Abe's of Main

George S. said:
They may have been legit for yours and others here who have said they had no problems, but look them up- many many others would disagree- they ARE scammers and thieves. This is from my own experience a few years back-

THEM: "Yeah".
ME: " I'm interested in the Canon lens on sale in your ad."
THEM: "Let me have your credit card number."
ME: "Why? You haven't told me if you have the lens in stock yet."
THEM: "We need to have your number to get the process going."
ME: "What process? I'd like to ask you a couple of questions.
THEM: "We need your number before we can help you."
ME: HANGS UP.
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Back about 20 years plus, the guys in the back of Pop Photo, or others, had a terrible rep for borderline fraud and rudeness. Many of them asked for your credit card first, refusing to talk to you until they had a number, --- they had no real way at that time to know if you were actually giving them your ex wife's phone number in Spain in place of a legit card.

They would often not answer questions regarding anything on their 800 Wats line, and you could linger on hold on the other line until you needed to use the facilities, several times.

They almost killed the whole thing, and some things changed.
Pop Photo stepped in and lifted some ads.

There were some variations, advertising gray market, and then having only more expensive US in stock, or swapping the stuff charging your credit cards, or my personal favorite, advertising a Mamiya TLR, but charging $50 extra for the viewfinder? Told the guy I had a prism, and the price went down.

Upping the price, and not shipping until after the credit card bill was actually mailed, then when the charges were reversed, they would charge $50 on the card every six months trying to slip it past. Lasted years until the card expired. Card company knew these guys.

I think I bought a few things OK from Abes.

I always tried to buy first locally, and you know what, the guys at Campus Camera in Kent would occasionally tell me to buy a particular item from NY, they just could not sell some things at those prices, often, they could sell for the same or less. Sometimes they were aware of scams.

In general, I recall attitudes changed so that you could have a reasonable and quick conversation with most of the NY retailers. There are, I understand, some holdovers, but then, I just got another email from Nigeria today and yesterday telling me of my good luck. I guess some things remain a tradition tied to some geographic locations?

Fun times. ;-)

Regards, John
 
Al Patterson said:
Well, Wendy WAS the daughter of the founder of the chain, which he named after her. (And yes, I know you are being sarcastic.)

Having read the reseller rating for "Abe", I'd avoid them.
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Yes indeed. My point is that it is silly to rate a business by the authenticity of it's name. Not in the USA/"global" economy. Remember the all American beer, Bud, is now foreign owned. Who knows, maybe your big mac comes to you via the chinese....lol

Now, if there are a large, credible base of complaints against the way these guys conduct themselves then by all means a potential buyer should be a bit wary.

Best regards,

Bob
 
I bought a few things from them in the last two years, and I had no issues whatsoever. (A Nikon D40, and a SB-400 flash.) Came with all the normal warranty. Price was good.
 
Thanks for the tremendous input!

I tend to have Murphy (of Murphy's Law) living in the trunk of my car :rolleyes: so I will try to go with the more tried & true (at least by me) vendors......minimize the chance for problems.

Thanks again.
 
I recall back in the bad old days of the 60's-70's that the NYC mail order places would charge your card instantly and then take about 5-6 weeks before shipping the item. I was always uncertain if and when I'd receive what I'd ordered. The more complicated the order, with lots of little stuff like cable releases and filters, the more likely something I'd paid for wouldn't be included. I recall a problem like that with Adorama.

So I kept my orders simple and started ordering COD to motivate them to ship more quickly and not sit on my payment. Lucked out once with an order for a Canon copier in that the truck delivery guy didn't have any COD paperwork. I phoned customer service cross-country on my nickel three times over the following two months trying to pay but they never invoiced it. My lucky copier.

We finally settled on B&H even though their prices were a bit higher than others, simply because they were reliable, and as Fred said honest.

I do credit PC Connection for influencing improvements to mail order in general by not charging cards until shipment, being very easy and friendly to deal with, and shipping what you ordered ASAP. These were two ladies in New Hampshire who set up with Macintosh stuff as Mac Connection in 1984 and became so successful UPS established a shipping terminal in their town. I still buy computer gear from them by preference. Customers began expecting such treatment and I think their ideas spread into NYC with the help of Modern Photography.
 
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dcsang said:
I've seen "Abe's Of Maine" ads around for quite some time - but I too have only shopped at B&H (online/phone/in person) and Adorama (in person only).

I just have to laugh a bit about this because it reminds me of the store named "Going Out of Business" from the movie "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" - the store isn't going out of business but the owners named the store that way because it was "good for business" :D

Cheers,
Dave
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The pushy sales men in that movie remind me of everything bad I've read about some of those Brooklyn warehouse shops, most especially "Broadway Photo", which have a horrible reputation for bait & switches.
 
Abe's of Maine is in Edison NJ. Check the entries at the Better Business Bureau before deciding to purchase. I never bought an item from them because they use deceptive advertising. I think it was last year when I called to check on the validity of the price indicated in a newspaper ad. They responded by saying that...oh that's a TYPO! of course the price was much higher compared to B&H.

My goto place is B&H, Adorama & Amazon (shipped by Amazon only).
 
That's like McDonald's used to have a corporation titled "100% All Beef Patties". That way they weren't lying when they said that their hamburgers were made from "100% All Beef Patties".

[/QUOTE]
I just have to laugh a bit about this because it reminds me of the store named "Going Out of Business" from the movie "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" - the store isn't going out of business but the owners named the store that way because it was "good for business" :D

Cheers,
Dave[/QUOTE]
 
oris642 said:
That's like McDonald's used to have a corporation titled "100% All Beef Patties". That way they weren't lying when they said that their hamburgers were made from "100% All Beef Patties".
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I just have to laugh a bit about this because it reminds me of the store named "Going Out of Business" from the movie "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" - the store isn't going out of business but the owners named the store that way because it was "good for business" :D

Cheers,
Dave[/quote][/quote]

McDonald's always sold "Shakes", no milk in the name.

Hey, at least they were cheap, during their early years there was not much in the way of competition, we got poisoned with fried chicken in Kentucky.

I had to give them all up, it got to the point I had to take the ads to the library to Xerox them at 300% and use a magnifying glass to read the fine print. ;-)

Regards, John
 
ray*j*gun said:
Hi,

I don't know if this is the right place for this question but I have noticed that "Abe's of Main" has some good prices on all their products....does anyone have any experience with them? I;m thinking about a digital SLR and they seem to have the goods and the best deals.

Thanks as always!
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I've bought from them and haven't had a problem. I can't recall if they tried to sell me more stuff before actually sending me what I ordered, but, if they did, telling them no once worked perfectly fine and I received the goods I ordered at the price I ordered it for.
 
JohnTF said:
McDonald's always sold "Shakes", no milk in the name.
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At college in the early '80's, it was common to see some poor frat pledge forced to dress up in a radiation suit and DEVO red flower-pot hat, to go into a McDonald's and order a "red (or brown or white) polysorbate 80"
 
In my Folk Festival days, I knew some of the writers, one had written a song entitled "Garbage", and the other wags would say he wrote it every day, so he wrote a new song called "A Thousand and One Songs" so he could tell people he wrote a thousand and one songs.

John
 
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