Buying "used" equipment from Adorama - Feedbacks?

[bennett ho]

Hi folks,

 

I am wondering if any of you have previous experiences purchasing

"used" equipment from Adorama? I am looking to pick up a used Nikon F3

with "E+" rating from them. There is also a "D(demo)" rated F3HP w/

box but the price is a lot steeper. How reliable are the ratings? I

understand KEH.com may be a bit more reliable in terms of their

ratings but they do not have a F3 in mint condition at the moment. I

do not intend to buy from ebay either.

 

Any feed back from your past experiences would be appreciated.

[vivek iyer]

I have bought a couple Nikon items from them over the years. They are reliable., in general. However, the actual personnel who handle stuff there do not last for >6months at a time, it seems (to me at least).

 

So, it is difficult to answer your question with absolute certainty.

If you look up adorwin or something like that, you will find Adorama selling on eBay!

 

Take your pick!

[ky2]

Keh's mint is truly mint. Adorama's mint is Keh's excellent.

[stefan_g]

I picked up a used lens for about 2/3 of what they were asking for on their store website; so if you want to buy from Adorama it's definitely worth checking their ebay listings.

 

The lens was rated 'excellent', which really is middle of their range, and it was pretty much exactly like I expected: no scratches or marks on the glass surfaces, minor brassing (only at the edges of the mounting ridges), small scuffs and scratches on the lens body, and paint scraping at the rim of the hood. No caps, but they threw in a heavily used UV filter for protection.

 

In contrast, an 85/1.4 I bought from KEH in 'bargain' condition looks like new to me. No scratches or marks whatsoever anywhere. Maybe they had already sold the bargain lens, and shipped me the next (better) one that came in?

[John Crowe]

I bought a well used Nikon 200mm f2 AI from one of their ebay auctions in January. When it arrived it needed the aperture repaired, up here in Canada, and they paid the bill...with absolutely no hassle! I then bought a well used Nikon 400/2.8 AIS from another of their auctions and they found a problem with it before they sent it out and are having it repaired before they ship it to me.

 

 

They certainly go out of their way to make sure the customer is happy!

 

 

Communication through emails or through their 1-800 number is excellent. I find their ratings and descriptions to be mostly accurate. You save at least 20% by purchasing from their ebay auctions as opposed to buying from their website.

 

 

I will buy from them again, no problem.

[steve_levine]

I've been to their store, and I would strongly suggest you shop used gear elsewhere. Their store gets more pissed off people leaving, than any place in Manhattan.

 

 

To be blunt, they are miserable bastards to deal with.

 

After they tried to sell me a brick of "short dated" film , at full price. I looked at a used SLR, and it was "shrink wrapped" sealed in plastic. I asked the salesman to "please unwrap it so I could examine it". He told me "after you buy it, you can take it home and unwrap it". I told him to go F--k himself, and walked out.

 

In all fairness, I have ordered some smaller new items from them, which they shipped promptly. But I wouldn't trust them further than I can throw them.

[loreneidahl]

My experience with Adorama has been to not trust purchases to them that are over $150.

 

(Their interpertation of reality is through a 80a filter with earplugs on and welders mits on.)

 

 

KEH on the other hand I trusted them with a $3500 purchase ( and many more) and was not disapointed.

 

Their ugly is usually what everybody else considers an excellant.

 

Something I discovered about Adorama's grading. They add the phrase "for its age/based on its age" either mentally or somewhere in the conversation as they describe a products rating.

[loreneidahl]

Forgot to add :

 

KEH bases is grading system on a factor of what the item looked like when new. Quite a difference from Adorama's "for its age"

 

I look good for an overweight guy who wears glasses and is loosing his hair. I look like total crap compared to when I was born.

 

Big difference in thinking between KEH and Adorama.

[ShunCheung]

When I lived near New York City, I had been to Adorama a few times, but that was in the mid to late 1990's. Their sales associates are certainly not as friendly as B&H's and once I mail ordered from them, they told me a camera bag was in stock but in fact it wasn't. Two days later they called me back and I had to switch to a different color. As a result, I shopped from B&H exclusively afterwards.

