New Camera, Late Post

Just to follow up on a post from a couple of weeks ago. The camera debacle has been resolved. In fact, everything has actually turned out rather well. After writing the last post, I spent pretty much all weekend stewing about whether or not this company had just screwed me out of seven Benjamins and some change. The first thing I did upon returning home from work Saturday morning was to call my bank to see if anything could be done about refunding the money. Basically all they said was that I’d have to wait until the money cleared and to see if the company would refund it if the product wasn’t shipped correctly. If they didn’t refund the money properly, then my bank would step in and throw some large, banky weight around. Luckily it didn’t have to come to that.

Since my bank at the time was unable to do anything, and since I had two days to sit around and boil, I decided finally to simply call the company first thing in the morning to make sure my darned camera was going to ship. Monday rolled around, as it normally does, and your hero phoned the company in regards to the unit. I spoke with a representative name Shawn, who assured me the camera would ship that afternoon and that I’d receive a tracking number and everything (just like a real, big boy business!). I would have never had thought that that very night I would receive and email with this information, but sure enough, I actually did. This shady website may turn out to be legit after all.

Of course, I had to go to work that night, so I wasn’t able to check on the goings on of my package. When I did finally return home, the UPS shipping showed that my package was on its way, and on its way fast. I guess calling them did something unexpected. They shipped the package over-night. I had paid for two day shipping, so this news was a definite plus that I wasn’t expecting. So I lay my head down with the happy thoughts that soon my camera would arrive. Sure enough, at 1pm, I got a knock on the door and a magic parcel had been left outside my apartment. (I’m very very very glad I was home; what UPS dude just leaves a package in front of your door at an apartment complex?) I opened the box and there it was: the Canon HV30. The camera I’ve wanted for a few months now.

At the end of the day I can’t say that this website was creepy or wrong or shady in the least. Simply for the fact that I received that email and it was identical to the one from the honest-to-goodness shady site, I don’t know if I’ll purchase anything else from them. I guess because I got totally worked up over what might have happened, I just ruined future buying potential for myself from this establishment. Oh well, I got my camera and I’m pleased. So that is the long and short of what happened with that.

We’ve been using the camera on the show (of course), and the results are pretty darned good. I hate always plugging the show here, but if you’re interested in seeing some footage, follow this link and download the larger of the video files. You can also download the ipod friendly version, of course, but the resolution is a little smaller.