Is ShopCartUSA.com legitimate?

I was looking for prices on a Canon 1Ds Mk II on google and saw ShopCartUSA.com

at the top of the search page with the lowest price. I went to their site and

they seemed to be a price shopping service. I saw the merchant listed with the

lowest price was CCI Camera in Brooklyn. On ShopCartUSA.com CCI Camera has 37

reviews. I read them and they were all positive. Just to double check, I looked

up CCI Camera on www.reselleratings.com and the reviews were negative (bait and

switch, etc.). So now I am confused. Is ShopCartUSA.com legit, or is it a front

for disreputable Brooklyn camera dealers? I notice that ShopCartUSA.com is also

located in Brooklyn. Does anyone have any first-hand knowledge of ShopCartUSA.com?

A bunch of the so called "comparison shopping" sites are simply fronts for pushing certain stores. They come and go so they are hard to keep track of. Often a particular "company" will be selling under 5 or 6 different store names and they may also have their own "comparison shopping site" which plugs those stores.

 

A number of stores have also been known to post their own bogus "reviews".

 

I'd assume this is one of them unless you have compelling eveidence to the contrary.

 

If the photo store is in Brooklyn, it's odds on it's not legitimate (sorry Brooklyn, those are just the facts). The only legit photo store I know of in Brooklyn is Focus Camera. This isn't a recommendation for Focus, just an observation that they aren't total scam artists.

"On ShopCartUSA.com CCI Camera has 37 reviews. I read them and they were all positive."

 

That should tell you all you need to know (CCI was the original scum of Brooklyn bait and switch dealers), and you have been here long enough to have heard of all the scams.

 

If you shop based on price alone, *especially* if you use an Internet price comparison site, and *especially* if you are shopping for cameras or electronics, you are pretty much guaranteed a world of hurt (if not outright fraud).

 

Use your common sense. Buy from a LEGITIMATE retailer. There are plenty. B&H Photo, Adorama, Calumet, Helix Camera, KEH.com, Cameta, BuyDig.com (Beach Camera), 17th Street Photo, Hunt's Photo & Video to name a few. Use B&H prices as a benchmark. Any price that is significantly lower than theirs is probably suspect.

To me, if one rating site shows negative on a retailer site, it's the end of story.

 

Another way to think: even if someone here says ShopCartUSA.com is legit, it will be 50-50 and I don't think you will buy from CCI.

From the website:

"ShopcartUSA is a leading provider of targeted direct marketing services for merchants and manufacturers. ShopCartUSA.com connects merchants and manufacturers with informed shoppers who are ready to buy, driving cost effective, high ROI online sales. By only charging for qualified customers delivered to your buy pages, ShopcartUSA sends you the most cost-effective traffic on the web."

 

As to if ShopcartUSA is legitimate, I'd say probably "sort of". That is, I doubt they are scamming anyone, but on the other hand, they're not filtering out questionable retailers, either. It is possible that CCI Camera has 37 positive reviews. Or they might be fake reviews by CCI Camera employees. Or they might be customers who got paid to post a positive review. There's not much telling.

 

To those who didn't bother to look up ShopCartUSA.com- their site covers all sorts of stuff, not just photo-related items. So I'm guessing it's probably not a front put up by photo retailers.

 

It's hard to get a true picture of some of the camera outfits. Certainly you can read some horror stories. But do they treat EVERY customer like that, or 1 in 10 or 1 in 100? That's hard to say. There are people that don't like B&H or Adorama, too. There's people that despise Walmart for that matter, but that doesn't keep me from shopping there. But on any questionable photo place, I'd feel a lot better buying from a mailorder place I was familiar with, or buying from a store where I can walk in and see the product.

You did your homework well by going to www.resellersrating.com. I learned the hard way and now double check with this site. Beings I'm now sticking basically with B&H I am sure I won't get shafted.

ShopCartUSA.com itself is a scam.

Don't get burned by CCI. Baaaaaad. Resellerratings.com is the more reputable and well-

known site. I've never heard of this "shopcartusa.com" Here on photo.net, as well, there are

recommendations under the "community" menu heading, with many, many photo equipment

dealers listed. CCI, for example, has almost completely bad reviews.

NO...... My brother mailed a USPS Money Order to SHOPCARTUSA for an EOS20D body.

 

He even paid an extra 40-50 buck for next day shipping. that was on AUGUST 6th 2006.

 

AS OF OCTOBER 4 he has no camera nor a refund.

 

He has tried emailing them, I have sent a half dozen emails to every email address they list

and NOT ONE RESPONSE.

 

GET THIS, We traced the money order, we got a photo copy from the post office. The back

of the money order is endorsed with SHOPCARTUSA FOR DEPOSIT ONLY.

