Hello,

I was wondering if all who have purchased their cameras online could share their experiences with the company/store they bought from.

Also, have any purchased extended warranties online? Any opinions on the subject would be greatly appreciated. I would love to purchase a camera online because there are some really nice bargains, but I'm leary of the availability of warranties. Best Buy, for example, has a wonderful 4-year performance plan for 59.95. As far as I've seen, that can't be beat online.

Thank you. Joshua Palmer Norman, OK

-- Joshua Palmer (uncertain_weather@ou.edu), April 02, 2000

Answers

I made a purchas at Small Dog Electronics in Vt. Also in the purchase I bought an extended warranty. Unfortunately when the time came for repair, I found that there was no facility offered in Wash. State. I contacted Small Dog and was given a lot of run aournd--no offer to refund or do anything about the funds I had paid for a fanthom warrantee that had no validity. They did offer to make the repairs on their own which meant packaging, mailing and sending (at my expense). They seem friendly and polite, but when the chips are down ...!

Perhaps I was unlucky ... good luc

-- Fred Luckow (fmluckow@excite.com), April 02, 2000.

Make sure you check out www.pricescan.com before you buy on-line. You won't be sorry. All they do is catalog the prices from other distributor web sites. Pretty amazing. All sorts of stuff. Remember too that your warranty is from the manufacturer, not the distributor. This is a good thing.

HTH

-- John Kretsch (john_kretsch@excite.com), April 03, 2000.

I say buyer beware!! The incidence of rip offs on internet digital camera sales are probably among the highest of any items sold.

In particular there are a number of rip off houses operating out of NY, without mentioning names. If you buy from the bigger well known places you'll do fine, or if your friends have ordered successfully, etc.. I always check www.reseller-ratings.com, i think there are similar sites out there.

Just because the place shows up on a price-finding search engine does not mean it is a good place!! A lot of these places play games, with low advertised price, then either bait and switch or nail you with insanely high shipping price. When you try to rectify the situation, you can't get through and they won't return messages. Go ahead and read the horror stories on reseller-ratings.com. Many will keep you waiting for that backordered item, indefinitely, they bill you when you backorder, not when it ships! Some will high pressure sales you into "value packs" that are utter rip offs. If you're careful it's not a problem, not trying to scare people here. I've ordered tons online and never had a problem. I'm very skeptical of the value of some of these extended warrantees. Good luck trying to actually use one if th

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), April 03, 2000.

I've bought about $3,500 worth of stuff on-line over the last 2 years. I have had excellent results with www.onsale.com at their auction prices. Recently bought a new Olympus 360L (just hit the market on March 1, 2000) with a lowest pricewatch price of $295.00, but I paid only $254+12.50 shipping. Onsale has always been honest with me, and I have had several instances when I had to send something back & they gave me the UPS authority to do so at their expense.

I buy mostly from their auction side, but they also have a retail side at fixed prices. You can get some great deals on the auction side on both new and refurb stuff, but don't get caught up in the fun and overbid with the other idiots.

By the way, onsale is owned by Egghead.

JW

-- John Werner (jwerner@mpinet.net), April 06, 2000.