Hello,
I've beeen shopping for digital slrs for months (maybe a year now) and finally found the best price @ topbuy.com
Though i remember people having issues with this website.
Anyone have any bad experiences? should i trust this place?
Also if it is good do they have free shipping promotions?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
From my experience with them (though most of the stuff I bought were not as expensive as a digital SLR), they are reliable. Some may disagree though, due to the 4GB Flash Drive saga but in my opinion, that incident was isolated and was simply caused by human error.
Just a word of caution when buying your Digital SLR from them, they are not stock imported for the Australian market (i.e. non-Australian power plug, user manual in foreign language, etc). You will also most likely get taxed by customs for GST if the camera is > $1000. Also note that warranty for the camera body will not be provided by the local manufacturer. Although TopBuy may cover the repair cost through authorised service centres, bear in mind that the authorised service centres may be based overseas and may result in longer turn-around time for the return of the camera. Also note the non-standard 30-day warranty offered by them, although you are able to purchase extended warranty at extra cost. Direct from their listings:
Such good prices, what's the Catch?
1. Prices are in Australian dollars.
2. Item will be shipped directly from Hongkong warehouse via Fedex or DHL, transit time are generally 4-7 working days. Please check exact transit time by postcode on FEDEX website.
3. No GST is included in the price, as personal use imports qualify for Customs duty concessions*.
4. Are the cameras, lenses, phones new? are they different to the same model in the shops?
All products offered by TOPBUY are brand new in their original boxes. They are not used, display models, etc…they originate from the same factory as the model you would find in your local store. The discount comes from direct importing. The only difference will be packaging such as box printing & user manual (most booklets are multi-lingual anyway).
- Please see australian customs service website for more details on customs duty concession.
Brand name products such as Cameras are very reliable products, designed and built to high precision specifications. Our experience is in the past year with 5,000 cameras and related products sold we have only received 4 warranty claims - 2 Camcorders and 2 Compact Cameras.
If your camera product needs servicing within the warranty period, all you need to do is contact us and we will organise to have the item repaired through authorised service centres, if it's not worth repairing we will give you a replacement unit, just like a product covered by a local warranty. As you can see, we cover all repair costs during the period of warranty coverage.
I would suggest that you shop around and check out other retailers that are able to ship non-Australian units. You can normally find cheaper deals elsewhere for 'imported' stocks.
Thanks Pauly for the factual reply.
Just for the record:
As of 8th June 2010 All camera, camcorders carries 6 months TopBuy Warranty, which we normally get done locally through the same manufacturer warranty centres at our cost, as sending it overseas costs money in delivery fees.
We now offer: 1 Year, 2 Year and 3 Year Extended warranty packs. With 3 year pack offering worldwide coverage.
So at least for buyers who look at their investment beyond the initial warranty period (people who are going to get extended warranty coverage) would be better off if there is money to be saved.
For other buyers it should be an individual decision after balancing money saved against having Alternative warranty guarantee instead of manufacturer's warranty.
When shopping around "imported" stocks… There is an important factor many overlook. There are several overseas sellers pretending to be Australia based, with Serviced office address and Skype phone no.s, some with even Australian bank accounts. Taking Overseas sellers to consumer affairs is not practical in most cases.
TopBuy being Sydney based company, we are governed by fair trading laws and scrutiny.
thanks for the info
Whirlpool said the same thing.
I'll see if Ted's camera house is able to match the prices.
Im thinking of buying the canon eos 450d twin lens kit… price ranges from 900-1500. 1000 is my absolute limit.
But yeah i'll think ill give topbuy a miss.
Thanks! word of mouth rules
does anyone know if topbuy price match and beat by $25 like shopping square?
Dear All,
I will not buy anything from this website again. If the item you receive has any problem. It's impossible to get refund.
I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab with $470. Receive it in 4 days. The phone is LOCKED. They contact the supplier to send me the unlocked key twice and it is never working. They issue me with a RA (Return Authorisation Letter). So I ship it back to supplier and went locally to buy the same model, same color identical phone for $700. Which means it is more expensive than what I bought. Then a few days later, the supplier send me back the same phone. Claiming the phone is not locked. Will not give me refund. So I end up with 2 same phone. Finally TOPBUY.COM claiming the supplier using the same key they provide to unlock the phone which means when the phone came on my hand it is LOCKED. They unlocked it and send it back to me and saying it is my fault.
Think about it if the key they provided is working. I already unlock it and don't need to go to local shop to pay extra and buying the same thing.
