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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
07-09-2017, 02:52 AM
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Thanks to Helen for getting involved and helping resolve the situation amicably. While I still have my concerns about the Used Dept. I can definitely recommend Helen to anyone as the first point-of-contact for anyone that ever has an issue with Adorama. She is a consummate customer service professional and works diligently to resolve customer concerns.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
06-11-2017, 11:25 AM
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Yes, it was an ambitious plan, and yes, in hindsight I wish I had waited until the end of this trip to trade the equipment. Although the flipside of that is that I needed the replacement equipment on the trip and couldn't spring it without the trade. Time was the main reason I didn't turn to the Marketplace here as I have done in the past.
I'll also acknowledge that Adorama incurred a substantial expense by shipping the item internationally - clearly there was good intent there, but I would not have said OK had I been informed that I would be responsible for the duties. I can only conclude that Mr. Gold was either unaware of them as well, or withheld the information when he made the offer to ship abroad. Either way, I explicitly stated that I'd rather have my equipment returned and cancel the transaction than pay anything extra for the international shipment.
I think the caution is in getting involved with the Used Department, I have had the most interaction with them and they have failed to uphold every offer they've made.
Lastly, yes, I posted the story on more than one forum; since not everybody reads every forum I wanted to warn others against dealing with Adorama's Used Department in general and the individuals I named in particular. If sharing my story saves even one other person from a similar headache then my posts have served their purpose IMO.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
06-09-2017, 02:01 PM
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Thanks all, I will get in touch with Helen right away!
I considered KEH, of course, but a Adorama seemed to be on top of the schedule and had what I was looking for in their used inventory. It's a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering but at a level I've never experienced before.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
06-09-2017, 01:15 PM
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I have been a long-time member of this forum but rarely found the time to post in recent years. I felt the need to post an account of my recent experience working with Adorama that has gone horribly wrong. Before starting, let me say that I have used Adorama in the past on several occasions and know that their reputation is typical very well regarded. However, during the past 6 weeks my regard for the company has been completely worn away and I have decided I will no longer conduct business of any kind with them. Specifically, the Used Department at Adorama has repeatedly broken promises, ignored my requests for information or action, and generally treated me, the customer, with disrespect. In order to explain why I've come to this decision it is important to explain the events that have led to this point:
I am currently in the midst of a two-month domestic and international trip in which my camera is being used, in part, for business purposes. I own a recording studio and production company which also extends into client music videos and marketing/packaging. During the course of this trip I am collecting images and footage to be used in an upcoming project. In advance of this trip I spent over $2500 on a new camera system from Adorama in February of this year. After using that equipment for approximately 2 months I decided to trade in some of my beloved Pentax gear and use the proceeds to purchase another lens for that system. I contacted Adorama and their competitors for quote requests in the last week of April. On May 2nd I received an email from Mr. Lior Itzhak at Adorama regarding the trade. After speaking with Mr. Itzhak on the phone I made the decision to work with Adorama primarily because he assured me that he would be able to meet my needs well in advance of my departure on May 20th. Specifically, he assured me on the phone that Adorama would evaluate my traded equipment within two days after receiving it and that we would be able to send out its replacement right away.
I shipped my equipment the day after speaking with Mr. Itzhak and I received an email on 5/12 from Ms. Stephanie Morillo that the equipment was received and that I would be contacted within 5-7 business days with the equipment value. Since this estimate was longer than Mr. Itzhak had originally promised me I attempted to contact both Ms. Morillo and Mr. Itzhak on 3 separate occasions and left detailed voicemail messages for each of them urging them to contact me to resolve the issue before I left town. I never received a response from either party. I left on the domestic portion of my trip on 5/20 with hope that I would be able to reach someone at Adorama to resolve the issue before leaving for Poland on 5/25.
On 5/22 I received another email, this time from Mr. Isaac Moskowitz indicating that values had been assigned for my traded equipment, he provided both his own contact information and that of the Used Department Manager, Mr. Jack Gold. When I was again unable to reach Mr. Moskowitz on the 22nd I immediately called Mr. Gold. Although I found Mr. Gold to be curt, short on detail, and generally uninterested in taking the time necessary to form a good experience for me, the customer, I seemed able to impress on him the urgency with which we needed to complete the transaction in time for my departure. He asked that I call back first thing on the morning of the 23rd so that he could confirm inventory of my desired equipment and that he would overnight it to my temporary address so that I would receive it on the 24th. Despite my better judgement I agreed to this arrangement as my last chance to receive this equipment before leaving the country for 6 weeks.
