“I bought an expensive equipment. Up to 4k on a camera body. Everything works, but I would, at least, expect the sensor to be cleaned. Which apparently it wasn't”
“After purchasing a lense from mpb I read the reviews online here and was quite worried based on the criticisms. To me and my experience, these criticisms seem to be invalid. They delivered my product promptly, it was in the condition they had promised, they had good contact with me throughout the order, and they even required a signature for the delivery so the expensive lense wouldn’t be stolen. I do not see any reason to give them less than 5 stars; the price of the lense they sold me was incredibly competitive as well; barely more than an eBay bid for an unknown quality lense.”
“I sent in a gear for trade. after two weeks getting a confirmation that they received it, they could not provide an firm trade-in value. I could not complete any trade or buy used equipment. Several times I called, but ended up with the voice-mail box. No calls were returned. I start to develop a bed feeling, that it might be a fradulent company. I must monitor it closely, and start to increase the frequency for my calls. BAD EXPERIENCE!”
“This is regarding MPB UK…absolutely do not deal with them , they managed to mess up two orders and claim an item I wanted to sell to them has in fact ‘vanished ‘ despite having tracking info and them acknowledging they received it. Staggering apathy and arrogant of staff . Out of pocket . Avoid at all costs.”
“MPB is absolute trash. A very disorganized company. I paid for a lens on Friday and paid $40 to get it express shipped shipped here by Wednesday. It is now Tuesday and my order hasn’t even shipped and still says “payment processing”. I’ve spoken to TWO people to figure it out and they said they “fixed” it only to have the whole thing get refunded to my account with no lens on its way. DO NOT BUY FROM MPB. THEY DONT KNOW WHAT THEYRE DOING”
“On February 25, 2022 MPB agreed to purchase my Panasonic Lumix camera and 2 lenses for $215. Below is a copy of email I received from MPB USA
From: mpb.com
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 4:31 PM
Subject: Your items have been checked by our product specialists! Re: TX-4880601
Thank you for choosing MPB!
Items to Sell SKU Condition Price Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6 ASPH Power OIS Excellent $150.00 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 Good $21.00 Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Mega OIS Excellent $44.00 TOTAL We Pay You $215.00
All the best,
Kathyrine Jucar The MPB purchasing team
3 months later MPB has not sent the payment. I have emailed MPB three times inquiring about payment. They apologize but still do not send the payment for my camera. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY”
“I bought a lens in supposed excellent condition for $1000. Used once and have to pay $345 in repairs because He said i
several cracked
bushings and a complete aperture assembly!! And of course they are not part of BBB and don’t honor purchases
Will never buy from here again”
“DO NOT SELL TO MPB, unless you are fine with waiting an unknown amount of time to get paid or get it returned!
I understand delays, especially with the way things are currently. Many businesses are understaffed, and I do not fault the employees who have to deal with the lack of help. I also understand that unexpected issues arise. What I do not understand is a lack of clear communication, and not being held to your own estimates.
In my case, I have been misled about exactly the amount of time I would be looking at in trying to sell my equipment to MPB. I have gone back to emails I received, and looked online again at the Sell page to see if perhaps I missed a clear indicator of the multiple weeks timeline I am being told it will take to get my equipment returned to me at this point. And I have realized that I did not indeed miss anything.
My situation:
I got my quote to sell on May 2nd. I accepted the quote, and had my equipment in the mail the same day. The email I received about my quote said the following:
"Once we receive your package, we’ll work to inspect your kit and process your transaction within 2-3 business days." In my case this was not true at all.
I got an email indicating that my equipment arrived at MPB on May 6th. That email contained the following: "Your equipment has arrived with us and is now being scheduled for checking as soon as possible, which will happen within 11 business days."
I am not a math major, but there is quite a big difference between 2-3 and 11 days. Next, on May 9th, I received an email update indicating there was a delay, with a link to click to read about current delays. That link took me to a help article about selling status, and that article was indicating it take 13 days from arrival to process my equipment.
So now, 2-3 days to 13 days. At this point I indicated I would like to cancel the sale, and just have my equipment returned to me. On May 18th I received an email indicating that even if I cancel, it will still take the same amount of time to get to my equipment, as it is in a queue. It would be "this time next week".
So now, perhaps on May 25th my equipment will be sent back to me. This then means MPB got my equipment on May 6th, and will finally get to it on May 25th. With my math, that is 19 days. So 2-3 days to now 19 days.
Again, I cannot say this strongly enough. DO NOT SELL to MPB unless you are fine with waiting an indeterminate amount of time to get your sale completed (if ever??).