They trust the supplier but not the customers. So be careful, if you need to send something back to them.
The supplier may play some tricks and make you suffer all the cost.
LAST COMMENT - It's Terrible and don't buy anything here. Finally I end up paying $1159 for 2 samsung galaxy tab which i only need 1 for $470. I waste extra $700…
Jerry
hi i also looking for a specific lens, first i thought topbuy is the cheapest but then dwi ebay (not dwi own websites) actually sell the same lens cheaper.
you can also check: dutyfreecentral.com something like that
eglobalcamera.com.au
dwi
citiwide
ebay
dont worry about shipping, the most important is total price you pay is much lower than australian price.
and no, local store will not match grey imports.
I bought a 900$ Panasonic digital camcorder from them 5 months ago, the experience was a good one, would use them again, my latest online experience with Myfind is a different matter altogether, seriously wish I delt with with topbuy instead instead of this Myer offshoot.
I've bought one or two things from Topbuy. They took a long time to deliver but they did deliver - seems to have been shipped from China.
I have noticed trying to unsubscribe from their many emails is a chore - it's a dead link.
for anyone who finds this. topbuy might have great prices but it's true tht they are impossible to work with if you have a warranty issue and need to send something back to them.they dont want a bar of it and use all sorts of tactics to try and make you go away. they ignore you, require you to get approval from them before you can post anything bck, threaten manufacturers charging you for the problem as it isnt a fault of the product itself but of whatever you use it with that you didnt purchase through topbuy, ignore you some more, and only have an online message service. i am a tight arse but it isnt worth saving $50 - $100 over. (as u can tell, I'm going through some issues at the moment with my s2 that echos constantly while any cover is on it!)
I've also found their "Best price guarantee" is absolutely worthless, even if your claim meets all their conditiions they will flat out deny it. Just bought a $1200 camera off them and really hoping i don't have any warranty issues. Won't be buying anything else off them that's for sure.
Shipping also seems very overpriced.
hi all, it's michael from TopBuy. I just saw this. I think there are some misunderstanding that caused some of the complaints.
As you can all appreciate we handle over 200,000 products, over 3000 categories, and across 7 different industries. There are big differences between each of these industries in pre sale logistics arrangements and after sales procedures. Hence delivery timeframes and after sale procedures varies.
A. Shipping. Majority of our products ship from Australian warehouses, which are the normal 2-7 working days via Aust Post. Extra large items are handled by couriers like Startrack and Allied Express.
Some low value items (sub $20) including most of the Freebie items we ship from our china warehouse because ironically Aus Post minimum parcel charge is around $7.5, whereas we can get the cheapies sent via international parcel post for around $1-$3
This does make the range of products available to customers a lot wider and interesting as cheaper items are no longer considered "not worthwhile due to shipping charges"
I'm sure you'd all agree paying $7.5 shipping for $10 items is weird. The down side of this is longer transit time.
Cameras, Lenses are all shipped via Air Express Courier so delivery timeframes are same as domestic Aust Post. timing is never a issue with these, however fast air express are not cheap. So some people may feel these are expensive compared to $10 Aust Post, but these are a totally different service and will get the items to you safely in a few days. We use both we can say the cost difference is justified.
The key difference between us and competitors for you, is we guarantee each delivery by insuring them, so you do not need to pay extra for insurance.
For the items shipped from Overseas we'd like to think we are offering customers "Overseas prices and local service", which you wouldn't get if you were shopping overseas directly.
B. Damaged or lost deliveries.
For these cases, we do need to follow our insurance requirements and first obtain written confirmation from the carrier then we can take the next step. Which does take extra time after the problem is reported, but normally finishes in 2-3 days.
Funnily enough with Aust Post 1/3 of the time, the item magically turn up during their investigation. So the process does make sense, otherwise the insurance guys will be paying double, I guess they have being in the business a lot longer so they know all the tricks of the trade better than we do.
C. Warranty and aftersales service.
First of all, from 1/1/2012 ITEMS FROM TOPBUY carry full 12 months warranty or consumer guarantee whichever is longer (Batteries, toys…etc excepted).
We always work for the customer's interests, providing we can get away with it with the suppliers, as ultimately we can not afford to write off every item that has problems especially the big ticket items, we will need supplier replacement or refund to keep us afloat.
For example, small items we will just write off without asking questions and bear the loss.
