I've been planning on purchasing the Panasonic AG-AC130 for awhile now (too long) and happened to notice in mid March B & H running a $300 instant savings special. I assume this was related to the Panasonic rebate of the same amount going on through the summer. This brought the price down to $2995 which was the best price I had seen for the cam. (from a reputable and trustworthy seller anyway)
I made up my mind to purchase it on the last day of March (pay day, and last day of sale) to take advantage of that price. I checked in on the camera page often (almost obsessively out of excitement) over the next couple weeks just to look at it again, read specs again, check out possible accessories, etc. The last day of the month arrives (a Sunday) and I get home from being out all day and jump on my computer around 8PM EST to make my purchase. All of a sudden there's not only a date expiration but now a time one too in the same spot, and I missed it by an hour. I swear that time expiration was never present until the end since I had been to the page almost every other day for the last two weeks of the month and never saw it. The price was back to $3295. I was bummed to say the least.
I emailed immediately, but B and H was on Passover break and the auto-responder I received back told me to resend in early April (I forget the re-open date exactly). So I did, and I explained what happened (I took responsibility for missing the deadline even though I'm 99.9% sure the time expiration was not there until the very last day or so), and asked if this special $300 instant savings offer would be brought back at all while the Panasonic rebate was still happening. I was told by support that he did not see anything happening in the next month or so for sales or rebates for this model. Bummer.
At this point I had no sense or urgency as B and H, Amazon, and Adorama all had the same price now, so I started reading reviews, shopping around, taking my time again, etc. Then a week later (say, about a week ago) I go to the AG-AC130 page at B & H and see there's a new "Instant Savings -$300" posted. I was elated until I added it to my cart and the price was still $3295. What the heck? So I emailed them again to ask.
I never got an answer from them about what really happened (they raised the price at the same time they added a new Instant Offer to offset the price and keep it the same) which was unfortunate. The only reason I caught this was because I was ready to pull the trigger on this purchase and watching the price and specials closely. The support person did say he spoke with his buyer and offered me around a hundred bucks off the price if I purchased within a week which I thought was a nice gesture, but I'm still kind of disappointed.
Yeah, I know, a couple hundred bucks isn't the end of the world. This wasn't meant to be a B & H bashing or anything. I like their support, I like their store layout, and I'll probably still end up buying from them. This is just more of a slight vent over how things went down. I think I would have felt better about it if they admitted, yes, the price was raised at the same time because blah blah fill in your reason here. Oh well.
Thanks for reading my rant.
I made up my mind to purchase it on the last day of March (pay day, and last day of sale) to take advantage of that price. I checked in on the camera page often (almost obsessively out of excitement) over the next couple weeks just to look at it again, read specs again, check out possible accessories, etc. The last day of the month arrives (a Sunday) and I get home from being out all day and jump on my computer around 8PM EST to make my purchase. All of a sudden there's not only a date expiration but now a time one too in the same spot, and I missed it by an hour. I swear that time expiration was never present until the end since I had been to the page almost every other day for the last two weeks of the month and never saw it. The price was back to $3295. I was bummed to say the least.
I emailed immediately, but B and H was on Passover break and the auto-responder I received back told me to resend in early April (I forget the re-open date exactly). So I did, and I explained what happened (I took responsibility for missing the deadline even though I'm 99.9% sure the time expiration was not there until the very last day or so), and asked if this special $300 instant savings offer would be brought back at all while the Panasonic rebate was still happening. I was told by support that he did not see anything happening in the next month or so for sales or rebates for this model. Bummer.
At this point I had no sense or urgency as B and H, Amazon, and Adorama all had the same price now, so I started reading reviews, shopping around, taking my time again, etc. Then a week later (say, about a week ago) I go to the AG-AC130 page at B & H and see there's a new "Instant Savings -$300" posted. I was elated until I added it to my cart and the price was still $3295. What the heck? So I emailed them again to ask.
I never got an answer from them about what really happened (they raised the price at the same time they added a new Instant Offer to offset the price and keep it the same) which was unfortunate. The only reason I caught this was because I was ready to pull the trigger on this purchase and watching the price and specials closely. The support person did say he spoke with his buyer and offered me around a hundred bucks off the price if I purchased within a week which I thought was a nice gesture, but I'm still kind of disappointed.
Yeah, I know, a couple hundred bucks isn't the end of the world. This wasn't meant to be a B & H bashing or anything. I like their support, I like their store layout, and I'll probably still end up buying from them. This is just more of a slight vent over how things went down. I think I would have felt better about it if they admitted, yes, the price was raised at the same time because blah blah fill in your reason here. Oh well.
Thanks for reading my rant.