I am strongly considering filing a complaint with the BBB as well as the City of New York for fraud.”
“This is a huge bummer for me to write.
Over the last couple years I have bought and sold a fair amount of equipment through mpb. It was an easy transaction and they have a huge inventory.
Unfortunately, the honeymoon ended when I purchased (well, tried to purchase) an Olympus OM-D E-M1X for what I thought was a great deal.
HOWEVER, i received in the mail a canon 1d mkii. This was way off, like not even the same field.
Luckily I had taken screen shots of the order with pictures of the body they were selling.
I contacted them, and basically was told 'welp, that sucks. The website was wrong, our bad.'
This wouldn't have been a big deal if I hadn't already spent over $900 on lenses from a few other suppliers.
I explained I had purchased other lenses and now, I don't have a body to use them, and that there's no way I'll see a return on them if i sold them. I asked for a discount in some manner on another body.
"We'll send the screen shots and details onto management and they 'might ' get a hold of you.
That's the last time I've heard from them despite several emails, calls, and smoke signals.
It's in my opinion they aren't for the actual photographer or artist and are just for the money. So, do with this what you will. Remember there other companies that actually care for the artist and will work to rectify their mistakes.”
“I used to like this company, they usually will give top dollar for used gear. However I bought a used super wide prime Nikon lens from them. It was rated at their 'like new' condition. This lens comes with a soft leather lens cap. You can't buy them anywhere. The lens cap they sent was recondition with some thick sticky substance that left marks anywhere it touched. The lens had slight blemishes on the barrel. I tried several times to contact them with no response. I kept sending different communications until they replied with little concern. NEVER again! Do not do business with company!”
“I wish there was zero stars. This company has restrictions on their account with FedEx which prevents them (OR YOU) from being able to make any changes to your delivery at all. So unless you work from home DO NOT ORDER. You cannot change your delivery method or address or anything about getting your package to you. The customer service people do not know what’s going on and they will send you back-and-forth to Fedex with no solution. Cheaper used gear, but would have rather paid the $500 difference and ordered from B&H used. Alan is the only helpful service person at the company. The whole operation sounds like it’s being run out of someone’s basement. And no one answers the phone.”
“NEVER AGAIN. I sent in a NikonD750 for trade (of course after obtaining a general quote from them on their website) only for them to tell me they could not take my camera due to a shutter recall. I was aggravated that they even had me send it in in the first place given they knew this was an issue. They said it was only for certain serial #s. They could've asked me for the serial # before I sent it in. Almost two months went by and I never received the camera back. I finally called them looking for my camera. Nobody is ever available to answer the phone. I finally go a hold of a girl who said she would get back to me by the following day with some info. I never heard back. I called 3Xs and left messages every time. Never got a call back. I finally reached someone and they said the camera was shipped back to me and was inside the same box as the wide angle lens I purchased from them. NO IT WAS NOT. That box fit the wide angle perfectly. The box was not tampered with. There was no room for anything else in the box. They claimed their security footage showed it being packed and shipped. I asked to see the footage but they declined my request, and then forced me to take a low ball quote for it. They probably had insurance on it when they supposedly shipped and it filed a claim with FedEx and made money off that. I will NEVER do business with this company ever again and will be letting everyone I know about this experience as well.”
“I sent in gear January 2022 to be evaluated and selected gear to purchase. My gear was received by MPB on February 4th and I was told by representative Robert Miller-Shulman via email that my gear would be checked over and I would be emailed at each step. I wasn’t. I had to reach out to the company again on February 10th and was told by Robert it would only take a few extras days at this point. I still did not hear from the company.
On February 21st, February 26th, and March 2nd I sent emails asking for an update with no response from any representative. On Monday, March 7th I called their number, (646) 513-4309, and finally got a hold of Shaun who promised to look into this order and call me back. He did not.
Two days later on March 9th, with almost 800 dollars of my gear unaccounted for still, I got in touch with representative Oscar who explained that the company had put a question on my account, but their poor customer service had forgotten about my order (for over a month) and it was placed in an indefinite queue. If I had not kept calling, this company would have forgotten about me entirely. Because I was forgotten, my original order was not available for purchase, so Oscar selected a similar product (Sony A7rii camera and lens). He forgot to record that I had selected a camera with an original box on my first request, so the gear that showed up at my door was a camera I paid the same amount for, but with no original box.