For items that have laxed supplier requirements we push the boundaries whenever we can. For example, small appliances, suppliers do not need to verify the problem reported, so we just need customer to send us photo of the electrical cable being cut on the device so we can claim it back later from suppliers. We will send replacement straight away.
But big ticket items with strict supplier problem verification requirements means we can not do "yep, sure here is another one, just bin the one you got". Because our supplier require us to demonstrate the fault is genuine before they replace us. And they also need the faulty one back in order to get compensation from the manufacturers too.
So this process require some time to complete. Some complex (intermittent problem) cases need more time to get this verified.
Items where we need to send the item back to supplier, we are forced to verify the problem, as IF the supplier found the problem to be not warranty related, they MAY CHARGE LABOUR CHARGES.
Even though most of the time no one does charge this fee, but we have to warn the customer before hand.
Another situation is when we pass the item to manufacturer authorised service centres, if the authorised service centre check and found the item to be NOT COVERED under warranty, they will CHARGE AN ASSESSMENT FEE.
Unlike our suppliers, these guys are repair agents, they will not let anything go without this payment as they can not claim it back from Manufacturer.
For example. A customer requested warranty service on a Panasonic underwater camera as sometimes underwater the lens fogs up. So we sent it to Panasonic service, 2 days and $88 service fee later, they rejected the warranty claim and on the report they pointed out on page xx of the user manual has alaready covered this situation and how to fix it.
This is why we warn customers this may happen so verify the problems before returning, as we really don't want to ask the customer for extra assessment fees incurred.
Whenver we can we will test and troubleshoot the problem before we have to send it to the service centres, for example 90% of battery life complaints we are able to rectify inhouse by resetting the phone / tablet back to factory default, and avoiding potentially un-necessary service fees.
We do this totally free of charge just to save customers money.
In some other cases the manufacturer require customers to contact their Tech Support to obtain a Manufacturer Return Reference Number (for example logitech, Dlink) and still send the item to us to get back to our supplier. Without this reference number our supplier will not give us credit or replacement, and we as reseller can not get the Manufacturer reference number (they only trust the customer).
D. Best price guarantee. We do a lot of these but as you can appreciate we need to compare apples with apples, anyone can put up a site with a price and do not have to actually provide the stock (like the infamous $699 iphone 5 deals from someone starting with K). So we do need to make sure it's a fair comparsion.
Summary:
So as you can see because of the massive number of products and brands we handle, pre-sale and after sale procedures are not uniform and we do spend a lot time and effort making sure customer requirements are met while working with the requirements and resources we have been provided with by our suppliers.
If we can afford to write off ipads like our fashion sister site TopLook.com.au we'd be in customer service heaven.
Our aim are always the same to get the job done as fast as possible and save money for the customer.
PS. A word about buying discount Camera, Lens items.
When you google you will find there are 2 tiers of sellers with 2 diff levels of prices (low prices and higher prices, a bit like a marathon race, always a group of runner in the front and another behind), all of the competitive ones are oversas stock, so you can save some time trying to find the Local stock in the first price group of suppliers.
Within the first price group, majority are overseas companies with .com.au domains with these guys you will not get any consumer protections.
We are probably one of 2-3 real Australian companies in this group that is offering you overseas prices.
This is the only real difference, everything else is pretty much the same, as at end of the day, we are all buying from the same wholesalers.
you do not refund - you do not ship on time - you use foreign carriers - you do not reply to queries or supply information even about carriers - con artist.
G_man, Watties346,
I'm writing in this forum out of desperation.
I've received a product purchased(28/3/2013) from Topbuy on 8/4/2013. There was a problem with the battery not charging to full.
I've written to Customer Support many times now, from 13/4. The only reply I've received (17/4) is that the RA team will provide a respond.
My reference number is ##80768##
Can you help expedite and provide a satisfactory outcome? To also show that Topbuy is a reputable company when it comes to handling warranty related issues.
Note:I'm unable to PM you as your account does not accept messages.
i just made order last week then until now the order status never updated then when I call the phone number on the website one when I calling it is always busy tone and another one there is never have someone answer the phone and when I email them they never reply your email either I just wendering is topbuy a cheater company how come the phone never can call through and never reply email to customer either if you don't want send my order to me just refund me money back don't just hold money then do nothing otherwise I will call police soon because you hold my money never send my order out never reply me email either I got no idea what are you doing there
just DON'T DO IT… DON'T BUY from this company… They sell FAKE items !!!
