Camera Shop

neral1

Has any one used Expedite Electronics?
They are based in Surrey and Hammondsworth.
I have seen good price for a camera not sure what to do.
Any comments will be helpful.

Coopdivi

There are three contact addresses on the website. Two are for shipping companies in the UK and the other one is for a jewellery manufacturer based in Hong Kong.

http://ggianni.en.ecplaza.net/

In other words, all these addresses are false.

There's no phone number and the Domain Registration gives the address of the website's hosting company who are based in Hong Kong.

http://whois.domaintools.com/expeditelectronics.com

The Terms & Condition (sic) on the website have actually been copied and pasted from Argos' website.

http://www.argos.co.uk/m/static/StaticDisplay/includeName/customer_services_terms_m.html

Expedite have tailored these Terms to suit their own needs but unfortunately forget to replace the words 'Home Retail Group' in clause 8.8

Expedite Electronics is 100% a Chinese website and a definite scam. If you're lucky you'll receive your goods, for which you'll have to pay 20% VAT and the Royal Mail's handling fee in addition to the purchase price (despite the absolute lies they spout on their website. Your purchases will either be 1. grey imports which means that the leads may not be suitable for UK sockets or that there's limited or no warranty or 2. just plain counterfeit rubbish. On the other hand they may just decide not to send you anything and keep your money or worse still clone your credit card.

Don't waste your money with these scammers. If there is a particular camera that you want to buy, ask on either the I Wanna Buy-it or Do-it or Techie Stuff boards on MSE. You should get good advice and you won't be ripped off.

ewan_c

Good detective work, Coopdivi

Jamminjuda

You did some good detective work Coopdivi. You identified the owners as HK based and the lifted T&C page, but you then jump to conclusions about VAT and shipping without any further evidence.

I found a thread on avforums.com (You need to Google it as I'm new and can't post links - contains anyone-used-expedite-electronics and 1874999) which gives some direct user experience of using this site. Just like people here there they are wary as the prices look too good to be true. They also identified text lifted from another site this time about cookies. However those logging details of actually purchases are reporting that they are shipped from the UK with no additional charges or VAT, but appear to be non-UK stock. So the prices are genuine and the goods are new, but not warranted for UK sale.

What does appear to be happening is that the company is exporting stock intended for non-UK markets, exploiting the different pricing structures companies use around the world. So if your product arrives in good working order you are a winner, but if you get any warranty issues it is highly likely that the manufacturer will not honour any non-UK guarantee and the sell will not give you a refund.

So I'd still say as you do, "Don't buy here", but with a rider "Unless you can afford to write the goods off if they breakdown under warranty."