Ordering From bestcameras.co.uk?

VonLuck

I hope this is in the right forum, and is okay to ask!

I am interested in buying a camera from www.bestcameras.co.uk but I'm not sure if they're a reputable company, so I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has had any experience with them.

They seem to do good deals, but I'm not sure if they deliver to Ireland, or what their postage costs are.

So has anyone here ever ordered off them?

Rb

They only deliver to the UK, had a poke around the site and they use a third party payment processor that looks legit.

Found a thread on DS about it though;

bestcameras arent bad but have terrible sales support. I ordered a camera lens from them and they accepted the order but nothing arrived after making several phone calls it emerged they had not had any stock of the item and none of them wanted to contact their supplier to find out when it was arriving. In the end it took 5 weeks for a lens they had listed as in stock to arrive! Advice is dont use them..use www.warehouseexpress.com instead!

I had a similar incident with laptopsdirect and it was hell to get the money back off them, I'd stick with a well established and reputable retailer tbh. Their prices aren't much better than what I've seen on Calumet, Jessops, Amazon etc.

VonLuck

Well I did do some browsing around for the camera I want, the Panasonic Lumiz TZ7, but it appears to be at least £15 elsewhere (thats just amazon, everywhere else seems to be at least £40), plus bestcameras offer a free table tripod, a 2gb card, plus a carry case.

I haven't seen a deal like that anywhere else.

Rb

VonLuck wrote: »

Well I did do some browsing around for the camera I want, the Panasonic Lumiz TZ7, but it appears to be at least £15 elsewhere (thats just amazon, everywhere else seems to be at least £40), plus bestcameras offer a free table tripod, a 2gb card, plus a carry case.

I haven't seen a deal like that anywhere else.

I was shopping for a 450D recently and found really good deals on ebay from powersellers, for example this.

In the end I went with Amazon, it cost a little more and I didn't get the same amount, but I know the quality of the product I'm getting and who I'm getting it from and know who to contact should something go wrong.

When shopping online it really is buyer beware, there has been countless people burned by dodgy sites (laptopsdirect being a perfect example) and tbh I'm happier paying a few quid extra for peace of mind when putting my cc details through their site.

If you're based in the UK, why not ask Jessops, Calumet, London Camera Exchange etc if they'd price match?

Ciaran_Dub

Sorry I have to step in here and I know slightly off topic. The laptop I am typing from now was ordered from LaptopsDirect.co.uk and I have to say I had absolutely no problem with them what so ever. Even a sales agent rang to see if I wanted the whole pre inspection thing that they charge for, I said no and he left it at that, asked was I sure there was nothing I wanted to add to the order. Again I said no and that was it.They werent pushy took about 4-5 days for delivery. Personally had not a bit of trouble with them. Saved €400 from buying from them.

Sorry if I seem to be over board but I think its worth hearing both sides of the story. I wouldnt go for that company purely based on their website I dont hink it does them any favours (I know dont judge a book by its cover!)

TJM

SRS Microsystems in the UK are quite good.

Rb

Ciaran_Dub wrote: »

Sorry I have to step in here and I know slightly off topic. The laptop I am typing from now was ordered from LaptopsDirect.co.uk and I have to say I had absolutely no problem with them what so ever. Even a sales agent rang to see if I wanted the whole pre inspection thing that they charge for, I said no and he left it at that, asked was I sure there was nothing I wanted to add to the order. Again I said no and that was it.They werent pushy took about 4-5 days for delivery. Personally had not a bit of trouble with them. Saved €400 from buying from them.

Sorry if I seem to be over board but I think its worth hearing both sides of the story. I wouldnt go for that company purely based on their website I dont hink it does them any favours (I know dont judge a book by its cover!)

Fwiw, I ordered a laptop through laptopsdirect before Christmas, intended as a Christmas present. I ordered it with good time for it to arrive, be wrapped etc.

Went on their site, found the laptop which said it was in stock so in went the CC details and got an email saying it'd soon be dispatched etc etc. Great.

So, 5 business days go by and there's no update, it has yet to be dispatched so we try calling them, found it very hard to get through and when we started asking questions they just hung up.

