AJ Richies
Queja 288375 Detalles

I work in the Entertainment Industry and my company did research on buying a pro grade video camera. After reviewing several professional models, we decided to go with the Canon XA25 which was just released in 2013 at the NAB show and received great reviews. The cost for this camera was showing up around $2499 - $2799 through various online vendors. on 11/20/13 as I was searching for the best deal online to purchase this camera, I came across AJ Richie's online price of $1949.99. I was amazed at the price and decided that since they were offering the best price on the web that I would go ahead and add accessories of an additional battery, extended warranty, lens filters, professional tripod, two 32 GB High Speed SD cards. I also noticed that their website had what was called "Wednesday's Deal" which states that if you buy an SD card they will double the size, if you buy an extended battery they would give you a second for free, and if you buy a 2 year warranty they would double it to a 4 year extended warranty so I made sure to include in the comments section of the order to please have a sales rep call me to confirm that these upgrades would be what I would receive. Well today I received that call... not the wonderful call I was expecting. This is how the conversation went. I get a call from this guy verifying the order I had placed with AJ Richie. He read my items on the list. I then said those were correct but there would be the upgrades and he said yes there would be. He then asked me for my 3 digit security code on the card. I asked him why he needed that again as I had already provided it at time of purchase. He said it was for security reasons so I gave it to him. He then went on to ask me why I was purchasing the Canon XA25 and that it was a discontinued model and Canon has replaced it with the Canon VIXIA HF G20 which has better low light functionality and better this and better that! So I did a quick search for it on the internet while he was on the phone and saw that THAT camera was selling for $1000 less than the camera I ordered. This was a huge red flag and I couldn't understand why he was pushing me to consider that "upgraded better model". He said that if I chose that camera that he had a better "package deal" than the accessories I had individually purchased and how this better package deal included 2 additional lenses but he would throw a third one for free and it also came with a battery charger and he would throw in a battery for free and the price difference was going to be about $350 more...so i looked at their website and the prices for each of those "bonus" items added up to about $350! So in actuality I wasn't getting anything for FREE, I was PAYING for it!! So I told him that and he quoted me higher numbers for each of the items than it said on their web page and I said if that were the case it would be a minimal savings but that wasn't the case and I was not interested in any additional items. He then said, would I like to get the newer better camera and why did I even want the discontinued XA25 model. I said well we did research on it and that is the one we want to go with. I began to sense there was a reason he was leading me astray from this camera but he had no choice but to say OK. Then he went on to say the order was declined and that he has to check with the accounting department. He then came back and said he got everything resolved and began to read me my order. He said so we have the Canon XA25 import, filters, lens, etc... and before he could go any further I stopped him. I asked what does import mean? He said it was the PAL version!!! I said NO. I did NOT order the PAL version, I do not live in Europe so why would I even want the PAL version? He then said, I assumed you had the software to convert from PAL to NTSC. I said no I don't and NOWHERE on your web page does it say that camera is a PAL version. He said that it did under product description and I said no it did not. I then went to look on their web page and the camera was not showing up and he said it was because the last one must have been sold yesterday so they REMOVED it from their website!! Are you kidding me??? Yesterday I had taken a snapshot of the web page of that camera and model so I told him I had that and nowhere does it say that is what I ordered. So I proceeded to tell him that this is what I felt was going on: You guys listed a camera for a lot less and had an "oops we screwed up" moment and were now trying to get me to buy a lesser model and when that didn't work, he wanted to send me a PAL version of the camera! He proceeded to say that, well since you have researched the camera you would know that the PAL version retails within this price range and the NTSC version is much more expensive. I said I was not searching for a PAL version and no where on their website does it indicate it was a PAL camera and that other websites who do list it as being PAL indicate it with (PAL) in the title name of the camera! I then said they made a mistake and had to honor my order. He said they don't warranty any graphical errors on their site!! WOW! What customer service!! I then said, well let me do you the favor and help you "fix" your mistake by canceling my order! He then said well the accessories have already been processed and all he can do is add the PAL camera or a different one or not include the camera at all. REALLY? I don't think so!! At the start of the phone conversation was trying to get me to add more accessories and within the time we were still on the phone the accessories were processed???!!?? Who does he think he is dealing with here? I knew better. I told him he can cancel the order in its entirety or I would be filing a claim with my credit card company. He said "go ahead". I said do I need to speak to your manager and he said I was speaking to him!!! My last words were are you canceling the order and he said he would and I said well you better and as a precaution I was still going to call my CC company and file a complaint and then I hung up on that unprofessional A-HOLE! I quickly called my CC company and explained this to them. Nothing had been processed yet so I asked them to CANCEL my card and to issue a new one. AJ ARCHIES IS A TOTAL SCAM! I am usually good about doing research on vendors and on the few sites I did look them up on they got good reviews!! I then did a better search on them after this happened and now I can see there are so many complaints and horror stories!!! PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND AVOID AJ ARCHIES LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!