42nd Street Photo, 42photo.com Misleading Advertising
I’ll start by saying that I will not tell you to buy or not buy from 42nd Street Photo. However I will write about my experience shopping with them and you can decide for yourself. I was in the market for a new DSLR as I had reached the limit of what I could do with my Canon T3i. I was browsing Facebook like I do most days when I saw an advert for a Canon EOS 80D for $899; which is $300 less than the MSRP.
With a deal like that; it’s hard to turn down and I found myself buying the Canon EOS 80D body, EF-S 10-22mm USM lens and EW-83E Lens Hood. On Monday afternoon I receive a phone call from 42nd Street Photo with their salesperson starting off with the soft sell of saying my kit would arrive by Friday, 11/11. Before trying to sell me a $250 memory card, telling me the 80D does not take standard SD cards.
He moved onto the biggie; telling me the $899 deal is for an imported Canon EOS 80D, which does NOT come with a United States warranty, firmware updates or English manuals; which explains the 25% lower price, more than likely originating from Asia. I said to the rep that I felt misled as their website, nor Facebook advertising indicated that the $899 80D was an imported product. He assured me the website does state that it’s imported, I went back to look again and the word import is nowhere to be seen.
I did end up getting a deal as I was ready to cancel the entire $1,500 order due to these dubious marketing techniques; I ended up getting the $1,199 camera for $999; which is $100 more than their website led me to believe. A search on their website doesn’t even bring up the $1,199 80D, suspicious? If I saw it priced at MSRP; I would have bought it from Amazon instead of a company I’ve never heard of.
Going back to the 42nd Street Photo salespersons claim that I needed a 120MB/S SD card for the 80D to function properly; which he claimed cost $250, but he could get me a deal for $200; I have looked up the costs of these cards and a 64GB card rated upto 150MB costs just over $30, which is not close to $250.
However I did look up the specific model that is being sent to me and that is $244.99 from Amazon.
The salesperson said that if I bought the US EOS 80D, which cost $999 for me; it would come with the afformentioned 120MB/S SD card; which in fairness, it does seem to do according to the invoice online; but for the life of me; I don’t get why a 120MB/S card costs 8x more than a 64GB card rated to 150MB/S?
Now, I have to wait and see what I receive in the mail; hopefully, they have not charged me $100 extra for the same model as they were going to send to me. I will not shop with them again as clearly they are deliberately misleading people, luring them in with the 25% cheaper prices. As I said at the head of this blog, I’m just telling you my experience, yours maybe different, I just want you to be informed!
[Update: Dec, 20 2016, 11:08]: To give the full story, I am updating this blog; the camera I received is a genuine US product, I registered my EOS 80D with Canon USA without problems. However, on page 5 of the 80D instruction manual, it states that UHS Class 3 cards are only required for on-card editing; a SD Class 10 card is perfectly adequate for recording 1080/60p which is the maximum possible on the 80D.