Panasonic

Below is email sent to Bestpriceelectronics.com and should be more than sufficient to explain complaint.

Ken, [protected]@Bestpriceelectronics.com, et al.,

You talk a good talk but your actions speak louder than words. bestpriceelectronics (BPE) force customers to call in after making a purchase (under the guise of verifying said purchase), even though we've used a secure internet site for convenience shopping. Obvious reasoning is solely to make a sales pitch and try to make more sales and to get the customer to upgrade (for a price) to expedited shipping. If I wanted to buy something else, I would have done it myself online! If I had wanted 'expedited' shipping, I would have made that choice online! Just because your reps are 'curtious' or 'nice' or even 'helpful', it doesn't negate the FACT that what BPE is doing is a bad, dishonest business practice.

Then to be pressured into providing a 5-star review through pricegrabber and/or NexTag - before I've even been assured my original order had been processed and shipped. I was led to believe that my order would be processed immediately and would be sent out speedily...as that is what BPE wanted me to do with the review. The ONLY way a customer will get speedy processing AND shipping on their order is to FIRST complete a 5-star rating. Only AFTER BPE receives your 5-star rating, THEN they complete and process your order.

I placed my order on July 5th and fully expected it to be processed on the next day and shipped within one to two days there after. Not unreasonble as many times I have ordered through Amazon, Tiger Direct, Newegg, and many others and my orders have been processed and turned over for shipping the same day! What a concept! They are then actually shipped the next business day if not that actual day! Another good business practice! BPE needs to hire another person and ensure shipping goes out EVERY day and not wait for 'justifiable' amounts of items before sending out to be shipped.

Back to my order. Placed order on 5th, had to call BPE (based on email request from BPE) on the 6th...good thing I had access to and actually was able to check my email that day, waited for confirmation of order via email, but all I got was a request to provide a 5-star review. A review by me will NOT be done by me until AFTER my purchase if complete! But because Ken did not receive my 5-star rating, Ken did NOT process my order!@!

I am a patient man, but after three days I had to call again to check on my order. I asked if I would receive an email of order confirmation and then another when it was shipped. I was told my order was 'being' processed and could take up to 72 for that process and that I would indeed receive said email notifications. It had been more than 72 hours and I had not received a verified order confirmation. On the 7th I then sent an email both to my sales rep (Ken) and [protected]@Bestpriceelectronics.com to inquire about my order. I NEVER received a response from anyone at BPE.

Anyway, on the 9th of July (4 days after order) I checked the status of my order online and saw that it was 'sent out' to be shipped. I also checked my bank account and saw that I had been charged for my purchase. I again waited 'patiently' for a shipping notification. Nothing. Again I wait and keep checking my email and BPE's website for confirmation of shipping. Still nothing until morning of the 13th I finally see online that the status had changed from 'sent out to be shipped' to 'shipped'. But have I received an email confirmation of such? - NO! And there is NO tracking information available online. So how do I know my order has actually been shipped? I don't, of course. I expect I won't know until I actually see my item in my mailbox...IF I ever do.

I give you that I did find the item I wanted and at a competitive price at BPE.com - but by no means the lowest price. I found the exact same item on another website for $20 (7%) less [and yes, it was also free shipping], but decided to give BPE a chance after reading laudable reviews {obviously made by other duped people BEFORE they had actually received their orders}. Honestly, I don't know how they are getting legitimate positive reviews into NexTag and pricegrabber. Take a serious look folks at just how many of the 5-star reviews are done just after talking to "nice" people and are all written BEFORE processing and shipping of orders. If price was the only thing I was looking for, I would have went with the other site, but I was looking for the whole positive purchase experience. I certainly did NOT find that at bestpriceelectronics.com.

So here I am eight days after my order and four days after my bank account was charged and I still don't have verified confirmation that my order has been shipped. I am only three states away from BPE on the east coast and should have already received my order. So yes I will be providing a review to pricegrabber (as well as several other consumer review sites) of my shopping experience with bestpriceelectronics...and it WON'T be a 5-star rating! And yes, bestpriceelectronics.com is just an offshoot of US1Camera and US1Photo. Take a look at these websites to get the full picture of what is truly happening:
http://consumerist.com/2009/02/us1photo-pulls-the-buy-accessories-or-well-cancel-your-order-scam.html
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/US1Camera
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2898-p2-s1-d1.html

Shame on BPE for 'working' the system to their benefit and putting the customer in a bad position. I admonish any readers of this reveiw to not just look at sale price as the sole reason for a purchase from this vendor. The TOTAL price WILL be much more in time, effort, and frustration. As I said, I am patient and gave BPE multiple oportunities to make this purchase right, but they chose to play their little game by their rules...and as such has lost a potentially lucrative customer with me. I will NOT purchase anything else from bestpriceelectronics.com.