I took my brand new still in the box Mac Book pro to Apple support to see why it did not work when I opened it and found out that although it was sold to me as new in March 2020 by B&H Photo, the computer had actually originally been sold to someone else December 21, 2019 by Tech Data Product. I bought the computer at the beginning of the COVID 19 shutdown in case I needed one and could not order it later then ended up not opening the computer until November.
When I opened it for the first time and plugged it in it did not work.. When I took it to the apple support tech, he told me when the computer had been sold and by whom as it was linked to the warranty.
Yes- it's COVID and things are tricky. Drama is great on your favorite Netflix series but not so great when it comes to accounting.
2 decades of great service - now $12,500 in recent orders ending in crash and burn. B&H will NEVER get my business again. They have been authorizing multiple transactions multiple times and have no response when they use all my available credit. When items had to be returned - they refunded different and random amounts. They have processed the wrong accounts. They are not transparent or honest. It's a ridiculous game of pass the buck. I just filed a BBB complaint as I can not get any senior CS reps to accomplish anything. It's a black hole of time, with no results.
[To illustrate multiple charges: I see a $2199.00 charge 3X as pending, 1X as posted, and then 1X as paid all on the same October Statement. Keep in mind this is one line item among 4-5 similar expenses]
[To illustrate refunds: I had a charge of $791.37 that was refunded with $724.52. Where is the rest of the money?. BTW - no explanation. I also have a similar transaction with a $2900 line item. This is being refunded because they have double charged my account]
Oh, there is also the new Canon RF 85mm 1.2 lens ($2699) that came in a trashed box and the lens clearly had been well used.
All these problems are part of a single order/kit. They are just in pieces due to availability and how they are being billed. Canon R5, Canon RF 85 1.2., Canon RF 15-35, Canon 70-200, and related accessories. COVID is not the problem.
Lastly, I typically review either awesome businesses or really bad ones. This is the latter. :(
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
I have not enjoyed my last half dozen shopping experiences at B&H. I've been a customer over ten years. Once a place for great prices and a decent website, B&H has grown too large in my opinion. It no longer values a customer or earns your business. The company has paid out millions in discrimination cases against women, Asians, Hispanics and others. It's gotten ugly. People don't matter. It's all about the units. You won't matter to them.
In a recent exchange of emails with their fixer, Henry Posner, he never once addressed me by name, or said Hi or Hello or thanked me for my business. Call me old-fashioned, am I just meat in their machine? B&H grinds out transactions and has made its owner a near billionaire. Congratulations to him. I prefer a company that values my business. There is more to a business than price. You can get a price lots of places. B&H, where's the smile?
We’ve purchased cameras, printers and computers from B&H for years. We’re a small business that takes pride in our service level to clients and appreciate it when we experience the same in a vendor. When we needed help on a recent order, we encountered an arrogant chat representative and no assistance at all. Was it the holidays? The delivery system was underwhelming. After the poorly packaged order arrived, we made subsequent inquiries to the Customer Service team but never dealt with the same person twice. One order has yet to arrive and we do not believe Customer Service can even track what happened. Each representative is so uninformed and unattached to any data that we’ve given up trying to make any inquiry. We hope we receive the last of our shipment and that it arrives intact. B&H Customer Service is lip service only.
Once upon a time, B&H seemed eager to serve photographers and artists and small companies. They’ve gotten so big now, so much larger than many of their customers that they can roll over on you in their sleep. Sadly, this NY operation is no-star service operation gunning for more volume. Cannot recommend. Do yourself a favor and stay away. Avoid the headache. Rating: 1 of a scale of 10
Let me start off by saying I was once a loyal customer of B&H Photo for 10 years. I have spent 10s of thousands of dollars through myself and the various companies I control. I am appalled by my latest experience purchasing my own personal equipment.
I got the new Surface Pro 6 and wanted the black keyboard for it. I ordered this and BH did not ship me the correct part. However, they seem to think this is my responsiilbity and refuse to ship me the correct part without returning it first. So the issue is in my country I cannot ship out of the state without a commercial export license that I do not have.
