A Little Upset With B&H Right Now...

In my eperience, I've only bought one or two items from B&H over the past seven or so years (simply because I shop on eBay more than anywhere) but in those few dealings everything went swimmingly and the prices were about as low as you will get without being a sham store. In my book I give B&H big props because I hear more good stuff about them than anyone. They're the polar opposite of Broadway Photo. LOL. But it may benefit B&H to start shipping with FedEx. UPS gave me heck trying to get the G5 delievered to me. Seriously, I mean they charged me to have the package delievered on a different day and their time estimates (especially those of the driver) can be off by hours. UPS will make three attempts on consecutive business days. If you call and say, "I won't be here that day." They tell you you have to pick it up or pay to have a special delievery date. I was shocked. On more than one occasion a FedEx driver has called from a cell phone to see was I home and I've never been charged to change a delivery date. Maybe they do it too now, but it sucks.

-Nate
 
I live in South Africa and I buy from B&H now and them.

I'm sure a glitch could slip in on rare occation, but it's always been a good experience buying from them.

Customs here in South Africa usually takes longer than B&H to get everything ready and shipped, he he .

- Derrick
 
They had an order of mine for about $18,000 in equipment back in the day, that was supposed to ship before their silly 2-week Jewish holiday (sorry, that really bugs me, you can't go on vacation for like 10 weeks per year and call yourself a great company, it's just poor service -- I have heard the entire explanation for why their founder can't run a business during these times, blah blah, not my problem, don't care, stupid religious nonsense), and long story short, they didn't ship it out before then. I was then left having to rent a bunch of equipment that I had already paid to buy. So I called them and told them I was really displeased about the situation, and I wanted a full reimbursement for ALL of the money I spent renting equipment I already owned but hadn't gotten delivery for. They listened to the telephone conversation where I was told I'd get my gear before then, and they did indeed write me a check for the amount of the rentals. I was very pleased with their customer service on that issue.

Overall, I love B&Hs prices, and I love their customer service. What I don't love is dealing with a company that closes on a regular basis because of someone's superstition, and for that reason I can choose not to do business with companies like that when it's not convenient for me to do so. No explanation is sufficient to explain to me why you can't keep at least a call center open during the two weeks you're closed so I'm not left wondering if the gear is or is not going to get there up until having to figure it's not going to get there two days before the shoot. It doesn't violate Jewish law to have someone answer a phone if you're not selling anything, by the way, I checked ;)

It violates my religion, however, for other religions to have stupid practices that negatively affect my life, so my religion dictates you don't do business with religious radicals. What can I say, I'm tied to this strict code of conduct called common sense in the 21st century. We all have our beliefs.
 
JonathanLB said:
It violates my religion, however, for other religions to have stupid practices that negatively affect my life, so my religion dictates you don't do business with religious radicals. What can I say, I'm tied to this strict code of conduct called common sense in the 21st century. We all have our beliefs.
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And they have no place here. In case you forgot:

Jarred Land said:
CONDUCT (The Eight P’s)
Not that we don't find some of these topics interesting, we do--but they are not appropriate for this filmmaking forum.
First and foremost, respect your fellow filmmakers -- Regardless of age, experience, or opinion, you should always show respect to fellow users.
Keep in mind, this is a worldwide community, and English is not the native tongue of some of our members. Please exercise patience and extend the benefit of the doubt to those who are taking the effort to communicate in English just to participate on the site.

4. No Proselytizing
Just like politics - we've tried it and it doesn't work. There are many other sites where you can discuss religion, just not this one.
Click to expand...

The folks at B&H are good folks with a reputable business. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to call them out on religious grounds, especially on DVXUser.

Might be time to re-read the DVXUser Forum Guidelines.
 
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B&H is a fantastic company and they do have their convictions. Whether you choose to work around those is your business.

Keep the opinion on religious beliefs out of the thread and it can stay open.

That'll be the one and only warning.
 
Thank you C2V... Attacks on the religious beliefs (or lack of) of others within this community are an absolute no-go on DVXuser... Take the religious talk somewhere else.

Jonathan... while there may be a valid point to be made somewhere in your post, the way in which you went about it goes so clearly against our guidelines, it just won't be tolerated here... Especially from someone who has been a member for as long as you and who should know better.
 
Reading over the first couple of pages I was thinking to myself it was odd that B&H hadn't shown up yet.

Adaroma has Helen and B&H has Henry. They seem to always know.