Upon speaking to Mr. Gold as requested on the morning of 5/23, he confirmed that he had what I was looking for and that it would be sent out the same day as agreed upon. For reasons I am unaware of, the equipment was never sent and thus I did not receive anything on the 24th, last full day I was in the country. I contacted Mr. Gold on the morning of my departure 5/25, quite honestly irate at the situation and with his department's consistent inability to deliver on each and every promise. I informed him at this time that I wanted to have my equipment returned but he apologized and offered to make the situation right by shipping the equipment to my address in Poland "at no additional cost to me." I repeated that I did not want to start an international shipment process if it was going to cost anything extra and he again assured me that there would be nothing extra to pay.
I received the tracking number for the shipment to Poland after my departure, but was not present for UPS's first delivery attempt on 5/30. When I contacted UPS the next day they informed me that they were required to collect import duties totalling nearly $300 before they could deliver the equipment. I informed UPS that I was unaware of such charges and unwilling to pay them and I immediately sent an email to Mr. Gold. In that email I told him I was looking for a solution and suggested that Adorama should either pay the import duties or have the equipment returned to them and return my traded equipment. I did not receive a response from Mr. Gold right away, instead I received an email on 6/1 from Ms Phoebe E. in the Customer Service department. In brief, it stated that they had been contacted by UPS that I had refused the shipment and that I would be financially responsible for Adorama's expenses of having the equipment returned to NY and that those costs would be withheld from my refund.
At this stage I emailed Ms. Phoebe explaining all of the events do date, most importantly the fact that I had not requested an international shipment except at the insistence of Mr. Gold with the promise that there would be no extra fees to be paid. It took until 6/5 for me to receive any correspondence from Adorama, Mr. Gold and Ms. Morillo each emailed me asking me to call them. My reply to each was that I did not have the ability to call them and that I felt all correspondence henceforth needed to be writing anyway for the sake of documentation.
Each subsequent email from Ms. Morillo has been limited to a maximum of 2-3 sentences that do not adequately explain what solution Adorama is offering. I have repeatedly requested to end this transaction and have my equipment returned but this requested has been wholly ignored until today. Instead they offered to reimburse me for the import duties which I rejected because it places my own funds at risk while hoping that they will keep this promise despite breaking so many others. The last offer was to credit me the cost of the import duties before I pay them. Had this offer been made on 5/31 when I initially contact them about the issue I likely would have accepted it. However, after so much time has past and after experiencing the curtness and general lack of an apology on the part of Adorama's Used Department I am no longer interested in conducting business with them.
Today, I have once again requested the return of my traded equipment and received a response from Ms. Morillo that I would have to wait until Monday to work that out over the phone with Mr. Gold. I reminded her once again that I cannot be reached by phone while on this trip and that Mr. Gold can easily reply via email since he has been CC'd on every email (along with Phoebe E. and other Customer Service staff).
After years of experience with Adorama and thousands of dollars in business I am incredibly shocked to find myself in this position. They have my traded equipment for which I have received no value, I have paid several hundred dollars for equipment I have not received, and I have spent over a week trying to reach a conclusion for a problem of their own making while they repeatedly ignore my requests.
I am taking what options I have left to recover my equipment and my funds and I wanted to share my experience with you, the reader, as a warning against doing business with Adorama, especially the Used Department and those individuals named here. I regret that my first post on this forum in so long is to share this story, but I feel I have been asked to endure more than any customer should be subject to in good faith. I have also never experienced so many promises broken by a single company in a single transaction.
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Forum: Sold Items
10-12-2012, 11:05 PM
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Forum: Sold Items
10-12-2012, 08:09 PM
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
09-19-2012, 09:06 AM
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+1 on this.
I shoot DNG only and import into LR4. There I do almost all of my PP (I only use PSE10 on rare occasions). The best photos get exported to iPhoto so my wife can email, post to Facebook, and play them on the HDTV. Yes, you can do this in LR but she's WAY mor comfortable in iPhoto. I also resize the photos the go to iPhoto to take less HD space.
