I generally don’t blog about bad customer service calls, but when a representative tells me “I am sorry you are wasting my time” and hangs up on me, I figure I blog this entry so that people understand what they are getting, when they are ordering a camera from Broadway Photo (http://www.bwayphoto.com).
I ordered Sony Cybershot DSC-T20 on bwayphoto.com yesterday at a base price of $207, not really wanting to spend more money on a simple point-and-shoot camera that I bought for my parents. As part of the purchase process you have to call them at 1-800-307-1148 to have the order “verified”. During that phone call, they were trying to very aggressively upsell me with extra specially-made memory cards (since according to their claim this Sony camera doesn’t take in standard memory cards, which I find hard to believe), batteries, warranties, specially-made camera cases, and full packages, etc. I understand that it’s part of their business to upsell you with optional items, but the aggressiveness was really bothering me, but I have declined all items except for the different battery, as they have told me that the supplied battery from the manufacturer (Sony) only last for twenty minutes (which I also still find very hard to believe, and would like to have Sony comment on that). At any case, I reluctantly agreed to add the 4-hour battery to this at an additional $60. At the end, when he quoted me the total price of some $350, I enquired about this discrepancy, and he told me that I have said “Yes”, when he asked me whether I wanted to add a supercharger (that charges the battery at record speeds). Wait, what? I have not agreed to such a thing, I don’t even trust superchargers anyways, and I can’t believe that he claims that I have agreed to that when he asked me. Even if he did ask that question, wouldn’t it make sense that he mentions the price for such an item as well? At any rate, I can’t even remember him asking me that, and I would have declined that up-front immediately.
This phone call was getting more and more unpleasant, and when I suggested that I might want to purchase a different camera (even with Broadwayphoto) instead to keep the total price in the $200 range, he offered me a package for this camera with all the gizmos at $300, which I still declined (what part of “I don’t want to spend more than $200” did he not get?). Well, it is at this moment, when the representative said “I am sorry you are wasting my time” and hanged up on me! That is the rudest customer service call I have experienced in years!
I wish I would have recorded this phone call, so I can post it here and send this to both Broadway Photo customer service and Sony. At this point, I don’t even know if he cancelled the order altogether or whether he just cancelled the extra gizmos, but after a short while, I’ve then been informed via email that my order has been completely cancelled.
After further investigation I realize that this company has an extremely bad reputation among shoppers and the Better Business Bureau. Go figure, I should insisted on BBB membership before the purchase, and I suppose researching about a company prior purchase would have helped. Now, I just need to keep an eye on my credit card statements to make sure that they remain uncharged.
Anyways, here's a plethora of other customer complains. Hopefully this will be a warning to other shoppers:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,107855-page,1/article.html
http://www.resellerratings.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=113697
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/01/whoa-avoid-broadway-photo-folks.html
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Broadway_Photo