Henry Posner offers to give me a $20 credit for sending me the incorrect part. Even though I have spent many many many thousands of dollars. I am left feeling like these people could care less, they really could. And because I am in Ecuador, EVER THOUGH they made a mistake they will not correct it. Just will not correct it. They have decided to loose my future business, I even warned I would seek a public forum to voice my complaint because they are block happy.
This place is a JOKE. They curate the reviews and refuse to post anything that isn't 3 star positive or better. It is amazing to see this fake businesses with fake reviews, reviews from employees, you name it. What a BS joke this is.
Then ask yourself why you purchse from these people? They are a middleman selling foreign brands as a nationalist company. I mean it is just so pathetic of a joke it is amazing... they don't employe any engineers, artists, crafters... just sell what the rest of the world works hard to make. I can't wait for the day djI, Nikon, Canon decide to sell direct and kick out these American middleman businesses that just disrespect their clients, their business and the rest of the world that makes thier little bubble even possible.
Enjoy it while you can because I suspect it won't last too much longer. You can always decide to do the right thing, but until people care enough to do it a good thought is wasted. I regret to have to write such an opinionated review, especially since I lived in the USA and was born in the USA. But what I see now just makes me sick, and I will no longer purchase anything that ships from the USA.
Let me start off by saying I was once a loyal customer of B&H Photo for 10 years. I have spent 10s of thousands of dollars through myself and the various companies I control. I am appalled by my latest experience purchasing my own personal equipment.
I got the new Surface Pro 6 and wanted the black keyboard for it. I ordered this and BH did not ship me the correct part. However, they seem to think this is my responsiilbity and refuse to ship me the correct part without returning it first. So the issue is in my country I cannot ship out of the state without a commercial export license that I do not have.
Henry Posner offers to give me a $20 credit for sending me the incorrect part. Even though I have spent many many many thousands of dollars. I am left feeling like these people could care less, they really could. And because I am in Ecuador, EVER THOUGH they made a mistake they will not correct it. Just will not correct it. They have decided to loose my future business, I even warned I would seek a public forum to voice my complaint because they are block happy.
This place is a JOKE. They curate the reviews and refuse to post anything that isn't 3 star positive or better. It is amazing to see this fake businesses with fake reviews, reviews from employees, you name it. What a BS joke this is.
Then ask yourself why you purchse from these people? They are a middleman selling foreign brands as a nationalist company. I mean it is just so pathetic of a joke it is amazing... they don't employe any engineers, artists, crafters... just sell what the rest of the world works hard to make. I can't wait for the day djI, Nikon, Canon decide to sell direct and kick out these American middleman businesses that just disrespect their clients, their business and the rest of the world that makes thier little bubble even possible.
Enjoy it while you can because I suspect it won't last too much longer. You can always decide to do the right thing, but until people care enough to do it a good thought is wasted. I regret to have to write such an opinionated review, especially since I lived in the USA and was born in the USA. But what I see now just makes me sick, and I will no longer purchase anything that ships from the USA.
I had the worst experience buying a product of my entire life - and I live in Brazil, where the customer support is as bad as it can be.
I travelled to USA on vacation and I decided to buy my long waited CINTIQ, I was staying there from Jan 28th to Feb 11th.
I placed an order on January 31st, tried to buy it with my uncle's credit card, since he has a bank account in the USA. I tried once, it failed and the system notified me that it didn't proceed with the order, I called my uncle and he gave me another card number to use, tried the second time and it failed again and again the site told me that the purchase failed (and also, I received two e-mails from these tries saying the same, that the order failed).
After that, my uncle called his bank and they said they've blocked the purchase - since it wasn't expected such amount to be debited from his account profile - and then he asked then to allow it to proceed. And so they did, I tried a third time and the system said: "Thank you for shopping with us, your order has been confirmed" and I recevied an e-mail confirming that the order had been placed.
This was on January 31st, after 2 days waiting for an e-mail informing on the estimated date delivery, I called the customer support on Friday (Feb 3rd) only to be informed that you guys didn't work on Friday nor Saturday and you would be back on business next Sunday. I waited another 2 days and called on Sunday to the customer support that informed that my purchase had been declined and asked if I wanted to inform another credit card. And so I did, gave another credit card number and this time the representative said the purchase had been approved. When I asked him to confirm a second time if everything was ok with the order he said with this exact words: "Yes, your products should be shipped tomorrow first thing and you should expect them to be delivered in 3 working days".