As Twitch said, you can easily create an App using Apple's included Automator which will import any files in a specified into iphoto. In LR you then set up an export preset that exports your files to that folder and 'voila' your done. My preset converts them to jpg, resizes to fit the TV, imports to iPhoto and then removes the duplicate that is inevitably created because iPhoto always COPIES items into its library.
Since this process also creates a jpg after you've done your edits I've never felt the need to shoot DNG+.
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Forum: Sold Items
09-12-2012, 11:15 PM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
09-07-2012, 09:27 AM
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Especially considering that this was 3 hand-held shots stitched together in PS Elements. I wasn't expecting much in the way of results but am rather pleased with the outcome.
Thanks for the kind words... I'm glad you each liked it
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Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
09-06-2012, 09:57 PM
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Honey, Honey... are you looking at that Pentax Forum again?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
09-06-2012, 09:01 AM
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Taken Labor Day from a gas station parking lot - I love that such an everyday place can have such an amazing view in AZ.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
08-19-2012, 07:27 AM
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Bummer - I was afraid that might be the case.
Someone got a deal though because I didn't use it.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
08-18-2012, 10:12 PM
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Amazon today sent an email offering $400 off Photoshop CS6. According to the email this is an exclusive deal for Photoshop Elements and Lightroom users. However, the email was unclear as to whether you had to have purchased Elements or Lightroom through Amazon.
It is clear that you have to buy CS6 from Amazon as opposed to any other vendor selling through their site. In other words, make sure you select one that says "sold by Amazon.com".
At the time I checked, Amazon was selling the PC version for $586.93 and the Mac version for $595.86 (both before the $400 off).
To get the discount enter the following coupon code at checkout: KNQU-UHB37L-PMX8Q7
They're limiting one to a customer and the offer is good until August 31st.
Write a reply to let other's know if it works even if you haven't bought Elements/Lightroom through Amazon.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-26-2012, 08:45 PM
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Thanks Rupert! I'm planning on taking advantage of the Adorama sale on 11x17's for two of the horse shots
I just saw the shots of Otis lounging in the heat earlier today. Having lived in Denton, Texas for three years I can understand his motivation. of course I haven't really escaped the heat by moving to Phoenix, have I?
There were a few of Otis' brethren out there as well (though not the best photos of them)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-26-2012, 05:39 PM
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Whatever name you call it, it's remarkable. Great shots.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-26-2012, 05:11 PM
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Taken at the Out of Africa Wildlife Park in Camp Verde, AZ my first weekend with the Tamron 70-200. The animals get nice and close on their safari drive...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-26-2012, 05:01 PM
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Thanks crewl1 - that WAS easy...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-24-2012, 07:43 AM
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Can this be done in PP? I use Lightroom and/or Photoshop Elements 10.
No filter, just a 30 sec exposure at ISO 200
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-24-2012, 06:59 AM
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No filter on either shot - they were taken on different days and times so the sun and clouds were slightly different.
I do recall that I converted the first shot to B&W in the camera. I was pretty new to photography and was curious what the k7 could do. I think I also bumped up the highlights in the camera as well.
I converted the second to B&W in Lightroom yesterday an applied the green filter preset.
Thanks for looking!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-23-2012, 10:54 PM
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Two photos of the Three Arch Rocks from a trip two and a half years ago. Just came across these again...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-23-2012, 10:03 PM
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One more of the horses w/ a slightly different B&W treatment
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-23-2012, 09:41 PM
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Is that even possible? I think it's usually the other way around...
In her defense, she didn't know I was taking the photo so I can't really blame her. The third photo was actually taken by her - I liked how the chipmunk looks like he knows he's been caught trying to steal our food (which is exactly what was going on)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-23-2012, 12:40 PM
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Thanks all!
The horses aren't Mustangs as far as I know. They certainly weren't wild anyhow, they were behind a fence and came over hoping I'd give them something to eat in the few minutes I was standing there.
The first two were taken along HWY 260 just west of Eagar and Springerville. The others were at Rolfe C Hoyer Campground in the Sitgreaves Nat'l Forest. I'd hoped the tent would light up a little better in the last shot but my wife turned off the lantern halfway through the exposure :-(
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-22-2012, 09:53 PM
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Forum: Sold Items
05-08-2012, 12:37 AM
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