Photog Receives Laminate Flooring After Ordering a Canon 5D MKIII From Dell

[Guest]

Or the dangers of buying online.

http://www.petapixel.com/2013/01/17/photog-receives-laminate-flooring-after-ordering-a-canon-5d-mkiii-from-dell/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PetaPixel+%28PetaPixel%29

[colinb]

I asked them about the compensation

of course you did…most would be contacting about a refund.

Funny there seems to only one guy who this has happened too, and not only once but twice? I'm not sure I believe anyone who photographs the complete opening up of a parcel?

[Guest DaveW]

I thought Dell only sold computers, so did a Web search and was surprised to find they do sell cameras in the US as well as TV's:-

http://accessories.u...ategory_id=4005

I don't think they sell them to the UK though.

He says:-

"Everything is packaged perfectly and looks great. I cut open the shipping box, pull out the camera box and start to unbox it… what do I find? Wood flooring. Perfectly cut and glued together to fit the compartments of the box. No camera, not accessories, no booklets, nothing."

You don't sell wood flooring cut and glued together. It rather looks to me as if somebody has stolen the camera out of the box and put in the flooring as make weight so nobody would suspect until it was opened. That must have occurred somewhere in the supply chain from Canon to the customer? Once boxed by the manufacturer most wholesalers and retailers if not demonstrating them do not open the boxes to check the contents are there. In fact most customers prefer a sealed box to make sure the retailer has not been using it as a demo model and then put it back in the box and sold it as new.

The second package is strange as it is not even a camera box and all the flooring seems to differ so it looks like a parcel of flooring samples. One of the readers comments agrees with Colin:-

"This sounds all a bit too fishy. It seems quite unfeasible that a worker in a distribution company could bring laminate flooring to work or collect it from the shelf, cut it to size and put it in the camera box without any managers or team leaders seeing it. Further to that, it happened twice to the same customer who has a weird habit of taking pictures while opening products and with no reported cases of it happening to any other customers. Other than perhaps at Christmas, who takes pictures while opening their products?"

Another says:-

"What very likely happened is that somebody else bought the camera, removed it, replaced it with the flooring, and returned it. Dell restocked and resold it. This type of fraud is actually a common problem with electronic retailers."

Whatever the explanation it looks like theft and substitution somewhere along the line.

Edited January 28, 2013 by DaveW