 

My experience with Adorama is not recent, but as people say, it takes a long time to build a good reputation and it also takes a long time to repair a not so great one.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here I have buy a few new and used items over the years from Adorama with no drama or problems, but then I usually do alot or research and seldom have any real problems with mailorder. I have also bought from Cambridge since the 1960's with no problems either. Those who dont do their homework should buy where prices are higher, which covers returns and restocking and helps pay for employees who can pend more time handholding customers. When dealing with these companies on should try to deal with the same person who understands your needs. Ask them wehn it is a slow time for you to call, and answer questions about you possible used camera item purchase. Sometimes dealing with a smaller camera store say in the Midwest like Jacks camera in Muncie, or Central or Helix in Chicago, or old now defunct Franks camera in Highland park, Calif is where I have got sometimes better deals than NYC. The adjectives of demo, mint, excellent, very good, user vary with each store. Collector types will freak out over a minor lens blem that doesnt effect the performance of a lens. The word "mint" is like "fine art"; and can mean way too many things.

[dj_soroka]

I've dealt with salesman there who have worked there for 15 years but make you wonder if they ever used the stuff they sell.

 

I remember one time a salesman telling me I couldn't mount a 85 mm f/1.4 Ais lens unless I purchased it first.

 

That made me feel better in one respect. Up until that incident I had wondered if they rented out stuff for 5 or 6 weeks before selling it as new!

 

Anyway, I have tried lenses that were dusty and didn't have an aperture that worked at all the stops in their store. When I pointed it out to the salesmen, he'd say that they would do something about it. Found the same lens, 6 months later, that wouldn't stop down smaller than f/11, and mentioned it to the salesman again. He'd said he get it fixed. 6 months later, the same lens was there, and when I checked, it still wouldn't close down beyond f/11 (it went to f/22). Naturally it carried an excellent grading.

 

Good luck.

 

If you really want to get sick in the stomach bring a lens of your in to the store and ask them what they would offer you to buy it from you.

[mal_yas]

Their shipping is slow. The rating as mentioned by others is a bit marked up. I would rather buy from KEH and BH.

[douglas_green1]

IMHO, Adorama does a good job with new equipment, but not so with used, as described in prior posts. Their grading is nowhere near as conservative as KEH. Other GOOD shops for used gear, besides KEH, are Columbus Camera, B&H, Cameta, Samys, and Charlotte Camera.

 

My only experience buying used from Adorama was on a Mamiya RZ body, graded as VG+. It would have been fairly graded as VG-, except that they packed it very inadequately, and the focusing knob broke off in shipping. They DID exchange it for one that was accurately in VG+ condition, and properly packed, but first I had to go through an inconvenience and a longer wait to get what I ordered.

[bennett ho]

Thanks for the responses everyone. From the tone of everyone's post it's best I stay away from Adorama. Will wait a while and shop at KEH.

[stank]

I bought a used Nikon lens from Adorama a while back. It was listed as condition E but had a scratch on one of the optics. They acknowledged the mistake and swapped it for one that looked like it was never used. Perfection is good but honesty is golden. I continue to do business with Adorama.

[bennett ho]

The concern is that I do not live in the US so I do not intend to deal with returns, exchanges, etc. I've dealt with Adorama before in the past, bought a few filters and accessories(new) without any problems. Once, many years ago, I tried to buy a used Nikon FE2 but they didn't even shipping it and no replies to my emails for over a week. In the end I cancelled the order. I guess things haven't changed much after hearing out your feedbacks. That seals the deal.

[johnw436]

I used Adorama one time. It was the last time. I wouldn't even waste perfectly good electrons by calling them.

 

I was working on a machine vision R&D project and needed to set up a lab to solve a few issues I couldn't tackle on a running production line. Time was running short on my deadline and I needed a copystand in short order.

 

I bought a Bogen copystand and 3-way adjustable mount for the stand. MONTHS later- and no stand. I called them every few days, and of course the last person I spoke to was not available and had not made any notes. Each person I spoke to was less helpful than the last hapless individual. Being a corporate Capital Project I used a PO instead of a credit card. That was my second mistake. (Using Adorama was the first.) Nobody at Adorama even knows what a Purchase Order is. But I digress...

