Problems with Adorama purchasing

D

DDirector

Veteran
Anyone else have problems with making a purchase through Adorama?

Geez.
Last week I tried making a purchase with my Credit Card online, declined over and over.
My bank says there is nothing wrong on their end.
Adorama is saying that the info is not verified.

After 6 attempts, my bank finally shut down my credit card.
Now I dont have a credit card for 3 days and have to wait for a new one.

I ended up switching over to PayPal and using my debit card.
Payment FINALLY went through, paypal also says payment went through, but Adorama is STILL insisting that they have not received the payment.
I've been on the phone with Adorama so many times this week trying to fix this issue.
They are telling me to call my bank, the bank says everything is fine. Adorama says to contact PayPal. PayPal says that Adorama should have the payment already.

Adorama refuses to say they received my payment.
This is seriously the 8th time I have tried ordering this item from them.
And Ive been on the phone calling back and for hours now!!

PayPal cant even issue me a refund because they say that Adorama already has the money and Adorama needs to issue the refund.

One last attempt at calling them and if they cant refund me, or ship my item, PayPal is telling me to put in a claim as everything on my end, banks end, and PayPals end is fine.
Adorama is dropping the ball.

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Ive always ordered through B&H but went with Adorama as this item has a warantee and is refundable, and its not through B&H, which is weird.
The only reason I chose Adorama. I would just cancel and go with B&H but Ive already been chareged AND this is a special order item that took already 3 weeks to get to Adorama.
 
I know that this is of no help to you, but I've been buying from B&H Photo for more than 20 years now, and there's never been a hitch. I always choose to let B&H handle the duty and taxes when I order, and my packages usually show up in Toronto about 3 days with full tracking info. ( free delivery too )
 
It's likely a server - or the whole server farm - issue outside of Adorama's purview.
 
Sorry to hear about all that. Frustrating for sure.
I don't think that is normal for Adorama though, as I've bought a lot from them through the years. I buy more from b&h but I've still spent as much as a house at adorama and they've been good. Hardly any issues for me at either place. So you might not write them off just yet
 
Call your card company and have them do a conference call with Adorama. Had a different, but related issue several years ago with my CC company and one of my dealers(issue was with the CC company, they kept declining the purchase after numerous authorizations from me telling them it was a legit purchase). Ended up doing a conference call between the Security and Fraud department of the card, my dealer and me to get the purchase to go through. I had a similar issue back in December trying to buy some shoes directly from Asics. Entered my CC information countless times from my computer and manually on their site(had purchased from them before) and kept being rejected as incorrect. Eventually had to call and talk to a CSR. Told them what I was going through and they entered the info and it worked. They said they use the exact same web page that customers use on-line. But does sound weird, especially using PayPal.
 
I used to buy from Adorama pretty regularly, even if I bought more from B&H. But as of last year, I've stopped buying from Adorama altogether - I found the prices to be slightly higher compared to B&H (or more accurately, the discounts at B&H slightly better), and also for me at least B&H is way better with shipping, much faster. It used to be the same at both, but no longer, and I was a VIP member at Adorama. So, the last time I even looked at Adorama was when buying the latest iPad Air a few weeks ago - B&H was $20 cheaper and faster shipping. It's a pattern, I find. Unless Adorama shapes up, I'll stop even looking. YMMV.
 
I haven't bought a lot of stuff from Adorama, but never had a problem. And for me shipping is always super fast. I'll buy new, used, and off of their ebay page and never an issue so far. But last purchase was about 3 months ago so no idea if there has been a recent change.

Now buying through work can be frustrating, especially if they only have half of the items in stock, I've waited for 3 months to get some Rosco gels (3200K to day blue) and some really basic diffusion. Seemed like forever but at least work won't pay until the order is complete.
 
Greg_E said:
I haven't bought a lot of stuff from Adorama, but never had a problem. And for me shipping is always super fast. I'll buy new, used, and off of their ebay page and never an issue so far. But last purchase was about 3 months ago so no idea if there has been a recent change.

Now buying through work can be frustrating, especially if they only have half of the items in stock, I've waited for 3 months to get some Rosco gels (3200K to day blue) and some really basic diffusion. Seemed like forever but at least work won't pay until the order is complete.
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Are you locked-in through work to deal with them? That’s insane, unless there was some sort of systemwide/national unavailability of the gels. There are so many other vendors that I’m sure could have had it shipped out in no time. All of my gels and diffusion come from Barbizon. But I m lucky enough to have a physical location about 30 mins or so from my house. Sometimes I’ll just go with whichever dealer has the product in-stock for delivery, since so many items are exactly the same price everywhere, because of MAP. Recently I’ve ordered twice from B&H over my main dealer for some small items, because B&H had them in-stock and ready to ship vs. my dealer(which is large and national, as well) that was going to take two weeks just to get them, because the items had to be shipped in from Germany and the UK, respectively. And now with the sales tax “return” that B&H has, it’s hard to not make all the purchases from them that you can(at least stuff like lighting and grip where you don’t really need any dealer support).
 
Work is lowest price over anything else, so sometimes Adorama gets the sale. Most of the time it is fine, but once in a while things can take months. Same thing will sometimes happen at places like Fullcompass or Markertek too, especially on Lowel light repair parts!
 
Interesting.

I personally was not able to make the purchase. Even though it was confirmed, my bank account was charged, PayPal said they received it, Adorama still claimed to not receive the money.
After a few days, they just cancelled it. Their customer service wasnt the most helpful as they seemed to have no idea what was happening and telling me the same thing over and over that its not a problem on their end, when it clearly was.
Additionally, telling me that I am getting a refund back, when I wasnt. I had a open a dispute over PayPal before they finally agreed to refunding my money.
It seems as though they didnt know how to do a refund, thinking that a cancelled item will automatically issue me a refund when it wouldnt.

In the end, I cancelled my order.
Sure, it'll be faster to get my item from Adorama, but its also going to cost me more than $200 extra in comparison to B&H.
I am also able to return my item if needed, but whatever. B&H seems like the way to go even though it'll take longer to get here.
 
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