Here is what mhbstevens asked for:

"This is NOT a thread about whether NY discounters are a good source or not, we have had that discussion before and opinions vary. I'm looking to see if anyone has purchased the FX1 at $1999 as advertised by Royal Camera just to know if this is real or not. If you have no first-hand knowlege please do not take this thread off to the pros and cons of these cheap grey-market guys, we all know the problems with Royal Camera in general terms, as as I said, we all done that before. I'm looking to see if this deal is for real."

Not surprisingly, very few people actually do have any 1st-hand experience with Royal or other dubious sources of expensive equipment. Also not very surprising is the high volume of unsupported, but remarkably adamant, advice doled out even in the face of a very specific request for information.

As I mentioned before, I called Royal once upon a time about their advertised price for a dvx100a--after a very annoying conversation the evasive Royal person finally conceded that their price was for the vidcam body only--no accessories of any kind--no battery, no warranty, nothing. I'm not even sure anymore if their price included a lens--I think maybe not. The Royal person prompted me to look into their "package deals" in order to get a complete dvx100a as supplied by the manufacturer; however--their package prices are very high priced, high enough to render the whole question of buying from a dicey place completely moot. That is my only experience specific to Royal. Sorry, it is a bit off the fx1 topic; however, I would speculate that Royal's practices are similar regardless of which vidcam you are interested in buying.

Best regards,

Lee

mhb,

So as they say, "Is B&H my destiny?"

This is the perfect example of cognitive dissonance I was talking about earlier. You know the other guys are crooks, but you still are looking for the way to get a deal. Yet they are crooks. Yet you still want a deal.

"Also not very surprising is the high volume of unsupported, but remarkably adamant, advice doled out even in the face of a very specific request for information." flippin

Not trying to be a pain here but....

Like I mentioned in my first post, I would be surprised to find anyone on this forum who had actually made a good purchase from this company. If anyone on this forum had bought a FX1 for that amount and it turned out to be the real deal, I would think there would be a thread on such a purchase and the buzz would be nonstop. What every poster to this thread has tried to do is help a fellow forum member avoid a potentially terrible decision to conduct business with a company that has such a reported reputation.

The advice is not "unsupported" as you mention. Just look at resellerratings, the better business bureau or do a search on Google for "Royal Camera complaints" and you have all of the documentation you need. Like you correctly mentioned, one would be fairly naive to believe that they would act any differently on the FX1 transaction than they have on other transactions in the past.

Here's a paragraph from the bbbnewyork.org website:
"Consumer complaints against this firm allege non-delivery of ordered merchandise, receipt of unordered goods, difficulty obtaining refunds and/or adjustments, and overbilling for products and services not requested by consumers. This firm has failed to eliminate the underlying cause of its complaints." http://www.bbbnewyork.org/businessreports/Default.aspx?id=48302

He did ask for specific information on the FX1 but people are just trying to help by pointing him in the direction of sites and information that will help him make a decision based on a "big picture" of the company in question.

I've never stepped on a landmine so I can't tell you what it feels like, but if I saw someone wandering towards a field with a big sign that said "MINE FIELD", I'd try to get their attention before they stepped.

boomhower,

sorry if i didn't express myself well enough...

i didn't mean to imply that all of the advice in the thread was unsupported by personal (i.e., first-hand) experience with Royal--but c'mon, if you read through this entire thread there is relatively little first-hand experience cited--and that is what mhbstevens seemed to be specifically asking for unless i misunderstood him.

one of the primary reasons i've never returned to the dvxusers site after posting a detailed and accurate account of a purchase that i'd made within a "buying gear" thread was: more than 90 % of the responses, many of them really vulgar, were so-called "common wisdom" or unsupported opinion masquerading as confirmed fact.

this is a great forum, imo, and rarely suffers from outright mistreatment of well-intentioned participants; however, i guess i still have problems with 2nd-hand opinion that is presented 1st-hand or even as fact.

best regards,

Lee

flippin:

Nothing to be sorry about....wasn't taking a poke at you....just trying to say that I believe everyone who posted in this thread had the thread starter's best interest at heart. You even took time to post to try and give him some background info to make a decision. Had you followed the strict interpretation of his request, you (nor I) would have taken the time. The sites I suggested do have actual buyer experiences (which is what he is basically looking for)

Thankfully, this thread and forum is a far cry from the kind of treatment you mention having been subjected to in the dvxusers forum. This IS a great forum and with the exception of a few threads (that have since been removed) and one or two posters, this is a fairly "flame free" zone. I've seen a little friendly fire but not much :-)

I just wasn't sure if you were saying everyone should have just remained silent in light of the way he asked the question. I think this is different than the "my camera is better than yours" kind of stuff that tends to pile up on some other sites.