Just don't buy from this bunch of crooks. Tried em again recently - 1 month later received nothing - told nothing can be done until 29th august - and will not refund. Customer care is a joke - as is shipping - and anyone using them is asking for trouble. The garbage written by Topbuy above is simply crap - worthless. Expect to have take legal action to get redress - do not buy.
williamgrahamnw,
On hindsight, you should have checked this column first before buying.
From my experience, they make big claims but when it comes to fulfilling, there are many ways they try to avoid. for example, in my case, they replied after a long, long wait but then told me to send my product to a sydney address for them to check??? Their claim is that they provide manufacturer authorised service centre warranty service, and I have a Manufacturer's Service Centre right at my door step.
all my savings buying from them would have been washed away in the courier fees to send the product back to them when the manufacturer is also available where i am and i can easily send the product to the manufacturer service centre for warranty claims (as advertised by TopBuy). To this end,, TopBuy certainly did not fulfill their claim. My advice is not to buy from them. Only worth it if there is no problem with your product but how will you be sure that there will be no problems with the product?
I tried once, never again.
This might be a bit late as a follow up to the original post but hopefully still useful for someone that searches for this company and their unethical business practice
!!! I can confirm that they are selling counterfeit products !!!
And after I confronted them about this with a counterfeit confirmation
From the BRAND behind the product I was thinking I had bought from them
I am still trying to get my money back 1 month later
Getting promises of transaction number quotations that were impossible to follow as fiction
They claim that although they payment was made via credit card they only issue paypal refunds
I'll be showing up with someone from the fraud squad of the police and demand my money back they are crooks who delay refunds although they are legally obliged to
Their details here ;
5 Burrows Rd St Peters NSW 2044 , PO BOX 268 St Peters NSW 2044 Australia PH: 8568 5270 (phone does not work)
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Never too late. I'm fully in support of continuing to provide the truth about this good for nothing company.
How do we get search engines to point to our conversation here? Need to spread the word about the shameful practice.
Keep us updated about the fraud squad.
Can confirm a CC refund - think the threat of the reality of me showing up with the fraud squad (as I live only 5 mins away ) swung them into action
One shouldn't have to resort to this :(
I'll never ever buy from this backyard operation again and can only hope this post helps people make up their minds if they want to go ahead and do business with them
I intended to buy the LG G3 from them ($599 + $13 p&h) - lowest price listed on Staticice.
I search to see if I could trust them. Lucky I read this thread. I preordered (no deposit) with HN for $799 but the phone would only be available in August
I bought a bag and a jacket, the brand was Desigual. On the website they looked very nice. I paid AUD $60 for the bag and AUD $80 for the jacket. When I opened the bag I was quite disappointed. First of all, it smelled like naphthalene, typical odour of cheap products. And then, the quality in general was very poor, and the zipper was broken. But what made me confirm that was a fake product, was that the bag had two swing tags, with the description of other different models!!. I have bought another bags and products in Desigual in Spain, and I swear to you that this bag was no Desigual. I made a contact with TopBuy costumer service, and they replied all my emails. I sent the bag back to them and I got the refund of the bag, but I did not get the refund of the jacket. They insisted that the jacket was original. I could not get my money back. This is an extract of the answer that I received when I asked them why they refunded one product but not both (they were the same brand, but I bought them with two days of difference): "The reason we issued the full refund for the previous order is because of the wrong description we put on our website. This time, the product is not counterfeit, and we did not deliver a wrong item, so we could not issue a full refund. ". Look at that: THIS TIME THE PRODUCT IS NOT COUNTERFEIT???!!!. So they are confirming that the bag was fake!. My advice, I strongly recommend to you this: DON'T BUY ANY PRODUCT TO TOPBUY.COM, THEY SELL COUNTERFEIT PRODUCTS.
In March I purchased a Nokia Lumia 925 from Topbuy. It lasted on a few months and no longer functioned. At my cost and after contacting Topbuy, the phone was returned to be repaired. This was in September 2014. It is now March 2015, 6 months since I returned the Phone. I have phoned the company at least 10 times. Sent emails. No one has got back to me. The only email I received said they would look into the issue. Last week I phoned them, and said I would have to take this to court if they did not either fix and return the phone or refund the payment. I was told by the operator, that if I wanted to take this to court it was my problem. No one wants to do anything about the problem. The company will not return my calls. I will probably have to take this to court for $412.60 what a waste of time. Really poor company, I would never deal with them again.
from memory shipping is incredibly expensive… like $15 for a USB