Eventually got through to a semi-competent CS rep who informed us that the product wasn't actually in stock and that they didn't know if they could get it, then got back to us to say it'd be at least a fortnight before they could get it in, then it would be dispatched.

This would mean it would be well after Christmas. So, already outraged we decided to cancel the order and ask for a refund and they gave us the run around for weeks until they finally coughed up the money.

I learned a pretty valuable lesson from the experience anyway, who knows what they'd be like if you actually got the laptop and it was the wrong one or was broken. They're a complete farce.

Anyway, sorry to the mods for the off-topic stuff but I really just want to highlight what really can go wrong ordering from dodgy online companies.

Ciaran_Dub

Rb wrote: »

Fwiw, I ordered a laptop through laptopsdirect before Christmas, intended as a Christmas present. I ordered it with good time for it to arrive, be wrapped etc.

Went on their site, found the laptop which said it was in stock so in went the CC details and got an email saying it'd soon be dispatched etc etc. Great.

So, 5 business days go by and there's no update, it has yet to be dispatched so we try calling them, found it very hard to get through and when we started asking questions they just hung up.

Eventually got through to a semi-competent CS rep who informed us that the product wasn't actually in stock and that they didn't know if they could get it, then got back to us to say it'd be at least a fortnight before they could get it in, then it would be dispatched.

This would mean it would be well after Christmas. So, already outraged we decided to cancel the order and ask for a refund and they gave us the run around for weeks until they finally coughed up the money.

I learned a pretty valuable lesson from the experience anyway, who knows what they'd be like if you actually got the laptop and it was the wrong one or was broken. They're a complete farce.

Anyway, sorry to the mods for the off-topic stuff but I really just want to highlight what really can go wrong ordering from dodgy online companies.

RB fair enough you seemed to get the wrong end of the deal. That could be said for any online company. The point in my post was there was two posts writing off laptopsdirect as a good company to deal with I was giving the other side of the story, the one where by they are fine to deal with.

I was thinking from the point of view of someone reading this that just ordered from them and might be worried they made a mistake by doing so. My believe in life is there is always two sides to every story!

Rb

Ciaran_Dub wrote: »

RB fair enough you seemed to get the wrong end of the deal. That could be said for any online company. The point in my post was there was two posts writing off laptopsdirect as a good company to deal with I was giving the other side of the story, the one where by they are fine to deal with.

I was thinking from the point of view of someone reading this that just ordered from them and might be worried they made a mistake by doing so. My believe in life is there is always two sides to every story!

Oh yeah, I agree and have certainly heard that when things go right with LD, they're perfect. The problem lies with when things go wrong though, which is one of the main arguments for buying in a brick-and-mortar store as opposed to an online retailer (after sales service).

I suppose I'm pushing that to online in saying that you'd be better off spending more with a company with a great reputation and has proven to provide good after sales service (Komplett, for example, has a fantastic reputation for this) than a "faceless" lesser known company with a dodgy looking website

I'd trust some ebay stores over some of the electronics websites I've seen!

AnCatDubh

hi folks - keep on topic please.
All points relating to laptopdirect are well made at ths point so lets move off it and back to the original posters query.

Thank you.

Rb

AnCatDubh wrote: »

hi folks - keep on topic please.
All points relating to laptopdirect are well made at ths point so lets move off it and back to the original posters query.

Thank you.

Sorry

I did a bit of a search for the camera, I couldn't find any other "bundles" but found it at e319 delivered here.

A lot of other sites had it priced at about £275 without the table tripod and card, although they can be picked up dirt cheap on ebay afterwards. I found a good review for the site here and in other places, along with a few bad reviews so on the face of it the site appears to be pretty average. It's the Op's money at the end of the day though but if anything it's good to see caution being practised.

qork

Rb, Sorry but I have to post the guys you linked to are complete gangsters, do a google search on them, and I have first hand experience too,
Q.

Rb wrote: »

Sorry

I did a bit of a search for the camera, I couldn't find any other "bundles" but found it at e319 delivered here.