I checked my e-mails on sunday and saw another confirmation that the purchase had been accepted and that I should wait it to be shipped so I could see an estimated delivery date.
I waited another day and on Feb 6th, monday, I got the e-mail saying that my order had been shipped and that 3 products of my order (out of 4) would come in 3-days and the other one, the most expensive and most important one, the Cintiq would come in 7 days - in other words, February 13th - 2 days after I come back to Brazil. I desperately called the B&H customer support asking then if there was anything that they could do to get my package delivered faster, explained that I wouldn't be in the USA in the estimated delivery date and that I needed it to be delivered in less than 7 days as the other representative assured to me, I told her that I'd do anything, pay any fee that this could imply. She said that she couldn't do anything after the package has been shipped, that I should call the UPS to see if they could do anything.
And then I called the UPS, and they told me that I should ask the store to change it since it wasn't in their system yet, and thus they could change it if the sender requested so. I called again the B&H support and told then all the history so far only to hear the same answer: we can't change it after it's been shipped.
I then waited another day to see if, once it got in the UPS system I could change the delivery somehow, but the answer was the same: we can't change it after the sender has made the shipment.
On February 11th, the day I should be packing my luggage to get in the flight, I received an update from UPS saying that my package was in Salt Lake City, so I rushed to their customer center and asked them if I could pick up the package from there - it was on Saturday - and the woman working there said that nobody working on saturday could access the trailer and retrieve the package to me.
And so I travelled back to Brazil without my package ordered 12 days prior to my trip eventhough I was assured that I would received my order before that - in 3 w-days.
After receiving written assurance on January 2, 2017 from B&H customer service representative (Neil B) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX hard drive they sell was a new, retail item, B&H sent me a pre-owned bare one.
Internal hard drives are sold in retail kits with documentation, screws and cable or they are sold Bare/OEM in a plain, brown box with no documentation or anything else. BARE/OEM hard drives are sometimes of questionable origin as the one I received was.
Bare/OEM hard drives are usually sold to manufacturers or other buyers like people who build their computers and accept the risks. Warranty problems are associated with Bare/OEM hard drives based on my research. In addition, the potential price savings are not worth the risk for everyday consumers.
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
What is relevant is that I received written assurances that the hard drive would be a retail drive and that is not what I received. B&H lied.
To sum it up: B&H Photo Video sold me a pre-owned bare hard drive even though two B&H reps falsely claimed me it would be new and retail. When I wrote B&H about my experience, they claimed their were no issues and only gave me return authorization. I imagine they will sell the same hard drive to another unsuspecting consumer. I believe that this was a bait and switch.
After receiving written assurance on January 2, 2017 from B&H customer service representative (Neil B) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX hard drive they sell was a new, retail item, B&H sent me a pre-owned bare one.
Internal hard drives are sold in retail kits with documentation, screws and cable or they are sold Bare/OEM in a plain, brown box with no documentation or anything else. BARE/OEM hard drives are sometimes of questionable origin as the one I received was.
Bare/OEM hard drives are usually sold to manufacturers or other buyers like people who build their computers and accept the risks. Warranty problems are associated with Bare/OEM hard drives based on my research. In addition, the potential price savings are not worth the risk for everyday consumers.
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
What is relevant is that I received written assurances that the hard drive would be a retail drive and that is not what I received. B&H lied.
To sum it up: B&H Photo Video sold me a pre-owned bare hard drive even though two B&H reps falsely claimed me it would be new and retail. When I wrote B&H about my experience, they claimed their were no issues and give me return authorization. I imagine they will sell the same hard drive to another unsuspecting consumer. I believe that this was a bait and switch.
B & H Foto & Electronics Corp. Reviews
I took my brand new still in the box Mac Book pro to Apple support to see why it did not work when I opened it and found out that although it was sold to me as new in March 2020 by B&H Photo, the computer had actually originally been sold to someone else December 21, 2019 by Tech Data Product. I bought the computer at the beginning of the COVID 19 shutdown in case I needed one and could not order it later then ended up not opening the computer until November.
