Abe's of Maine ,Westpark Electronics, LLC, Nothing but a rip-off street vendor that is conning people with a shiny internet facade Linden New Jersey

This corrupt business is 'the poster child bad online dealers". If I could give 0 stars I would. This place is borderline criminal and I have filed reports with the BBB and FBI IC3.

BUYER BEWARE! LOOK OUT FOR DECEPTIVE SALES PRACTICES AND FALSE PROMISES. GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING AND DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING THEY SAY ON THE PHONE

I should have checked Yelp first but I didn't think there would be a listing given that this is mainly an online electronics store.  Even NBC has done a story on them, labeling Abe's as 'the poster child of bad online dealers' in their story on 'How to avoid online HDTV shopping scams'.  

Here's my story: 

According to PriceGrabber Abe's had the best price and decent review (apparently most are fake after reading more reviews and reports about this place).  The initial purchase and checkout seemed normal. 

A day or two after the purchase I get a call from a sales guy, Ted Patterson, to 'check' on my order.  He verifies my order (thanks?) and begins a heavy up-sell process.  After saying no to at least 4-5 things I had to cut him off.  He then tells me that I ordered the international version without warranty and US NTSC/60fps video.  I stated that I definitely do not want that and intended to order the product as described on their website and on my invoice that has a factory warranty and US video format.  He claimed to have corrected the issue (I did notice a -US was added to the camera line item online), gave me expedited shipping for the inconvenience (he couldn't say how many days), and assured that everything would ship ASAP.

Hours later I get an email with a new invoice and a ~$150 price increase with line-items that no longer have costs associated with them, just a "package total" at the bottom thanks to the great 'deal' that Ted gave me.  I instantly reply stating that I never agreed to an increase in price and to not ship the package with the $50 up-sold battery (which I found on Amazon with 2day shipping for $10).  After 24+ hours and no response I send another email to all available contacts on their website (info/service).  They respond still pushing the battery and ignore my comment about the increased price.  I reiterated that I do not want the battery and would like the original quote that was invoiced. 

I found the above mentioned reviews after wondering why a place can have such horrible customer service yet good reviews on places like Pricegrabber and Epinions.  That scared the heck out of me so I got the contact info for the owner of the company, Abe Mosseri, and contacted him about my new found concerns and CC'd him to the growing email thread.  He replies:

"No worries. I am not at work to check on where your order is however we will do whatever you need us to. Jason, please check on this order and do whatever is needed to satisfy our customer.

Once corrected please advise.

Thanks,

Abe Mosseri"

Jason Scott now enters the scene and offers a $50 discount and will match Amazon's price on the battery.  With the discount the camera was still more expensive than elsewhere but at that point I had wasted enough time with this and the camera had already shipped a few days earlier.

The camera arrived and everything looked good on the outside. The invoice stated that it was a US model, there was a US Box, and a label with a US model number on the camera.  I power it on only to be greeted with Japanese text and an international version of the camera that only shoots video in PAL.  Nobody from Abe's of Maine was available to help after numerous phone calls and emails. Apparently Jason was going to "bring one camera out and turn it on to see what is going".

They claim their distributor sent them the wrong cameras but I am HIGHLY suspicious of how the wrong labels were put on the camera in US boxes, hence why I filed complaints to FBI IC3 and BBB.  At each mistake I gave them a chance to redeem themselves but unfortunately it seems like Abe's of Maine is nothing but a rip-off street vendor that is conning people with a shiny internet facade. Hopefully the authorities and review websites will catch up to them and their doors will close soon.  I have since had to file a dispute with the CC company in order to get my refund processed. I have also contacted the other review sites regarding the the obviously questionable reviews.

Shame on you Abe's of Maine!