 

They cashed the money order on AUGUST 26th. WELL OVER A MONTH SINCE IT WAS

CASHED NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER.

 

THESE GUYS ARE THIEVES AND CROOKS AND WE ALREADY ARE PUTTING TOGETHER A

LEGAL CASE AGAINST THEM, MY UNCLE IS A LAWYER!

 

THEY HAVE NO PHONE NUMBER SO YOU CAN'T CALL THEM, HOW CONVENIENT

 

 

LOSERS, CROOKS, THIEVES IS WHAT SHOPCART USA IS ALL ABOUT

 

DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME OR THEY WILL SCREW YOU LIKE THEY DID MY BROTHER.

 

I CAN'T IMAGINE A COMPANY ACTING LIKE THIS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT.

 

THEY ARE IN NY AND WE ARE CONTACTING THE BBB AND MY UNCLE IS CONTACTING THE

POST OFFICE FOR FRAUD.

I'm on the fence with this one, but I can give the information I acquired from <a href="http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=shopcartusa.com&prog_id=godaddy" taget="_blank">GoDaddy</a> and <a href="http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jhtml" taget="_blank">NetworkSolutions</a>. The site owners "contact" information, IP and server names are readily available there. <p>

 

As for CCI, I would have to say that they run a shady business at best. The reason they are still in business is probably because although the tread the line (and do break I would gather) and do everything via phone conversation rather than having an electronic format to verify anything is why they are still here. </p><p>

 

As for CCI... yea... enough said with that. I had a purchase... did the research on shopcartUSA (being the "savy" consumer) thinking I had done my part in ensuring a sound purchase.... the short of it is that I did recieve my stuff... it took 30 more days than wanted and a legal notice... but it got done. I would recommend doing business elsewhere. Anyway... click the links above and it'll give you additional info... hope its helpful.<p>

Stay AWAY, I don't recommend them. I got similar acts to the bestpricecamera.com scams, the problem is I was referred to it by a price rating website that I can't recall now.

Alright, what I always try and do, before I get exciced about a price on the internet is look on a trusted sight. One that I have delt with before, that has outstanding customer service, Excellent order system with fast and acurate results. Some of them I can name B&H, Focusecamera, and there are a few more that I have used but B&H is defenetly top on my list. I went to check out Nikon D2XS on B&H to get a rough idea of what the body would cost me. $4000 about. THen I goto the ShopCart USA and see it for $2399.00 Somethings wrong here. Then we go to look up ShopCArtUSA.com FRAUD? on google. (And see this sight) and it tells you someting, if not a fraud , BE VERY WEARY of your transaction!

 

I did get excited a while back when looking at the D2XS in a place called "Banannaboat" camera - Really , I'm not makin' this up....

You would have to have 'just dropped off the banannaboat' to do business with these folks. I looked them up after seeing a outragiously low price for the camera. The fraud list, people who have been scammed, people of had fallen pry to bait and switch, ect, the complaints were longer then my arm! They had a total of 13 diffrent alieses for the company, one storefront was the US postoffice, the other storefront actually in New York somewhere. My parting letter to them was not pritty.

 

Well , good luck and don't get scammed!

 

The old saing Mom told you , "If it sounds just too good to be true, it probably is...."

 

Corey

ShopCart USA is a SCAM. I bought a camera from Broadway Photo, and the camera did not

come with the lens that was supposed to come with it (I know very well I purchased the

lens, wasn't a Body Only purchase). When I posted a negative comment about the retailer

it did not even make it in their ratings. SHOPCART USA does NOT post negative ratings

against its retailers.

 

Anyway, I disputed the item with my credit card company and VISA honored the

chargeback and gave me my money back. So, as the only honest person in this

transaction, I sent the camera back to them. They rejected the shipment since it didn't

have an RMA, so UPS returned the camera back to me. Looks like the left hand doesn't

know what the right hand is doing.

 

i think I'll keep the camera then (I won't be driving the 2k + miles to NYC) but I will need

to buy a lens.

I tried to use ShopCartUSA to purchase a Casio Ex-F1 and was naively fooled into ordering from one of their

merchants "Camera Addict." In their ad, Camera Addict specifies the item has a USA warranty, and a good price,

but once I actually placed the order, I had to talk to a fast talking salesman who tried to convince me to buy

one with a USA warranty for $250 more. IN addition, the one advertised came with no battery, and they'd be happy

to sell me one for another $250 (NP-100 battery normal price is around $50-100). This tactic is infuriating, but

since I've seen it before, I canceled my order and ended up buying from B&H. Their price was obviously higher,

but still quite reasonable.

 

I attempted to put a 1 star rating on ShopCartUSA for their beloved Camera Addict, but to my surprise (not!), it

never showed up.

 

This tells me that ShopCartUSA is in fact a front for scamming merchants and should be avoided at all costs.