When I opened it for the first time and plugged it in it did not work.. When I took it to the apple support tech, he told me when the computer had been sold and by whom as it was linked to the warranty.
Yes- it's COVID and things are tricky. Drama is great on your favorite Netflix series but not so great when it comes to accounting.
2 decades of great service - now $12,500 in recent orders ending in crash and burn. B&H will NEVER get my business again. They have been authorizing multiple transactions multiple times and have no response when they use all my available credit. When items had to be returned - they refunded different and random amounts. They have processed the wrong accounts. They are not transparent or honest. It's a ridiculous game of pass the buck. I just filed a BBB complaint as I can not get any senior CS reps to accomplish anything. It's a black hole of time, with no results.
[To illustrate multiple charges: I see a $2199.00 charge 3X as pending, 1X as posted, and then 1X as paid all on the same October Statement. Keep in mind this is one line item among 4-5 similar expenses]
[To illustrate refunds: I had a charge of $791.37 that was refunded with $724.52. Where is the rest of the money?. BTW - no explanation. I also have a similar transaction with a $2900 line item. This is being refunded because they have double charged my account]
Oh, there is also the new Canon RF 85mm 1.2 lens ($2699) that came in a trashed box and the lens clearly had been well used.
All these problems are part of a single order/kit. They are just in pieces due to availability and how they are being billed. Canon R5, Canon RF 85 1.2., Canon RF 15-35, Canon 70-200, and related accessories. COVID is not the problem.
Lastly, I typically review either awesome businesses or really bad ones. This is the latter. :(
2 star now
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
I have not enjoyed my last half dozen shopping experiences at B&H. I've been a customer over ten years. Once a place for great prices and a decent website, B&H has grown too large in my opinion. It no longer values a customer or earns your business. The company has paid out millions in discrimination cases against women, Asians, Hispanics and others. It's gotten ugly. People don't matter. It's all about the units. You won't matter to them.
In a recent exchange of emails with their fixer, Henry Posner, he never once addressed me by name, or said Hi or Hello or thanked me for my business. Call me old-fashioned, am I just meat in their machine? B&H grinds out transactions and has made its owner a near billionaire. Congratulations to him. I prefer a company that values my business. There is more to a business than price. You can get a price lots of places. B&H, where's the smile?
Respectfully, there are many options.
We’ve purchased cameras, printers and computers from B&H for years. We’re a small business that takes pride in our service level to clients and appreciate it when we experience the same in a vendor. When we needed help on a recent order, we encountered an arrogant chat representative and no assistance at all. Was it the holidays? The delivery system was underwhelming. After the poorly packaged order arrived, we made subsequent inquiries to the Customer Service team but never dealt with the same person twice. One order has yet to arrive and we do not believe Customer Service can even track what happened. Each representative is so uninformed and unattached to any data that we’ve given up trying to make any inquiry. We hope we receive the last of our shipment and that it arrives intact. B&H Customer Service is lip service only.
Once upon a time, B&H seemed eager to serve photographers and artists and small companies. They’ve gotten so big now, so much larger than many of their customers that they can roll over on you in their sleep. Sadly, this NY operation is no-star service operation gunning for more volume. Cannot recommend. Do yourself a favor and stay away. Avoid the headache. Rating: 1 of a scale of 10
Let me start off by saying I was once a loyal customer of B&H Photo for 10 years. I have spent 10s of thousands of dollars through myself and the various companies I control. I am appalled by my latest experience purchasing my own personal equipment.
I got the new Surface Pro 6 and wanted the black keyboard for it. I ordered this and BH did not ship me the correct part. However, they seem to think this is my responsiilbity and refuse to ship me the correct part without returning it first. So the issue is in my country I cannot ship out of the state without a commercial export license that I do not have.
Henry Posner offers to give me a $20 credit for sending me the incorrect part. Even though I have spent many many many thousands of dollars. I am left feeling like these people could care less, they really could. And because I am in Ecuador, EVER THOUGH they made a mistake they will not correct it. Just will not correct it. They have decided to loose my future business, I even warned I would seek a public forum to voice my complaint because they are block happy.
This place is a JOKE. They curate the reviews and refuse to post anything that isn't 3 star positive or better. It is amazing to see this fake businesses with fake reviews, reviews from employees, you name it. What a BS joke this is.
