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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

B&H photo in New York

I get it.

I get it.

BRANDON JAMESON said:
...hence, no service.
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Brandon,

Buddy I read all your posts on this thread.. You are not wild about Abels' business model.. I get it. I understand. But you seem keen on continueing to hammer this point in.. It's almost like you have gone from a logical gripe to more of an attack. The guys at Abel are not your style. I get that cause you've said it a few times now. So I can assume you will go elsewhere for your stuff. That's fine. But I LOVE Abel, and I like their business model for certain things. If I really continue to have problems reaching Steve, I am not going to continue to complain about it, I am going to be solution oriented and tell Mitch to walk over and smack Steve in the head and continue to do so every 5 minutes until he calls me. :laugh: Mitch would do it for me, and I bet you $5 it would work.

You don't feel you should have to do that, and you don't like that only the "more expensive" clients get more personal service. ok.. Fine. Point made. But I can remember LONG ago when certain customers or potential customer used to HATE HATE HATE Red's business model. And they took up a lot of bandwith complaining about it. But it went beyond complaining and became a quest to tell as many people as possible in order to hurt RED. It was this issue that gave rise to Jim's tag line: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone with a bad attitude."

I'm sure you are a major cool guy. And if I have misunderstood your posts, please forgive me. It's important to me that you do not think I am jumping up and down on you.. After all, you laugh at my posts, so I like you already! It's just how it's coming across.. wanted to let you know

Every company on here that's posting deserves credit for doing so.. Especially since they are competitors.. Its tough to do this without it dissolving into a chicken fight, but they are doing it to serve us. Yes.. even Adorama (I'm feeling a little better about the lightbulb.. Still missing that $10 though).

Best of luck to you
 
Think I'm gonna go slap Steve now ...
 
I'm sorry Jay, I must have totally misunderstood your post about not getting service from your sales rep.

What I wrote was .."hence, no service".

If that's not what your post clearly indicated, then you can slap me too.
 
Sales person so busy helping clients that he doesn't get a chance to help one client yet. Got it.
 
I must say that I have had a very different experience than Brandon's. The folks at Abel are always helpful, kind, and attentive towards me. Are there times when I have to ping my sales guy more than once to get a quote? Yes. But they ARE human, after all.
I have also had good experiences with B&H.
I have tended to buy more "prosumer-y" stuff from B&H and the higher end stuff from Abel, so perhaps I get better treatment because I'm buying higher end stuff? I don't think so, though... I suddenly needed a bunch of Canon EOS batteries and chargers one day last week. I sent an email to Steve, who bounced a quote right back to me, and shipped them out by end of day as per my instructions. That is pretty small-dollar, low margin stuff. But they responded and filled the order as quickly as any big box retailer would have.
I think if someone has had a bad customer service experience that it IS important to let the company know. How can they improve without feedback?
I'm sure the folks at Abel and B&H who are participating in this thread care and will try to improve service based on the posts here.
Cheers,
Harry
 
B&H? Never a problem with maybe $50k in purchases over the last few years. Never a problem with the few returns I have made.
Able L.A.? Same, great service, they go out of the way to get the hard to find stuff, like Ultra and Master Primes. Also excellent advice on making sure accessories work together.
I will continue to use both of these fine companies, choosing one or the other depending on my equipment needs. Got a 16mm MP from Able recently, and just received a 600mm f/4 Nikkor from B&H. No problems...
 
After a good exchange of e-mails with Henry from B&H, who was excellent handling my issue with the Pico projector- a problem that according to their registration apparently wasn't on their side but probably from the manufacturer- all I can say is that I just ordered a Sonnet Express pro enclosure from them. The fact that they were on the case for such a relatively small order- the projector- reassured my confidence on this excellent company who has had my business for some years now. Only downside? 170 USD for shipping UPS. Never had a problem with UPS, but 170 USD for shipping an empty card enclosure box its quite pricey! Anyway, that's the price to pay when you are in the other side of the globe and you want quality material. I always trust US resellers. Better safe than sorry in this type of equipment!
 
Sergio Perez said:
After a good exchange of e-mails with Henry from B&H, who was excellent handling my issue with the Pico projector- a problem that according to their registration apparently wasn't on their side but probably from the manufacturer- all I can say is that I just ordered a Sonnet Express pro enclosure from them. The fact that they were on the case for such a relatively small order- the projector- reassured my confidence on this excellent company who has had my business for some years now.
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Thank you for these kind words and for taking the time to post them. I am glad we could help.

Only downside? 170 USD for shipping UPS. Never had a problem with UPS, but 170 USD for shipping an empty card enclosure box its quite pricey! Anyway, that's the price to pay when you are in the other side of the globe and you want quality material. I always trust US resellers. Better safe than sorry in this type of equipment!
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I sympathize. The shipping weight for the item you bought is around 9 lbs and, per your location posted here, it's going to Macau. We know internat'l shipping is sometimes substantial and try to control these costs as much as we can but if we have to choose between a cheap and a reliable shipper, we vote reliable every time.
 
HELP! Henry hope you're on deck and reading this.

I just got home from B&H. Special trip to get the new Rokinon 24mm & 35mm cine lenses in Nikon mount. Opened the bag and found they had given me a 24mm in Canon mount by mistake.

