All right guys, I know you guys are consumers like myself and Christmas is just around the corner. Guess what, I'm going to write my review for Butterfly Photo, an online vendor that stocks many high end digital products, dealing mainly with the photo type. Yes, redudant, but I'm pretty peeved right now.

So, on November 28th, I placed an order for an Olympus E-500 w/ 2 Lens kit from Butterfly Photo, 799, free shipping, no tax from NY to CA. It seems like a great deal. I'm excited to receive this camera, I wait everyday to see if it has sent out yet.

Well, in the process of waiting, like a normal consumer, I visit pricegrabber just to see if the price has changed. No change, still the lowest price. Then I visit a few days later, around December 1st, it dropped to 794. No big deal, 5 bucks, I don't care about 5 bucks. Well, December 5th rolls around and I see it on other vendor sites for 785. 14 bucks, not too big of a deal, but now I'm wondering. I give them a call: phones are busy, I get put on hold IMMEDIATELY by the person I'm supposed to contact (they gave me his name in the Email). As soon as I ask him about price matching, he sends me to customer service. This was after 10 minutes of waiting and I said, FORGET IT. I'm not going to worry about $14. It's a non-issue.

Finally my order ships out on December 7th. Estimated arrival date: 14th of December. Understandible, it's coming from NY via FedEx Ground. Well, I check the price again on Thursday December 8th, WOW, 759 from a competitor store. I call again, leave a message since he wasn't in and explain the situation. I even email them with the picture and a timestamp. No reply. This was early in the morning on Thursday.

Friday, December 9th. I get into my office and I make a phone call. Justin puts me on hold (he's the guy I'm supposed to contact). I'm on hold for 10 minutes. He gets on, I tell him the situation and he switches me to customer service, YET again. Fine, $40 bucks is a lot of chump change. I wait another 20 minutes, finally a customer service rep answers the phone. I explain the situation and he tells me: "We cannot price match another store." I tell him, "That's fine, do you price match your own store, the price has dropped to 791 from my original order date only 2 weeks ago, it hasn't been 30 days, can you price match your own store?"
"We cannot price match after the item has shipped."

I tell him, "Wow, I'm absolutely disappointed. There is nothing you can do in compensation?" He tells me, "No, we cannot" and I can tell he's peeved at this point - even though I'm keeping my cool. "Can I speak to your supervisor?" He tells me he is the supervisor. I say to him, "Ok, thanks. Goodbye."

I hang up the phone, write up the same review for Butterfly in 500 words or less (Pricegrabber only allows a 500 word limit). I AM ANGRY. The guy on the phone was rude. Their customer service takes forever to get through: quite frankly, I'm very disappointed with my order and very disappointed with this company. No one does E-Commerce and doesn't try to take care of their customer, regardless if the item is shipped or not considering a time frame: IT HAS BEEN LESS THAN 30 DAYS. IT TOOK THEM 10 BUSINESS DAYS JUST TO SHIP IT OUT. Guess what, I'm never buying from these guys again and this review will reflect on them very poorly.

I am prepared to call them again tomorrow. I want to talk to someone even higher: like a manager on duty or the store president, whoever is higher than their customer service representative. I refuse to have to put up with terrible lazy bastards who say, "We cannot do it" and by cannot, he means, "will not."

So for those of you doing holiday purchases and saw good reviews about Butterfly... don't buy from them. I am never going to make another purchase from them. I will, however, call them again and have them honor another stores price for taking their sweet azz time to put my order out and ship it 2 weeks later. This is absolutely unacceptable. I realize it is holiday time and their staff may be hailed by many calls and many orders: but you know what? I've worked retail. It doesn't take 2 full business weeks to put an order out. It takes 1 at the most and if a customer is angry - do not **** him/her off. This transaction, I am sure, will severely diminish their sales. Hopefully you WRXF folks will take this warning and boycott them. Take your chances. This company is definitely HIT or MISS.

 

return it and buy it at the cheaper place.

 

Can't, it's already been shipped. Wouldn't be worth it to ship it back and ask for a refund that may never come.

 

Dude never buy from a small shop from NY online. They will bend you over and not even have the courtisy to use a lubricant. I bet if you look the company up on epinions.com there will be several bad reviews. Sorry you got burned bro, but that is why I only shop at well known stores even if you see it cheaper at other shops online.

 

on the other side of things, why should they take the time and effort to refund you $8? You purchased something from them for an agreed price and they should help you out because you want to try and bargain the price down AFTER you paid for it. Life is like that, price always goes down after you buy something.

 

Not 8 bucks, $40 bucks.

And since it hasn't been 30 days yet, which 90% of retailers do deal with price matching, I'm rather surprised that this one didn't. But I was on the phone with the rep anyway, 8 bucks, I don't really care about. $40 bucks is a different thing.

 

If you actually check out other forums and read reviews, butterfly photo has a ****ty reputation. Always do the research when buying from unknown places. Once I saw Butterfly Photo, I knew it was going to be a rant post.

 

resellerratings.com FTW

 

What I would do is:

1) Refuse shipment on the camera.
2) Give them a week or so to refund the money to my credit card.
3) If they have not refunded the money, call your credit card company and explain that you did not recieve a refund, or the item and have them do a chargeback on those bastards.

 

My parents had trouble ordering from them last holiday season I believe, smokin deal on a camera, but they were given the runaround on it's stock status and a bunch of BS, found out later about the ratings. Good luck with your refund.

 

Also I bet if you refuse shipment or send it back they will charge you a rediculous fee to "restock" the item. Just some more bull**** they like to pull.

 

Just call your credit card company now and tell them to charge back. Any card company worth its salt will do it. ****, at 20%+ intrest, let it be their problem.
And next time, check out the ratings.

 

these are small momma pappa shops(probably 5 employees max), they're not like best buy where they have a PM policy, these things are pretty much commodities to small companies. Unlike the big companies where they'll have the same price everyday because people go there, and the occassional sale, these small stores will vary quite a bit as pricing changes, you gotta wonder why they're SOOO much cheaper than the retail prices offered at stores. Their selling price is already below cost to major retailers...its not gonna be an extremely steady source...good luck with getting some money back, I know its a pain to lose out on some money, I'd be kicking myself too, but its unlikely you'll get anything from them.

 

Their customer service rep called me today. They gave me a free 512 MB card in compensation (ultra high speed). They say it goes for 99 on their website *shrugs* but hey, it was free and it was probably around the same price as 40 bucks. I guess the moral of this story is, complain enough about bad business and they will see themselves get hurt in the process and call you back. Not sure if I'd buy from them again unless they do this each and every time by making me a satisfied customer.

 

sorry to hear about your dilemma Charlie, that friggin blows monkey ballz! But atleast you eventually got a nice memory card for the camera! And there is an old saying that basically describes your situation in a nutshell...... "The squeaky wheel gets the oil" - Complain enough to the right people and they will take care of you. Unfortuneatly, this usually comes at the hefty cost of being pissed off and stressed out for days or weeks at a time. I'm glad to hear it finally worked out in your favor though. Have fun with your new camera!

-Ted