Home audio & video forum: plasmaBay

I just ordered a 50" Plasma from them and should be receiving it Wednesday or Thursday. I see that it is in route though. I can't say if there will be any problems, I HOPE NOT, given that I haven't received it yet, but I did get the TV for $1000 less than what I had seen it at BestBuy.

Well, reading the previous post, I am getting somewhat worried. So I went and checked it out and found that CNET had the following review of them:

http://att.com.com/4011-5_7-6259381.html

I saw the customer store rating as 4-1/2 stars when I froogled it. I definitely hope I get my TV and it not being a refurb, which did happen to a friend of mine but with some other online store, not PlasmaBay.

on resellerratings.com

I have not purchased from them yet; however, I am seriously considering it. NM_Bill, can you expand on your post? Did you or anyone you know have a bad experience with the company? You posted that plasmaBay has is also known under two other names, that information is very important, if true. Can you confirm this?

Very odd that some customers get excellent service and others do not. Also, as seen in the link I posted above, the BBB rates them as a good company. I see that my order is in route and should receive it Thursday, hopefully. Sort of weird that CNET rated them as a reputable company. The shipping number they gave me was DHL, but I don't know if DHL does freight. I then received another shipping number of a freight company which I suppose is contracted or partnered with the likes of DHL, UPS, and a few others givEN the information on the freight company website. I guess PlasmaBay contacts DHL and lets them use whatever freight company to ship the item. I don't know what will happen, but I will let you guys know when I get my TV from PlasmaBay.

in regards to a company I wouldn't touch with that 10 foot pole when there are other online vendors who have impeccable reputations.

I suspect many small online upstarts begin with all the best intentions, little capital & try to race against the big boys, sometimes by charging customers credit cards up front without having the goods then scrambling to pick it up at the right price wholesale. As they can't keep up, the deterioration begins.

Consider that the BBB may not have a negative file as the company is so new as to not had the time for that to tell one way of another.

folks shouldn't be such babes in the wood that they fall for these things mindlessly.

When younger, I did get a couple things graymarket, etc. & generally was disappointed. A case could be made for judging relative to what sort of equipment is generally rather bulletproof as to service needs. I should have demanded a refund when I unknowingly got an item only packed with a photocopy of instructions in Japanese.

Aggressive merchants don't have to look far to find sources like Singapore distributors to buy goods from as unauthorized sales. If fact, most manufacturers sort of look the other way as to these practices. They certainly know from serial numbers, what the source was. Makers are too fond of gross sales revenues.

Buyers can learn rather quickly who reliable online sellers are, such as B&H Photo, etc. that I have used, as well as Vanns as posters here swear by. Problem is, most online shopping services (c/net shopping included) only use meaningless seller ratings based on published vendor sales policies. I always volunteer for a post sale customer feedback when buying through the Amazon network.

Buyers surely should take time to check this type info. If anyone knows of other good feedback info, please share it. I always check customer feedback of sellers on http://www.resellerratings.com/. Yes, small sample size info there can be attempted to be loaded by a seller's employees & family friends posting short, glowing comments. For one possible caution, look to see if many of the short, thumbs up posters have only posted once. Because I do try to believe in that system, my posts would probably indicate I've posted a dozen times or so.

Err on the side of caution, certainly. Why on earth would buyers risk apparently troublesome online sellers is beyond me. Any price quoted substantially below that of known reputable sellers should be a big red flag. What we all want is longer term satisaction rather than only initial cost. If one needs to wait a while to afford it, please do. Yes, I know buying fever from my younger days.

Tony, I'm not prepared to back up specific occurances about these kinds of unauthorized sales, but they have been documented from time to time. Strangely I've seen manufacturers list on thier homewebsite, unauthorized dealers as sources of their discontinued stock. They were just too eager to dump it. At the same time, they aggravate their full line authorized dealers who work to help promote the brand by demonstrating, giving info to potential customers & providing service. But hey, dealers differ in monetary importance. Small independents sell relative few units while even legit big boxes may pick up discounted units by the thousands. It's a roughshod free enterprise marketplace out there.
As customers we just don't feel we should bear all the brunt of let the buyer beware.

Well guys, got my Panasonic TH-50PX600U today from Plasmabay and just hooked it up. Everything went smoothly. The TV looks great and the box it came in was in perfect condition. It looks as though I may have slipped by the guard this time. I sure am glad it turned out this way.

So will I buy from Plasmabay again? Can't say for sure given all the horror stories I've heard about them, but then again, I've read more good stuff about them too! It's tough to say which things I've read were true and which were not. Maybe Plasmabay is just getting an undeserved bad rep. I don't know!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know everything from Plasmabay went down perfectly.

PLASMABAY, STAY AWAY,
PLASMABAY, ANOTHER DAY,
NOT!!!

river.

others. We truly hope you have nothing to regret. We just are cynical enough to be leery of new vendors or those with spotty track records.

Best of luck & enjoy...

f15e.kjd, I hope that all went well with your tv delivery. Let us know if you experienced any problems.

See post 16 of 22. I'm not sure why it was put at post 16. Maybe I just clicked reply of someone else's post wanting it to actually be the last post in line. Anyway, I did get it in! See post 16 of 22.

Ordered a $2,500 LCD TV. A sales rep called a day later to tell us the order has been processed. Then he tried to sell us accessories and a service plan. We did not buy. He said the delivery company would call. Ten days later, nothing happened. When we called their Customer Service, it took 15 minutes to get to the right person. Then we were told that our order was canceled. But they could not tell us who canceled it and why, because "the system does not say".

We ordered the same TV from Amazon for $50 dollars more. It was shipped in 24 hours. White Glove delivery. They move it to upstairs, set it up, and tested everything before we signed the sheet. We could not have been happier that PlasmaBay canceled our order!