Then ask yourself why you purchse from these people? They are a middleman selling foreign brands as a nationalist company. I mean it is just so pathetic of a joke it is amazing... they don't employe any engineers, artists, crafters... just sell what the rest of the world works hard to make. I can't wait for the day djI, Nikon, Canon decide to sell direct and kick out these American middleman businesses that just disrespect their clients, their business and the rest of the world that makes thier little bubble even possible.
Enjoy it while you can because I suspect it won't last too much longer. You can always decide to do the right thing, but until people care enough to do it a good thought is wasted. I regret to have to write such an opinionated review, especially since I lived in the USA and was born in the USA. But what I see now just makes me sick, and I will no longer purchase anything that ships from the USA.
Let me start off by saying I was once a loyal customer of B&H Photo for 10 years. I have spent 10s of thousands of dollars through myself and the various companies I control. I am appalled by my latest experience purchasing my own personal equipment.
I got the new Surface Pro 6 and wanted the black keyboard for it. I ordered this and BH did not ship me the correct part. However, they seem to think this is my responsiilbity and refuse to ship me the correct part without returning it first. So the issue is in my country I cannot ship out of the state without a commercial export license that I do not have.
Henry Posner offers to give me a $20 credit for sending me the incorrect part. Even though I have spent many many many thousands of dollars. I am left feeling like these people could care less, they really could. And because I am in Ecuador, EVER THOUGH they made a mistake they will not correct it. Just will not correct it. They have decided to loose my future business, I even warned I would seek a public forum to voice my complaint because they are block happy.
This place is a JOKE. They curate the reviews and refuse to post anything that isn't 3 star positive or better. It is amazing to see this fake businesses with fake reviews, reviews from employees, you name it. What a BS joke this is.
Then ask yourself why you purchse from these people? They are a middleman selling foreign brands as a nationalist company. I mean it is just so pathetic of a joke it is amazing... they don't employe any engineers, artists, crafters... just sell what the rest of the world works hard to make. I can't wait for the day djI, Nikon, Canon decide to sell direct and kick out these American middleman businesses that just disrespect their clients, their business and the rest of the world that makes thier little bubble even possible.
Enjoy it while you can because I suspect it won't last too much longer. You can always decide to do the right thing, but until people care enough to do it a good thought is wasted. I regret to have to write such an opinionated review, especially since I lived in the USA and was born in the USA. But what I see now just makes me sick, and I will no longer purchase anything that ships from the USA.
I had the worst experience buying a product of my entire life - and I live in Brazil, where the customer support is as bad as it can be.
I travelled to USA on vacation and I decided to buy my long waited CINTIQ, I was staying there from Jan 28th to Feb 11th.
I placed an order on January 31st, tried to buy it with my uncle's credit card, since he has a bank account in the USA. I tried once, it failed and the system notified me that it didn't proceed with the order, I called my uncle and he gave me another card number to use, tried the second time and it failed again and again the site told me that the purchase failed (and also, I received two e-mails from these tries saying the same, that the order failed).
After that, my uncle called his bank and they said they've blocked the purchase - since it wasn't expected such amount to be debited from his account profile - and then he asked then to allow it to proceed. And so they did, I tried a third time and the system said: "Thank you for shopping with us, your order has been confirmed" and I recevied an e-mail confirming that the order had been placed.
This was on January 31st, after 2 days waiting for an e-mail informing on the estimated date delivery, I called the customer support on Friday (Feb 3rd) only to be informed that you guys didn't work on Friday nor Saturday and you would be back on business next Sunday. I waited another 2 days and called on Sunday to the customer support that informed that my purchase had been declined and asked if I wanted to inform another credit card. And so I did, gave another credit card number and this time the representative said the purchase had been approved. When I asked him to confirm a second time if everything was ok with the order he said with this exact words: "Yes, your products should be shipped tomorrow first thing and you should expect them to be delivered in 3 working days".
I checked my e-mails on sunday and saw another confirmation that the purchase had been accepted and that I should wait it to be shipped so I could see an estimated delivery date.