 

After a two months I got "a" copystand. Not a Bogen. Not even close to what I ordered. What they sent was useful enough for the project I was working on and I didn't have time to send it back.

 

Had they treated me right they'd be supplying a North America-wide vision system implementation program on 134 production lines and I'd have bought everything I could from them. Apparently they don't get that.

 

Maybe it's easier to screw two million individuals, one at a time over the sales counter, than making the same amount of profit from one customer in a year's time. I wish them good luck in that endeavor.

[ebogaerts]

I attempted to purchased used from them through their website. A salesman called me back the next morning to tell me that the lens I had selected had a scratch on the front optics that they had originally not noticed (or words to that effect) and that they had another example of the same lens for about $60 more.

 

Needless to say, I didn't order the lens from them. Personally, it felt like a bait-and-switch tactic.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here I have used PO's awhile back for the local schools purchase of chemicals, enlargers, tongs, enlarging lenses, trays etc from Adorama. I have done this long ago in the 1960's from Olden and Wall Street camera with no problems either.<BR><BR>Using a PO is not the quickest thing, this was well documented in the "how to order photo materials by mailorder" articles in Popular Photography in the early 1960's. Many times one has ordered the same school stuff by PO each year, one gets special pricing by allowing the vendor time to get your special needs in their regular orders.<BR><BR>I would never expect drop dead quickness by using a PO. Many folks pay super slow with a PO, the worst are big companies. Here at my print shop one large company pays sometimes 6 to 8 months in arrears, but has this total jackass attitude like they are special. When they do pay they use a credit card, so when gets a further 1.7 to 2.5 percent hit, besides the inflation loss of ones money. Now they have "corporate purchasing credit cards" which take a huge 4 percent hit. If they pay 8 late invoices one cannot combine then all; one has to do one card transaction on each, which further adds to costs. Plus one has to fax each visa recepit to a different dept's fax number. Thus one has to bump up the prices of services one charges to PO customers sometimes, to pay for the total jackassery of the way they pay.<BR><BR>Using a credit card frees up the risk to the seller of a slow or non pay PO buyer, and should be done if one wants a quicker shipment.

[kelly_flanigan1]

John Wilson, does you company have any tardy non paid PO's with Adorama? Does it have a history of not paying vendors? Things like this get around and can be well known by others, and not to you as a buyer of your night vision equipment. <BR><BR>Here I have some well known companies on a cash only basis since the 1970's, since we had to take them to court to pay for the print work "done with a PO". Often a new employee at these firms dont understand why a PO doesnt make one jump thru hoops, when there are unpaid/short paid invoices commisioned when Carter was president.<BR><BR>You might be getting a regular paycheck, but your companies vendors might be all paid way later than you can imagine, or screwed around with. OR a sister company or division might have burned enough vendors that the seller has an ill/sick feeling again of getting burned and hung out to dry.<BR><BR> Sometimes the same cast of slick high tech characters are always starting a new company and wanting credit, when you are still dealing with collections on the old, or mountains of bankruptcy papers on the company twice before, or getting paid 1 cent on a dollar from a settlement from a bankruptcy that happened when Reagen was in office.<BR><BR>With credit one must weigh the risk of nonpayment, partial payment, slow payment, collection fees versus the profit one might make.

[curritch]

You have had several positive KEH recommendations but I'll add one more anyway.

 

I recently bought a Nikon mount Sigma 500mm/1:7.2 AF lens that KEH rated "bargain" which by their definition could have noticeable external wear and some glass damage.

 

Much to my surprise there was no glass damage whatsoever and no noticeable wear.

 

So based on that one purchase I am a very satisfied KEH customer.

[g_kumar]

<p>I ordered a D70 Condition E+ from Adorama at a good price. After ordering, I was curious to find how good it is going to be, stumbled on this forum, and got worried.<br>

The camera came in yesterday. It seems to be in Mint Condition, no signs of wear, and no defects as far as I can see. I have checked almost every function and everything works fine. Obviously, the previous user had taken good care of the camera. The shutter actuation is also only around 6000.<br>

The camera and lens had their caps, covers, pouch, battery and charger, all adequately packed. Looks like a good deal so far!</p>