SlrHut

Much better

I've come back to update my review:

After my initial issues I was contacted by the Manager to see if he could sort them out for me. My refund has been processed and the issues I have had with the battery charger have been sorted.

The manager has said that he is looking into the problems I have faced.


[original review]

I don't normally write poor reviews as a rule but I have to say that I am quite disapointed with my experience of purchasing from SLR Hut. I decided to get my camera and lens from them as my budget was tight and I didn't mind the fact that they are based in the US as apposed to the UK.

I initially called SLR Hut to order a Canon 60D DSLR and a Tokina 11-16 F2.8 lens. I mentioned to the sales guy that I needed them quite quickly and would this be a problem. He informed me that they could ship the camera and lens out to me in 4 days for around £50 which I thought was extortionate at first but I suppose the cost of the products was low enough for this to be not such an issue. They did in the end give me a slight discount on this shipping charge so all was well.

However, once I had placed my order for both items the sales guy proceeded to bombard me with what I would call 'fairly hard sell' tactics to get me to part with more money based on false claims of very low battery life on the standard Canon battery and also needlessly expensive 'Crystal' filter kits when all I wanted was a Hoya UV filter to protect the front of the lens.

I think I was on the phone in the end for about 30 + minutes which is a quite a long time when ordering a camera and a lens. I definitely got the impression that he was trying to keep me on the line..

Anyway, after being promised a 4 day delivery I never received a shipping notification and after 2 days I emailed them to see what had happened. I eventually got an email back 48 hours later saying:

"I apologize for the slight delay, please be advised, you should receive a shipping notification within the next 24 hours. If you do not receive a shipping notification, please contact us right away".

Erm.. but I had paid for a 4 day shipping service??

So I called them to find out what was going on and after much deliberating about what had happened, the sales guy finally said that the lens I had ordered was not in stock but on back order and they would ship both items out when it came in 7 days! That is certainly not a value for money 4 day shipping service. I think what annoyed me most about this is that I don't think they would have communicated this to me had I not called them myself.

Anyway, I cancelled my order for the lens and aksed for a refund and asked that the camera be shipped out within two days. He agreed and apologised and said that the refund would show in my account the day after. To be fair the camera did come when he said, however the refund did not.

I called them today to find out about the situation with my refund and got passed from one person to the next before I spoke to someone who informed me that they weren't sure what had happened but I will get the money back within the next 3 business days. This I will have to wait for and I'll update this review at that time.

One other issue with buying from SLR Hut if you are based in the UK is the fact that you don't get a UK plug but instead a very cheap and pretty dubious 2 pin to 3 pin plastic adapter. Not actually sure that its safe so I'll have to go and buy a UK charger now too. Also, no warranty card. I asked about this and the customer services adviser told me that they always separate camera kits to sell separately and it had probably fallen out of the box. Nice. He did say that if anything went wrong I could call them to arrange a repair, however I would have just felt better if I could have registered the product here and sorted it out that way.

Well anyway, lesson learned. I will definitely never buy from SLR Hut again, but instead stick to UK suppliers that I trust.

The whole thing has been and still is (until I get my refund) a stressful experience.

Will update when its been resolved.