I have been buying from Amazon for years and more and more I have been having problems with them. They let anyone sell anything they want without being screened to see if the seller is legitimate, if the information they give about the product is correct or even an out right lie. To try to counter this, call them and go over the product with a rep. Then the problems really escalate. You get a foreign rep who barely speaks English, is almost impossible to understand and they have no idea what you are talking about but try to BS their way through the conversation with you, wasting your time and only showing over and over again that they have no idea what you are saying. Then when you ask for a rep in the USA (which they are required by law to connect you), they either refuse to do so or put you through hell to get them to connect you. Then when you get to the US rep (if they finally do connect you), you are fed a bunch of lies that you find about later after you spent your money. Then you call back to get the problem resolved and you are informed that everything the rep told you was untrue; but Amazon will nothing to resolve the problem. zThen you are left with the final resort to file a dispute with your credit card company that can take several months to have it put to rest.

I have experienced this exact scenario the last tow times I tried to order an item at Amazon. Neither purchase was photo equipment, but the point is, why would one continue to keep purchasing from Amazon when they keep treating their customers this way. Has anyone else had similar experiences with Amazon with purchases? I personally, think that I am done ordering from them and highly caution others from doing business with them; they re rapidly getting wore and worse. I could give details btt it would be like a chapter in a book to explain step by step problems and why they were a problem but the routine is as described.

I have been buying from Amazon for years and more and more I have been having problems with them. They let anyone sell anything they want without being screened to see if the seller is legitimate, if the information they give about the product is correct or even an out right lie. To try to counter this, call them and go over the product with a rep. Then the problems really escalate. You get a foreign rep who barely speaks English, is almost impossible to understand and they have no idea what you are talking about but try to BS their way through the conversation with you, wasting your time and only showing over and over again that they have no idea what you are saying. Then when you ask for a rep in the USA (which they are required by law to connect you), they either refuse to do so or put you through hell to get them to connect you. Then when you get to the US rep (if they finally do connect you), you are fed a bunch of lies that you find about later after you spent your money. Then you call back to get the problem resolved and you are informed that everything the rep told you was untrue; but Amazon will nothing to resolve the problem. zThen you are left with the final resort to file a dispute with your credit card company that can take several months to have it put to rest.

I have experienced this exact scenario the last tow times I tried to order an item at Amazon. Neither purchase was photo equipment, but the point is, why would one continue to keep purchasing from Amazon when they keep treating their customers this way. Has anyone else had similar experiences with Amazon with purchases? I personally, think that I am done ordering from them and highly caution others from doing business with them; they re rapidly getting wore and worse. I could give details btt it would be like a chapter in a book to explain step by step problems and why they were a problem but the routine is as described.

One purchase was for R Alpha Lipoic Acid. It is very good for anyone and especially helpful for diabetics that have neurapathy. There are even claims out there that one can cure neurapathy with it (neurapathy is the feeling of your arms or legs going to sleep; it's caused from nerve damage and lack of blood flow to the extremities in diabetics and eventually will lead to having them cut off to stall death). There two kinds of Alpha Lipoic Acid; R and S. R is the good one (absorbs much easier and better and is more effective). It is also quite expensive for a supplement. I have been buying it in bulk form and loading it capsules at home while I watch TV; it's much cheaper that way. R Alpha Lipoic Acid has one problem and that is that it has a very low melting temperature (not much over 100 degrees F), so I order it during the cold months. I had been getting it for the last few years from a company off the internet. The last two purchases I made with them, it came melted and seized back together in lumps that could not be broken up. It had been exposed to heat and destroyed. The first time it happened was in the fall. I waited a couple of months, called the company and asked if they had a new shipment of it and they said, no, not yet but claimed that my first shipment was a fluke and insisted what they had in the warehouse was good and if I ordered it again, it would be fine. So I reordered in February and when it came it was hard as a rock; in much worse shape than the first one.

I noticed that Amazon sold the same product and was advertised as coming from Amazon. So I called Amazon and wanted to verify that they had their own shipment of it in their warehouse. If this was true (the web site claimed this to be true), then hopefully they had a shipment of it in good condition. The rep claimed that they had their own shipment of it and the people in the warehouse knew to verify that the product was good before shipping it (you can tell by squeezing the pack; if it's in powder form, as it should, or if it is all lumped up). So, on the word of the Amazon rep, I proceeded to order a packet from them. The next day I got the email of it being shipped and instead of coming from Amazon, it was coming for the company. I called Amazon, expressed my anger for being lied too and feared it would be damaged. The rep told me that he would make note of the incident on my account and if it came damaged again to call them right back and they would immediately credit me for the purchase since I was misinformed by the earlier rep. Of course it came as bad as the other ones (getting quite obvious that the company is either shipping it bad or Fed Ex is holding it somewhere in a very hot warehouse during delivery) and when I called up to get the credit issued, the story now changes on a 180 degree twist claiming that I had to deal with the company, not Amazon, to get my refund. Now, not only having been lied to, but also note that if I buy directly from the company, I get a 10% discount that I do not get from Amazon. Now they were changing their story completely, went back on everything I was told, even though I called ahead of time to avoid all this bull to begin with. If I was told the truth in the beginning, I never would have placed the order. I did everything I could to avoid this; Amazon was totally wrong all the way and now refusing my refund, insisting I go through the other company. I did not buy it from the other company, I bought it from Amazon. That is when I just turned it over to my credit card company; now Amazon can pay a penalty for their lies.

All I can say is that we can be grateful for one thing and that buying camera equipment is not as complicated as supplements are; not to say that camera gear buying does not have its pitfalls.