Beware PriceRitePhoto

Thomas Hawk tried to buy a Canon EOS-5D from PriceRitePhoto of Brooklyn, NY. The bait-and-switch tactics he describes are typical of shady online camera stores, but the manager's reaction to Hawk's complaint was noteworthy to say the least:

"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." "You'd better get this through your thick skull." "You have no idea who you are dealing with."

These are all direct threats that I received today from an individual who identified himself as Steve Phillips, the manager of PriceRitePhoto in Brooklyn, New York when I called to inquire about my order with them. My crime? Telling him that I planned to write an article about my unfortunate experience with his company regarding the camera order I had placed with him yesterday.

It gets better...

At this point I thanked him and informed him that I would be writing an article about my experience with his company. It was at this point that he went ballistic. He first told me that if I did this that he would not cancel my order but just never fill it. If I cancelled it he said he'd charge me a 15% restocking fee. When I told him that that would be unethical he went nuts. He accused me of trying to "extort" him and said that he was going to have two local police officers come over and arrest me. He then went on to say that as a "professional photographer" I should have known better than to try and buy a camera this way and that he was an attorney and would sue me if I wrote an article about my experience. [Emphasis added]

Hat tip to Cynical-C.

Comments

[Stephen Benson]

amazing, the guy's final line of defense being that you should have known better than to deal with a crook like him. keep after him lindsey. bastards like that deserve no mercy even when they repent it's false, because they repent that you caught them and dealt with them, not that they were crooked to begin with.

[mudkitty]

Is it safe to deal with him?

[blogenfreude]

No mudkitty. And I am a lawyer too .... this guy is a clown.

[Joseph]

I work customer service, have for 5 years now so I know it pretty well. Well thats not it. Wow. Sure I have had customers that threatent to write a article or paper, or get a lawyer or something like that. But we never told the customer that we were sueing them.

[discfree]

I've worked custormer service for over 5 years too and I've never called anyone's boss to complain that they were a poor consumer. I don't advocate being a consumer vigilante, but I do think that pricewrong got what they deserved.

[gordo]

discfree--

Right on. It usually bothers me when bloggers make a post out of every instance of perceived bad service. Vigilantism should be reserved for truly egregious cases like this one.