GH1 Shipping Today! According to Panasonic Sales Rep

Ben_B said:
Ohhh boy do those people annoy me! You want the thing for photos?! Get a G1 or a D5000 or something and get the hell off of our preorder list. Stop clogging up the line photographers...you have dozens of other options, us, not so much.
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What's crazy is how are new GH1 PannyD orders are getting ahead of others, and everyone here is getting LIED to by these a-holes from every phone agent to supervisor in their office.

I've had few Supervisor's tell me three different things. Today, they had the nerve to tell me the camera never has been released in the USA. I told them two other order numbers that have been given to me that were received. She clammed up and wouldn't comment due to privacy.

She went on to tell me that it's back ordered, while completely ignoring the very fact that people this week have received them from the PannyD IL warehouse. Sara another sales agent I spoke too ( a nice person ) told me two days ago that they have been getting a lot of complaints and was sorry that this is happening. Outside of her all others have been nothing but A-hole liars right to the top brass.

What really pisses me off, is they charged my bank card $1,672.20 with the extra additional cost of overnight shipping back on the 23rd when it was in stock the day I ordered it... Oh, and when I complained, they said we can refund, however couldn't guarantee 100% that it wouldn't screw the original order position up... Extortion!

As my ex-gf used to say with a very sharp tongue. Those Fu*kers!



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saaby said:
jfro -- with all due respect, and 0 irritation from me -- I think most the people in this thread are waiting for their orders (and thus still have no hand-on with the camera). You might have better luck posting your questions in a new thread.
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Your right. I deleted my two posts and will try elsewhere.
 
I talked to a sales Rep over at JR.com today and they still expect their delivery of GH1's to come in on July 15th. She also told me that they ordered more than enough to cover all the pre-orders. So might be a good bet to preorder at JR.com, but who knows, we'll see if it comes in on the 15th. I'm very skeptical after reading all this. Can't wait to get the camera even though all the Panny confusion leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
 
To be frank, a "sales rep" isn't going to know jack. Neither is a customer service rep. We've all been told things by sales people and service reps that just aren't true. I don't mean to put those types of people down. I worked in sales for 15 years and have a lot of customer service experience. It's just the way it is with a lot of them. You need to talk to a Buyer at J&R. And chances are the Buyer also won't have a clue, which means the situation is bad.

J&R may have ordered enough to cover their preorders, but that doesn't mean they'll get all of their order in at once. They could order 200 and get only 10, then a couple weeks later 20, and so on. Just like if you order 3 cameras from J&R, but they only have 1 in stock. They'll send you the 1, then the rest as they get them and can allocate to you. If this stock situation is as bad as everyone says it is (and that's coming from the horse's mouth that is Panasonic) I'd be amazed that J&R actually gets enough to cover their orders next week.

I want the camera just as much as anyone else. In fact I ordered from 4 different places to increase my chances. I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic. This is from my experience in buying and selling electronics and direct experience with Panasonic.

The key is to just be patient. Calling Panasonic, Shopatron, or any store you ordered the camera from every day isn't going to speed up the process. In fact you might just piss off some employee of one of those companies and they'll just bump you further down the list because they're just as aggravated and frustrated as you and it's not their fault, but they're the ones getting beat up about it. Of course you're getting different stories. If you don't think they can do it, I assure you the ordering system would let them if they wanted to. They don't know what to do because no one is being told anything, even at Panasonic. That's how these big companies are. Yeah it's pretty bad with Panasonic, but I assure you it's 100x worse with Sony. I've dealt with Sony in the past and it's friggin' nightmare!

That's it. That's my rant. I'm out!
 
Tell you what, everyone who wants a Japanese GH1 NOW let me know and I'll walk down to the shop grab em' - 130,000 yen a pop...do a group buy and it'll be even cheaper. :)
 
For those still waiting (I do expect my cam today or Monday)... you might want to put in an order with JR -- what is the worse that can happen (unless you can't cover the temporary cost of getting two cams for some reason). When I posted about Henry's having 25 cameras on June 30th, Ben hesitated his order just slightly...just enough to miss it by 15 minutes!

I'm not saying that you'll get one for sure, but better to be disappointed again from a missed date, than to miss an opportunity to have your camera next week! This thread will be exciting come July 16th I suspect, either way...
 
Mike@AF said:
That's my rant. I'm out!
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gadzooks man! haha. Alright, alright, I won't get my hopes up too much. I don't think the JR rep will bump me down the list, i wasn't complaining or anything. just inquiring. I tend to be super nice on the phone in order to avoid things like that. Pre-ordering from multiple places is a good strategy... unless of course two places get your order in on the same day and now you've spent way more money than you have, which knowing my luck is probably exactly what would happen to me. So, anywho, you're right, i'll be patient. And reasonably hopefull. That's all one can do in a situation like this I guess. I preordered from JR on june 15th so hopefully that's early enough to get in the first batch. I have to expect that panny will at least ship a few out to the vendors since they've been going out from panny direct... perhaps expecting too much? I dunno.
 
It wasn't directed at you or anyone else specifically. Just in general.

If I get more than one camera I'll offer any extras I have up to anyone here for exactly what it cost me plus any shipping to get it to you. If no one wants it I'll send it back or throw it up on eBay.
 
c.cook88 said:
rep called me today about my pre-order and said panasonic canada wasnt getting any until mid august. I'm guessing that after distribution that sept 2009 isn't as far fetched as we all thought!
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Not necessarily true. Mine arrived from Panasonic Canada via Vistek.ca yesterday so some are trickling through.

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alignment1 said:
Senior status=NO GH1 for ME!!!
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I bucked the trend! Hopefully, the curse is lifted otherwise I'm about to shoot with a non-working unit.

Ben_B said:
How many seniors ordered first week in June and are being told Aug/Sep? *raises hand*
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Me too but it somehow miraculously arrived yesterday.

I did ask if there were any more units available and they said they didn't have any more in stock.

However, there was a scribbled note inside that said they sent it to me because I didn't contribute to the photoshopping of any derogatory images. You guys are screwed! :D
 
Abel Cinetech also has the date of July 15th. I put my order in with them on July 8th, and I was #4 on their pre order list, so hopefully whenever their first shipment comes in, there will be at least 4 delivered of the full number they placed in that first order (I think he said 20 or 25 was in their first order).

Panasonic Direct also called me yesterday. Again it was Sara. I explained (in a nice way) the frustration of all the different stories the reps give out, and that a more consistent answer would have been a better approach than the usual run around.

She said there was a "global shortage" of the camera and would not give an estimated time of arrival for the cameras, but as we know, some are being shipped.

They'll get here eventually. I think we all would have had the patience to wait for it, but hearing different stories, and all the mis-information is very frustrating, so that ship has sailed.

This same exact thing happened with the HVX200 - almost exactly, so this isn't anything new. The difference is this camera is $1,500 and the HVX200 was much more, so the pool of customers wasn't as vast.
 
Yep - he's right -- Ben you might want to order BH and save 200 bucks then cancel your Henry's order... in that order. Make sure you get the BH Photo order in first.
 
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