Just trying to watch his back.....

Cheers,

> if you read through this entire thread there is relatively little first-hand experience cited ... i guess i still have problems with 2nd-hand opinion that is presented 1st-hand or even as fact.

As someone who has personal first hand experience with Royal and has already given his input, I'm personally offended by your statements...nah, just kidding :-)

OTOH, my dealings were back in Dec 2000 (and Jan and Feb and Mar of 2001 :-), so they may have turned over a new leaf since then...ROTFLOL.

I am a big fan of trying to answer a question within the context in which it was asked. In THIS particular case it was practically impossible because virtually everyone on the forum knows better than to deal with Royal Camera.

There is a bit of arrogance in the wording of the original post as well as in the follow up post by the person who indicated that people weren't really answering the question as it was stated.
Has it ever occurred to either of you that the reason all of us are posting warnings despite the request NOT TO is because none of us want to see him VICTIMIZED and we would feel REALLY BAD if he were? How does one read this type of request and say to ourselves:
"Oh well, I know he is going to get screwed, BUT he said not to tell him that and we should only post a response IF we were foolish enough to order from Royal Camera and just so happened NOT to also get screwed." ?

John

The problem with the original question is the question itself. Consider the following:

"This is NOT a thread about whether the water in the well is poisonous or not, we have had that discussion before and opinions vary. I'm looking to see if anyone has drunk from the well and lived to tell about it, just to know if this is real or not. If you have no first-hand knowledge drinking from the poisonous well, please do not take this thread off to the pros and cons of drinking poisonous water, we all know the problems with poisonous water in general terms, as I said, we all done that before. I'm looking to see if this poison well is for real."

[edit]

Jay

Exactly!


John

mhb -

Order it from Royal and tell us how it went.

Maybe this is getting a bit off-topic, sorry if this is wasting everyone's time.

I thought mhbstevens question was a really good one. The way he framed it showed that he was clearly already aware of how the "common wisdom" that prevails in so many internet discussions would paint Royal--and every other NYC-based internet dealer. Posts of consumer review remarks from other sites are 2nd-hand information that everyone, mhbstevens included, can access. However, mhbstevens (and I'm obviously speculating here) may have wanted higher quality information than is normally obtainable from consumer reviews. Perhaps he believes, as I do, that this forum is populated by a higher percentage of professionals and amateurs that have real knowledge and expertise.

This is an interesting topic to me personally because I did buy my dvx100a at a "poison well". Not Royal--I've already described the informative telephone conversation I had with them. According to the common wisdom I must have been cheated or poisoned, but I'm still alive and well and happily using my Panny. Just lucky? Dunno. Maybe.

Hope this discussion doesn't offend anyone, that's definitely not the intent. I take away a lot more knowledge from this site than I can ever hope to match with contributions because my technical/artistic knowledge is way behind most of you. Still, I like to try to contribute good information when the chance comes up.

Best regards and peace,

Lee

Thanks Lee: You are the FIRST and ONLY person who had the experience to answer the question! So, who did you buy from? I always have bought from eTronics.com with wonderfull service and quality but they are not carrying the FX1 yet. I have also got good quality stuff from Abes's of Main (Olympus and Yanaha stuff) but they are just too much hassel with there constant calls to sell the stuff you don't want. eTronincs never did that to me.



Mike

Mike,

Check out my 1-25-05 post, about 14 - 15 from the bottom, in this string.

Please be clear, I am not touting US1Camera. Having read many posts about people's varying comfort levels with pushy salesmen and deceptive merchants, it is only fair to admit I felt that I felt I had to be very clear--in writing--and receive written confirmation--about every aspect of my purchase from them. I still felt somewhat nervous during the time between placing the order and receipt of the vidcam because of all the general comments about "places like that".

However, I got a dvx100a with US warranty and complete manuf. supplied accessories for at least $400-500 less than anyone else was selling for at the time; i,.e., B&H, EVS, etc. Depending on your comfort level with various types of merchants, the savings was a fair amount more than that because 9 months ago the dvx100a was selling at some places for $3700 - $3900; i.e., Crutchfield and these types of places.

I don't know if there are any serious, substantiated 1st-hand complaints from knowledgeable people about US1Camera. They are definitely on the pushy side but I don't consider that to be a deal-breaker as long as I know exactly what I want and can obtain clear written confirmation of agreement from the merchant. Ultimately, I felt completely satisfied with the deal I got from them.

