Where (NOT) to buy lenses...
It comes as something of a surprise to many newcomers to the world of photography that not every store selling lenses on the web is honest and trustworthy!
If you walk around a shopping center and see a coat advertised at $99.99 in a store window, you rightly expect that if you walk into the store and buy it, you'll pay $99.99 for it. The assistant doesn't claim that $99.99 is a price for the version that's made in Taiwan out of inferior materials, and that the $99.99 price doesn't come with buttons or pockets. You don't expect to hear that it's an extra $30 for the buttons and pockets and that the coat made in the USA is actually $139.99 and you don't expect to pay and extra $15 for the assistant to get the coat from the back room and put it in a bag for you. And if you get the coat home and it doesn't fit, you wouldn't expect the store to curse at you and refuse to refund your money if you try to return it, or charge you a $30 "restocking fee" to take it back.
Well, that's exactly the way quite a few online photo stores operate. It's called "Bait and Switch". They bait you in with a very low price. You may place the order on their website and after that the fun starts. You'll get email asking you to call the store to confirm your order. That's when the switch starts. Lies about what's included with the item by the manufacturer ("did you want the batteries, manual, sofware and cables too?", lies about it being an "inferior model", lies (or silence) about inflated shipping costs. Lies about pretty much anything and everything. All of this being designed to "switch" you to a higher priced model (actually the only model they sell - if you say you want the "inferior" cheap model with no accessories, it will be out of stock forever).
In the end, assuming you fall for all the lies, you may well get something close to what you ordered (did I mention they sometimes send the wrong item, hoping that sending it back will be too much trouble for you), but you'll probably end up paying at least as much as you would have using an honest store. If you're unlucky enough to get the wrong item or if it's faulty, good luck on contacting customer service. Even if they have a phone number for you to call, nobody will answer it. If you're unlucky enough to actually have someone pickup the phone, odds are they'll be nasty and hang up on you. If by some great fortune you do figure out a way to send the item back and you do (eventually) get some sort of refund, they'll take a "restocking" fee out of it which can be anywhere up to 20% of the cost of the item.
Sounds like I'm making all this up right? Sorry, I wish I was, but I'm not. You can read more on my BobAtkins.com website in the article "Avoiding Photo Scamers".
So who can you trust? Well, there are a number of well established stores who aren't out to scam you. The three stores (Amazon, J&R and Adorama) that this site is affiliated with (see links on the right) all sell items at the advertised price, have reasonable (sometimes free) shipping charges, have good customer service departments and have a reasonable returns policy (Amazon, for example, has a 30-day return policy with no restocking fees). There are other stores, but these are the ones I use myself and (warning: shameless plug coming...) buying from them via the links here helps keep this website up and running.
Who can't you trust? Anyone advertising prices significantly lower than the three stores mentioned above. You are NOT going to get a brand new Canon EOS 30D for under $500, no matter what the ad claims. You're not going to get that Canon "L" lens being sold by Amazon for $1149 for only $600 from "lowestphotoprices.com". It just won't happen, believe me! Most of the really bad stores are based in Brooklyn, New York. Many of them are not even stores, just websites and phone numbers under a bunch of different names which all lead back to a few different wholesale distributors with a shady reputation for ripping off consumers. Don't get fooled! I know there's a great temptation to think that some of them must be legitimate and that you really can save 50% on a premium item if you pick the right store, but you'd be wrong. You can't. If you buy from them it's like playing the lottery, with a similar chance of winning. If you want to gamble you'd be better off visting Las Vegas, at least there you might have some fun while losing your money!