[Lincoya]

On July 8th, I found a great price (or so I thought) on a new Nikon S600 from 86th Street Photo & Video online. The price was listed on their website for $75-$100 less than the average retail price offered from other online companies. So, I ordered the camera. Shortly thereafter I received an e-mail confirming my order with a note stating: “Your order is currently:Processing” .

On July 10th, I received another e-mail, which reads in part:
“Dear Mr. Graham,
We thank you for choosing 86th St. Photo & Video (www.86photovideo.com) as your choice for all your photographic equipment.In order to further verify your order, we will need to speak with you on the phone. Please call our Verification department at 1-800-815-2040 Ext. 213 Jason so we may verify and complete processing your order.If you have already called and confirmed your order, you may disregard this request.”

I called the 1-800-number and let it ring until I got an answering machine. I hung up and waiting about 10 minutes and called again. The phone rang about 15 times and then some background music started. Finally, a recorded voice said, “Thanks for holding. Your order is important to us. Please continue to hold and we’ll get to you soon”. After about 15 minutes of this, I finally got a real person. He asked for my order number and then asked me to confirm my shipping address. After that he said, “The Nikon S600 is a very nice camera but I noticed that you didn’t buy a battery for it.” To which I replied, “It said on the website that it comes with a battery.” He said, “Yes sir. But that battery only lasts for 20 minutes. I can sell you an upgraded 5-hour battery.” I said, “I see. You want to sell me an $80 battery.” He then said, “If I could, I would. But I’m going to give you better deal. I’m going to let you have that battery for $49.95.” I told him very emphatically, “I don’t think so. I’ll tell you what. You can cancel my order.” He said, “OK” and hung up on me. I received an e-mail a couple of minutes later stating that my order had been cancelled.

Later I found these comments on ResellerRatings.com at this web address: http://www.resellerratings.com/seller17545-p2-s1-d1.html . There are over 300 BAD reviews listed there about this company. Beware that this company is also listed as Wisetronics.com. according to the Better Business Bureau which also has an unsatisfactory rating for 86th Street Photo & Video. Please don’t order from these people and read, at least, some of the other reviews.Thanks for your patience with my long post but I felt it necessary to report this to my friends here at TU.

Gene