If you don't know exactly what you want and/or you know that you are easily swayed by salesmen's pitches or you can't bring yourself to demand written confirmation (e-mail) of the points that you consider most important before you cough up your credit card #--I would advise extreme caution or deal with easier situations.

Best regards,

Lee

>Thanks Lee: You are the FIRST and ONLY person who had the experience to answer the question!

Uh Mike, I probably should not bother, but answer one thing:

Lee buys a dvx100a from US1Camera. I buy a TRV900 from Royal themselves (spending about as much as your $1999, btw), yet Lee is "the FIRST and ONLY person who had the experience to answer the question!" ?

Now I'm confused. FIRST and ONLY makes it seem that the rest of us missed the whole point. Imho, there have been more than a few good posts in this thread, by and large respecting your initial wishes, and I'm now thinking we STILL don't know what you were REALLY asking for!

I'm sure you didn't mean to offend, but I thought you should know that I felt a touch of it. Maybe its just the way I read CAPS.

Rich,

I'm sure no offense was meant and , for my part, I apologize for not taking clearer notice of your 1st-hand experience in this string. As you correctly point out, your posts are definitely on-topic. On the mitigation side, there are really a lot of posts to read through in this string and many of them, well-intentioned or not, seem somewhat off the original topic; i.e, definitely not 1st hand experience but echoes of what people have heard elsewhere and/or collections of "common wisdom".

I tried to be very clear that my own 1st hand experience with Royal amounted to a lengthy discussion on the telephone with them--during which I came to understand (because they told me) exactly how they were able to advertise a dvx100a for ~$1000 less than anyone else. I.e., they were advertising that price for the camera body only--nothing else comes with it. That experience seemed close enough to the FX1-Royal question that Mike asked. An interested party could potentially call Royal and extract the relevant information from them for FX1, although many people would argue that it's moot at this point. Nothing has been said in Royal's favor yet, as far as I can tell.

Although this may be even further off-topic, I personally wish that more folks in forums like this one would provide very clear 1st-hand information on their purchase strategies and the actual details for big-ticket item purchases of gear related to the primary forum topic--i.e., outline how you approached the purchase, how it went, and were you ultimately satisfied, etc.

Only my personal opinion, but I appreciate balanced information much more than rants that seek to tell me what to do--especially those that seem to demand absolute conformity to the "common wisdom".

Best regards,

Lee

So whatever happened here?

Mike, did you get the camera from Royal for the price shown? What was the outcome? It's not cool to leave us hanging!

LOL, I am willing to bet no. Royal is a scumbag company that deserves to be put out of business.

Of course he didn't, i went as far with one of these outfits to actually "try" to purchase one of these super deals, orderd it, put it in my shopping cart , filled in the credit card info ,gave them my amex number (love amex wasnt worried at all ) and hit purchase,, came up with a phone number i had to call to complete the purchase,,, right---- SCAM!!!

why doesn't somebody report these types of outfits to the FTC? it looks like deceptive trade practices are being used.

https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

if you got screwed by one of these places, you might want to file an online complaint (it's easy) at the FTC's web site, as well as the New York atty generals/or whoever deals w/fair trade in NY..

ken

I'd love to see what happens with this approach: "Hello, Royal Camera? I want to buy a camcorder from you. My friends on the Internet all say you are all jerks who won't sell me just a camera without loading me up with $500 worth of accessories that are worth maybe $50, but I want to prove them wrong."

Maybe if you happened to use this line on the owner himself you might get lucky, but I'd put those odds at one in a thousand. Look, there's no getting around the basic laws of business. If you get a camera at a ridiculously-low price, it means one of several things: (1) the store is willing to sell at a loss (extremely unlikely), (2) the store gets its cameras at a wholesale price way below everyone else (extremely unlikely), (3) the camera is stolen merchandise (quite possible), or (4) the camera is grey-market (that is, a camera sold to a different country at a different price). Even in the case of (4), you lose the warranty and your camera may have Japanese menus or manuals.

Now, I buy stuff on eBay for low prices all the time, but that's a different story. There, the merchandise may be stolen (possible), but more likely than not it's in used condition, and thus anything goes as for pricing. When my PC blew out a few weeks ago, I found an identical motherboard in perfect (but used) condition for about $20. I'm using it to type this.

I love shopping in the open-air mercados in foreign countries. The price for something is what a buyer is willing to pay. The seller buys a wood carving for $1, then asks $25 for it. You can buy it for $25, or you can scoff and offer $5. Your choice. Incidentally, my wife hates buying stuff this way. It stresses her out, and she needs to go back to the hotel and rest.