a lot of personal information. The last 2 things I ordered from B&H had very plain service levels.
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Aug 22, 2014 19:36
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Huh, and I thought B&H were the only annoyingly observant Jews in the mail-order camera biz. (If you're not reading this within 25 hours of my posting it, they close at 5pm Friday and open early Sunday morning. You can't even place an order on the website on the Shabbat.)
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Aug 23, 2014 00:38
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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IDGI, you linked b&h, who are the others?
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Aug 23, 2014 00:49
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Most of my stuff is from adorama. I remember the first time I tried to order something on a Jewish holiday. I was like "oh, no problem I'll just go to b&h" lol nope. It was no big deal I didn't need anything right away but if there are other camera stores that offer similar quality online shopping experiences without shutting down for Jewish holidays I'm all ears. Amazon is ok in a pinch I guess but their prices can fluctuate and their inventory isn't as big. edit: I would also like to know about chic-fil-a but doesn't close on sunday Dren fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 02:34
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