Not going to rant and rave and cuss, although I want to. I absolutely need this swapped for the correct lens by Monday, and B&H just closed 30 mins ago for a holiday until Wednesday!

You have to have some kind of after-hours support for pros. Someone working after hours. Step up to the plate and show you can serve professionals. Get in touch. Get someone to meet me at the back door in an hour or something and fix your bloody screw-up. Call me: 646-331-7819. I tried to PM but your account refuses PMs :-(

Mike
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
HELP! Henry hope you're on deck and reading this.

I just got home from B&H. Special trip to get the new Rokinon 24mm & 35mm cine lenses in Nikon mount. Opened the bag and found they had given me a 24mm in Canon mount by mistake.

Not going to rant and rave and cuss, although I want to. I absolutely need this swapped for the correct lens by Monday, and B&H just closed 30 mins ago for a holiday until Wednesday!

You have to have some kind of after-hours support for pros. Someone working after hours. Step up to the plate and show you can serve professionals. Get in touch. Get someone to meet me at the back door in an hour or something and fix your bloody screw-up. Call me: 646-331-7819. I tried to PM but your account refuses PMs :-(

Mike
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Hey Mike,

I really doubt they can do anything since it is Rosh Hashana.
 
Tom Hamilton said:
Exactly. And Bloomberg is zealously working ever-harder to make the situation many times worse. Unfair to lay the blame on B&H's doorstep for that. Welcome to the Big Apple.
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B&H can chose who they do business with and are big enough to dictate that these people treat their customers right. 'Having the upper hand' in a business operation should not extend to making up rules on the spot, illegally detaining customers property, demanding money with menaces, and, getting physically threatening when they refuse to suck it up. I was there on my own; if I had had some brothers with me the outcome would have been rather different. I'm a fireman; you pick a fight with one fireman, you pick a fight with the entire fire department. If I have anything to do with it that parking garage can look forward to some *very* stringent fire inspections...

Mike
 
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Steve Gal said:
Hey Mike,

I really doubt they can do anything since it is Rosh Hashana.
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We'll see. As I kinda pointed out, this is their chance to show they can do something to help a pro; I understand their religious and business ethics, fair enough they close the retail operation and won't sell stuff. But they need to swap this to fix their screw up and it's just not acceptable or professional to say 'sorry pal we can't even start thinking about doing something until the middle of next week'!

Anyone know anyone else stocking the Rokinon 24mm cine in or near NYC? I know Adorama don't have it.

Mike
 
For anything they carry . . . I have switched from B&H to Norman's. Solid mid-west family run biz that treats you right:

http://www.normancamera.com/

Waited for 6 months for a Canon 1Dx from B&H only to find out they had "computer problems that prevented us shipping" the pig . . . this after a series of email inquiries from me with responses of "we have no idea when/what/how Canon blah blah blah . . . "

Norman's had a Dx to me in 3 days after order - feel pretty good about getting the new 24-70mm from them when they first ship as well. Done and done
 
Josh Beadle said:
For anything they carry . . . I have switched from B&H to Norman's. Solid mid-west family run biz that treats you right:

http://www.normancamera.com/

Waited for 6 months for a Canon 1Dx from B&H only to find out they had "computer problems that prevented us shipping" the pig . . . this after a series of email inquiries from me with responses of "we have no idea when/what/how Canon blah blah blah . . . "

Norman's had a Dx to me in 3 days after order - feel pretty good about getting the new 24-70mm from them when they first ship as well. Done and done
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Another big +1 for Norman; I bought all my top-end Nikon glass from them. Only screw up I ever had with them was when Nikon mis-packaged an item and put a 24-70 2.8 in a 14-24 2.8 box - and it WAS definitely a factory error, thing had never been opened. Norman handled that issue instantly and professionally. Unfortunately even Norman can't get me a 24mm cine by tomorrow lunchtime, which is why I'm relying on B&H to fix their screw-up... I've emailed Henry Posner, and I've posted on the B&H Facebook page; the store may be closed but they ARE still working, they posted something to their FB page just a few mins ago. Unfortunately the phones are all off.

Mike
 
YOu're mst likely going to have to rent or borrow one, as I've been told that on the Jewish high holidays, they are not even allowed to turn on a light or ride in a car.
 
. . . when does doing a preemptive search to find and add an appropriate existing thread become supporting a "zombie" thread? One week or 3 years?
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
We'll see. As I kinda pointed out, this is their chance to show they can do something to help a pro; I understand their religious and business ethics, fair enough they close the retail operation and won't sell stuff. But they need to swap this to fix their screw up and it's just not acceptable or professional to say 'sorry pal we can't even start thinking about doing something until the middle of next week'!
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Mike: Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate that our salesman's error inconvenienced you and apologize. As I said on the phone we're willing to fix this any way we can that suits you with the least further inconvenience to you.

For the future -- we close mid-afternoon Fridays and are closed all day every Saturday. This month and October are replete with Jewish holidays and we're closed for most. Our holiday schedule is on our site.

We don't have a back-door pro-only fix-a-problem option. When we're open, we're open and when we're closed the place is shuttered. Since most of our holiday closings are because orthodox holiday observance includes a rule that no commerce is permitted at all, we cannot maintain a skeleton crew of non-Jewish employees.

Once again, thanks for being so understanding on the phone and again -- my apologies.

PS I see you're in Mamaroneck, I grew up in New Ro, right around the corner. :-)
 
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