Lesson Learned: Selling Cameras, Trusting Adorama and Rant, et al.

[christopher walrath]

File this under, yeah, I shoulda seen this coming. Trying to sell my mamiya kit to fund a jump into LF and out fo the blue got the idea to send out requests for quotes with the big houses. Adorama calls me back. 'Send in your gear, you'll be happy we guarentee it.' So I ship off my two M645j bodies, 4 lenses and a host of others assorted crapola. They'll get back to me in 2-4 days. 6 days and three phone calls later, 'Oh, we can offer you $60 for all of it'. To which my response was something akin to the following. 'You smokin crack? Yes I know everyone is moving to film but you shouldn't have promised stars and bucks only to make me not have my kit for a week and a half so I missed three potential sales. Send it the hell back, NOW. Oh and what was that guarentee that I would be satisfied?' 'The guarentee was we would send it back.' Holy Hell!

Thank you, you can go about your business. Move along.

 

[JC1220]

What a bunch of SOB's!!

"Don't piss down my back and tell me its raining!"




Hey, I'll give you $70 for it all!

 

[Mitica100]

Unreal! Yeah, they're in the business of selling and want to make a profit, I can understand that, but offering you peanuts for a pro setup???

You're better off selling on your own.

 

[usayit]

Yup... I've done a lot of trading used camera equipment and it is almost always best to sell it on your own. If the items are high-end, I'll go through a local store known for selling good quality used equipment and request a consignment with no more than 20% going to the store.

B&H and Adorama both don't do consignment and are in the business of max profits. As such... your return will be horrible. For kickers, I sent in an email B&H quote for a used Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS USM. A very popular $1600 MSRP lens that they only would give $600 bucks.... I laughed!!

I've run into the Adorama guy that acquires used equipment at local camera swaps in my area. He runs a tough deal..... pretty much undercutting all the vendors. The only thing good is that he usually purchases a bunch of items at once.

 

[christopher walrath]

Oh, I think I might have had it sold but it wasn't here. There's the kicker.

 

[Paul Ron]

I live here in NYC and see these guys face to face when offering nothing for equipment. It cracks me up every time. Adoroma, B&H and the other one Cambridge are a bunch of theives and are all related to eachother. I would never buy anything they sell as used. I have enough of a time dealing with them on returns for new stuff.

You'd do much better selling your stuff on these forums.. PhotoNet, APUG, here, n Nelson's. I'll bet you'd get going prices much faster n make someone happy at the same time. I've never had any problems selling anything. Also most people I've bought n sold equipment on the forums were very honest n fair when making deals.

Yup lessons learned.

 

[christopher walrath]

Yeah, I subscribe on APUG and the price just dropped $100.00.

 

[epatsellis]

Have patience, list in on Pnut, MF is a hard sell these days, unless you're practically giving it away. Though I'm not sure why, it's a heck of a lot lighter than the LF cameras, and the image quality is more than adequate for most people's needs. Not to mention that even 645 gives the $5000 Dslr's an awfully good run for the money.

erie

 

[reg]

Adoroma, B&H and the other one Cambridge are a bunch of theives and are all related to eachother.

LOL!



ANYWAY... chris, that's terrible! Just one reason I don't send in before a quote, ever. (That, and the classic "Oh! We never got that! Sorry for you!")