A little PSA post. Last night, my judgment severely impaired by gear lust and steep discounts, I placed a late night order with www.1wayphoto.com for a Nikon SB-800 speedlight. This morning I got an email requesting a “confirmation call” and wound up talking to some fool trying to upsell me. He had a schtick about how this wasn’t a “digital flash”, but they could offer me the “special DSLR shoe mount version” for $90 more. I politely informed the customer disservice rep. that Nikon makes one version of the SB-800 speedlight. After some stumbling and arguing, dude offered to “show me the digital version.” Amused, I entered the mystery code he provided into their website and…

Me: This is the same SB-800; you just labelled it a “digital flash” and priced it $90 higher.
Customer Disservice Rep: uh…it’s a special digital flash. I can offer you the “time limited insured package discount” of blah blah.
Gear weenie, gizmodo reading, cnet searching consumer–that would be ME: Hellow, there’s no such thing. Plus, your math is wrong. Your “discount” is the same upsell price you quoted me two seconds ago. Just cancel my order please.

I went online and discovered they are total cons. At least I got a written confirmation of cancellation (after 2 emails and a phone call.)

For those who care to know, I usually make all my camera gear purchases at B and H, Adorama or Looking Glass. These are all reputable stores with experts on staff and stores you can actually walk into (NY, NY and Berkeley.)

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