Express Cameras Bait-and-Switch

A couple of weeks ago I got my press credentials renewed for the 2006 series of Miller Lite Fight Night at the tank. I wanted to buy a flash for the event that was recommended to me by friends and seemed like the right price. I typed in ‘buy 550ex’ (the model number) in Google and ended up in a scam a second time. I guess I didn’t learn the first lesson completely…

Back to the first time I tried to make this purchase, I had made the same Google search to get this flash before the last event. Right on the top of the search page, as one of Google’s sponsored links, was Express Cameras’ offer which was a full $20 less than the next nearest offer I could find. 24 hours after finishing the online purchase order, I received a call from a representative of Express Cameras, the retailer, who claimed to be “confirming the order”. After verifying my name and address, he began a hard-sell for a different camera model:

Him: Why aren’t you buying the new flash?
Me: What new flash?
Him: The much better one that just came out last week.
Me: Oh, I wasn’t aware that Canon had replaced this model.
Him: No, it’s made by someone else.
Me: Well, put my order on hold and I’ll research it.
Him: You can’t research it because it’s not out yet.
Me: How do you have it if its not out?
Him: We received advanced units from Japan.
Me: OK, forget it. Cancel my order and I’ll start my research over.

Well, that sucked. I ended up renting the flash for that one event with the resolve that if I decided to continue the boxing photography I’d purchase it later. Well, later occurred last Saturday, when I mistakenly went through the exact same Google search to arrive at the exact same vendor. Admittedly I had kind of forgotten about the first incident. However, I did handle it better this time when I got the call the next day:

Him: I’m calling to confirm your order…blah blah blah…you know, you should be getting the better flash.
Me: Oh, why is that?
Him: Well, Canon discontinued the one you’re ordering and won’t support it any more.
Me: Listen, I’ve researched this flash to down to the exact dimensions and know, for a fact, that this is the exact model that I want.
Him: Er, well, OK. We’ll ship it to you.
Me: When?
Him: Tomorrow.

Three days later I get the following e-mail from Express Cameras:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for the order you placed with us.
Unfortunately, we have become oversold on the
item(s) you ordered, and the order is now
backordered.

Since it may be up to several additional
weeks until the backorder is filled, your account has
not been charged at this time.

Ah, there it is. When the scammer wasn’t able to succeed with the bait-and-switch they pulled the bait. I immediately did a second Google search for Express Cameras and came back with a multitude of sights complaining about this group’s business practices. Apparently non-existent customer service, gray-market merchandise, and the bait-and-switch are par for the course for them.

So now I’m going to go through all of these forums and post my own story and link to this page. If you have access to any web content I’d appreciate if you’d do the same so that we can Googlebomb this story to the top 10 of Google searches for Express Cameras. It probably won’t happen, but there’s nothing that would give me greater joy than seeing this cautionary tale be front-and-center for other people that want to learn about these scammers.