I had a problem a while back with B&H. I grumbled on an outdoor photography site and low and behold...here comes B&H to work it out.

For what it's worth Henry, I had decided not to do business with B&H anymore but changed my mind after that!
 
There's a searchlight on the roof used to beam the B&H signal skyward when Henry's intervention is needed.
 
JonathanLB said:
They had an order of mine for about $18,000 in equipment back in the day, that was supposed to ship before their silly 2-week Jewish holiday (sorry, that really bugs me, you can't go on vacation for like 10 weeks per year and call yourself a great company, it's just poor service -- I have heard the entire explanation for why their founder can't run a business during these times, blah blah, not my problem, don't care, stupid religious nonsense), and long story short, they didn't ship it out before then. I was then left having to rent a bunch of equipment that I had already paid to buy. So I called them and told them I was really displeased about the situation, and I wanted a full reimbursement for ALL of the money I spent renting equipment I already owned but hadn't gotten delivery for. They listened to the telephone conversation where I was told I'd get my gear before then, and they did indeed write me a check for the amount of the rentals. I was very pleased with their customer service on that issue.

Overall, I love B&Hs prices, and I love their customer service. What I don't love is dealing with a company that closes on a regular basis because of someone's superstition, and for that reason I can choose not to do business with companies like that when it's not convenient for me to do so. No explanation is sufficient to explain to me why you can't keep at least a call center open during the two weeks you're closed so I'm not left wondering if the gear is or is not going to get there up until having to figure it's not going to get there two days before the shoot. It doesn't violate Jewish law to have someone answer a phone if you're not selling anything, by the way, I checked ;)

It violates my religion, however, for other religions to have stupid practices that negatively affect my life, so my religion dictates you don't do business with religious radicals. What can I say, I'm tied to this strict code of conduct called common sense in the 21st century. We all have our beliefs.
Click to expand...

Jonathan, this business is full of arrogant self centered people that take a lot of pleasure in taking cheap shots at people. I have to say that is one of the worst I've seen for a while.
Family and religious beliefs should be off limits no matter how much you dislike someone!
 
Johnathan's post was already addressed with regards to dvxuser forum guidelines. Let's please just leave it at that and get this thread back on topic, if there is anything left to discuss here...

If we're all done, please let me know and I can close this thing down.

later,
Jason
 
Never had a problem with B&H, always gotten my stuff on time or early and typically they have very competitive prices - I just saved a few hundred bucks on gear this week because of my Educator/Student status - booya! I ordered the wrong item last year for a project, opened it, found it was wrong, and they took it back with no problems - I think I was out the few bucks to ship it back but that was it. Overall a stellar company in my opinion but of course we all have our off days
 
Peternap said:
Reading over the first couple of pages I was thinking to myself it was odd that B&H hadn't shown up yet.
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ROFL. This started 8/24 and my first comment was 8/25. I must have been napping. :-)

JonathanLB said:
They had an order of mine for about $18,000 in equipment back in the day, that was supposed to ship before their ... 2-week Jewish holiday ... long story short, they didn't ship it out before then.
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I will overlook those parts of this post which I chose to edit. Others have dealt with it eloquently and I am grateful. I will note that neither the September holidays nor the spring Passover hiatus last two continuous weeks.

Jonathan, unfortunately the dearth of information about you in this forum makes it impossible for me to look up the transaction in question and see whether an explanation or apology or some other reply is indicated. Feel free to provide additional data, her or via email, with which I can review the transaction in question. If the error was ours, I will speedily apologize.

BTW, September is rife with Jewish holidays. Please see our holiday schedule and plan accordingly. We post this information and shipping schedule data on our home page and throughout the site during this time of year.

We appreciate this is an inconvenience and regret any frustration it may cause. We wish health and happiness to all our friends, here and elsewhere online.

As the forum says, "Please keep it civil, upbeat and friendly." Words to type by.
 
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I've only bought from B&H once, but the transaction was fairly satisfactory. My only problem was that I didn't find out the Photoshop Premiere 8 system requirements until after I had opened and installed it, and tried to run it. Photoshop Elements works fine (it was the packaged deal), but Premiere requires SSE2 support--which my computer doesn't have. :(

I would definitely buy from B&H again though, and I have no problems with holiday work-arounds. I like my holidays. :)
 
I should have an apartment there... for about 4 months last year the provideo department used to call me "sensei".... lol. There was this great kid, eduardo who always used to help me.. Wonder what happened to him.....
 
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