When the camera gear showed up to my house it was wrapped in terrible brown construction paper with no other packing materials. MPB did not accept my Canon t2i because it had damage on the back of the camera, but they bought the lens from me that had been attached to it. When they sent the camera body back, they DID NOT cover the sensor that had previously been protected by a lens and it came back FILTHY from the cruddy construction paper used for shipping; it was in worse condition than when I sent it to them.
On March 18th I contacted a female representative and explained why this was unacceptable. She promised to talk to her supervisor and call me back THAT day. She did not. I waited an entire week, with no response.
On March 25th I called the company again, at this point I had left over 10 voicemails that week asking for a call back to help me because no employee picked up the phone. No one called back. When someone finally answered on the 25th, I spoke with representative Jas for thirty minutes and she detailed my case, said she would speak with a supervisor and have them call me, and update me by the end of the day. She did not, and I did not hear back from her after I emailed her the photos of my damaged camera.
On April 5th, I spoke with Oscar over the phone again. He verified that my complaint was in the system, and that a supervisor would reach out to me at their first availability. No supervisor has reached out yet, and when I ask to speak to one over the phone there is never anyone available.
Please do not do business with this company. MPB is not a professional company. When you call their number, the line will ring for several minutes and there will be no answer. It takes at least 20 attempts on occasion to even get through to a real person, but even then, your claim will not be heard. MPB does NOT care about their customers or how they represent their brand. The photos I attached show the condition my camera was in when I received it. I am still waiting for them to make this right.”
“I tried to cancel my order before it shipped, but MPB refused to do so and said I would have to refuse delivery or return the product for a refund. I refused delivery, but they didn't issue a refund, so I requested a chargeback with my credit card. Then they said they would issue a refund only if the chargeback were withdrawn, so I waited. They simultaneously objected to the chargeback, so the bank didn't complete the chargeback, but MPB still refused to issue a refund. I've been contacting customer service repeatedly to get the refund I'm owed, but they insist that I have to contact Citi and withdraw the dispute entirely, even though Citi has not paid the chargeback. It's fraudulent. They owe me over $1500 for products they acknowledge I returned but they are refusing to issue a refund and they convinced the bank not to do a chargeback, which at this point I am ALSO entitled to. I am on the verge of filing a police report, a BBB complaint, and taking whatever other measures are necessary to bring this to light and get my money back.”
“I'm updating on Saturday April 2, 2022:
I received my order Thursday around 2pm EST.
The reason that the order was held up was because my apartment number was not on the same line as the address, and I put the apartment number in the address 2, so it did not match the billing address on my card for payment and this could only be corrected by phone due to security reasons, I really appreciate that. I was able to contact MPB by phone at 1:40pm and the problem for the delayed shipping was corrected and they also waived the express shipping fee. I would give them 4.5 stars for the quick action, and I received my order the next day. My camera and charger were wrapped like they were glass eggs, lol. I would definitely order again from MPB.”
“So, here it is Tuesday March 29th, at 12:14 pm. My order should have been on its way today; however, I received a phone call at 11:43am from customer service stating that: there was an error on the order that was placed and to get back to them by 4:00pm. Three calls placed at 11:49am, 11:51am and 12:09 and the recorded message says that all lines are busy and look for answers to my questions on their website. So, it looks like I won't be receiving my ordered products today (even with express shipping). I'm going to call back a few more times before 4:00pm and I will update after.”
“I wanted a backup camera, so I decided to order a used one from MPB. I chose my camera Friday, March 25, 2022, at around 11:30am EST. I also paid the extra $19 for my order to be here by Tuesday March 29th. I also received an email stating
"Thank you for your recent order with MPB.
We need to verify further details regarding your order before we can process it through to dispatch. We’ll be giving you a call soon to confirm these details so we can ship out your gear as soon as possible!"
I will update the status of this review to give those an idea of how my process went. (First time ordering)”
“The worst customer service in any retail business that I ever purchased from. Complete from status calls to home delivery. Stay away from these incompetent retailers. Selling used garbage.”
“I traded in my old Nikon and two lenses for a newer model Nikon and a Tamron 18-400mm lens. I chose one that was described as excellent and figured it would be good to use right away. While the camera was in good shape, the lens needed to be sent to Tamron for service. Since warranty doesn't travel with the item, I had to spend over $200 (discounted price) to have the lens serviced with Tamron. It certainly would have been cheaper to buy the lens new. I contacted customer service about this issue over two weeks ago and still have not gotten any response. At this point, I would not recommend using this company, unless you just want to sell your gear and are ok with waiting a sweet while for any kind of response.”