I waited another day and on Feb 6th, monday, I got the e-mail saying that my order had been shipped and that 3 products of my order (out of 4) would come in 3-days and the other one, the most expensive and most important one, the Cintiq would come in 7 days - in other words, February 13th - 2 days after I come back to Brazil. I desperately called the B&H customer support asking then if there was anything that they could do to get my package delivered faster, explained that I wouldn't be in the USA in the estimated delivery date and that I needed it to be delivered in less than 7 days as the other representative assured to me, I told her that I'd do anything, pay any fee that this could imply. She said that she couldn't do anything after the package has been shipped, that I should call the UPS to see if they could do anything.
And then I called the UPS, and they told me that I should ask the store to change it since it wasn't in their system yet, and thus they could change it if the sender requested so. I called again the B&H support and told then all the history so far only to hear the same answer: we can't change it after it's been shipped.
I then waited another day to see if, once it got in the UPS system I could change the delivery somehow, but the answer was the same: we can't change it after the sender has made the shipment.
On February 11th, the day I should be packing my luggage to get in the flight, I received an update from UPS saying that my package was in Salt Lake City, so I rushed to their customer center and asked them if I could pick up the package from there - it was on Saturday - and the woman working there said that nobody working on saturday could access the trailer and retrieve the package to me.
And so I travelled back to Brazil without my package ordered 12 days prior to my trip eventhough I was assured that I would received my order before that - in 3 w-days.
After receiving written assurance on January 2, 2017 from B&H customer service representative (Neil B) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX hard drive they sell was a new, retail item, B&H sent me a pre-owned bare one.
Internal hard drives are sold in retail kits with documentation, screws and cable or they are sold Bare/OEM in a plain, brown box with no documentation or anything else. BARE/OEM hard drives are sometimes of questionable origin as the one I received was.
Bare/OEM hard drives are usually sold to manufacturers or other buyers like people who build their computers and accept the risks. Warranty problems are associated with Bare/OEM hard drives based on my research. In addition, the potential price savings are not worth the risk for everyday consumers.
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
What is relevant is that I received written assurances that the hard drive would be a retail drive and that is not what I received. B&H lied.
To sum it up: B&H Photo Video sold me a pre-owned bare hard drive even though two B&H reps falsely claimed me it would be new and retail. When I wrote B&H about my experience, they claimed their were no issues and only gave me return authorization. I imagine they will sell the same hard drive to another unsuspecting consumer. I believe that this was a bait and switch.
After receiving written assurance on January 2, 2017 from B&H customer service representative (Neil B) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX hard drive they sell was a new, retail item, B&H sent me a pre-owned bare one.
Internal hard drives are sold in retail kits with documentation, screws and cable or they are sold Bare/OEM in a plain, brown box with no documentation or anything else. BARE/OEM hard drives are sometimes of questionable origin as the one I received was.
Bare/OEM hard drives are usually sold to manufacturers or other buyers like people who build their computers and accept the risks. Warranty problems are associated with Bare/OEM hard drives based on my research. In addition, the potential price savings are not worth the risk for everyday consumers.
After waiting three days, I received email confirmation on January 4 from B&H customer service representative (Angelo N) that the Western Digital WD4004FZWX was a retail unit.
After receiving a bare hard drive I was disappointed and surprised. It was not a retail hard drive. I checked with Western Digital warranty customer service on Jan. 7 to get more info about the hard drive which had come from the Netherlands.
According to Western Digital warranty service representative Gabriella, the warranty began on Dec. 10, 2016, almost a month before I purchased the hard drive. It is reasonable to think that had been previously owned by a different consumer.
Obviously, the previous owner had registered the hard drive or contacted Western Digital about the hard drive. B&H will claim otherwise but is it logical for the warranty to begin before the consumer has purchased an item? Why would anyone believe that? Do you know of any other product where the warranty begins when the vendor receives it? Does that make any sense?
What is relevant is that I received written assurances that the hard drive would be a retail drive and that is not what I received. B&H lied.
To sum it up: B&H Photo Video sold me a pre-owned bare hard drive even though two B&H reps falsely claimed me it would be new and retail. When I wrote B&H about my experience, they claimed their were no issues and give me return authorization. I imagine they will sell the same hard drive to another unsuspecting consumer. I believe that this was a bait and switch.