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Comment by lscotte | Hacker News Reader

B&H is great, agreed. They are an extremely honest company, so taking a few days longer is worth it in my opinion - you are going to get exactly what you ordered in my experience. On Amazon, that's only guaranteed if Amazon is the seller (not to be confused with "fulfilled by Amazon", of course). B&H is also closed on all Jewish holidays.

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"only guaranteed if Amazon is the seller" nope it's not they mix inventory.

> They are an extremely honest company

B&H have been sued several times, most recently by the Labor Department, for discrimination in treatment of employees. Even I have heard about that, in the UK. They have paid out at least $8 million to settle the cases.

Instead I'd recommend keh.com

How can I tell that these are genuine beliefs in B&H and not just plugs and shills? This is a genuine question: I've heard of them and used to see them advertise a lot in magazines, when they were still a thing. But.. aggressive advertising is what they did, so how can I know?

You can't. I can tell you that I've been in their New York store several times and used them for decades.

Franky I'd be more suspicious of a business of their age and size that didn't have a few lawsuits against them. Also look at some of those lawsuits - remember it costs nothing to file a lawsuit, especially when fishing with lawyers on contingency :/

I'd say the only way to guarantee you're getting the correct product is to buy from the manufacture's page itself. Anker for example, everything is sold by them instead of sold by amazon.

Also been noticing a lot less companies allowing amazon as a "trusted online merchant" for returns.

While KEH was great for used camera gear (I haven't bought new or used gear in ages so IDK how they are now), B&H offers an unmatached breadth. If anything I'd say that Adorama is a much closer competitor to B&H, although I'm loathe to buy from Adorama due to the incessant spam I get from them every time I make a purchase.

Yes on both counts. KEH is mostly used photo gear and they tend to be my go-to for that although, like you, it's a rare purchase for me. I tend to default to B&H but I'd agree their closest competitor is Adorama (although B&H's store in Manhattan is much larger).

B&H is excellent. I was going to CES, and needed video and audio recording equipment that had to have some pretty specific characteristics, so I chatted with B&H rep online, and sure enough they were able to help me. They know their stuff.

But they are hella racists and discriminating.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/02/29/us/bh-photo-lawsuit/index.h...

Can anyone explain why this comment is being downvoted? Is it a matter of "yeah but Amazon does it too/is worse"?

The story is very likely untruthful.

Perhaps because it includes multiple breaches of this line in the HN guidelines:

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

There may be a case for introducing information like this when a company is recommended, but the comment would need to be worded with more civility than that one was.

Oh sorry, I just wanted to inform people. I will try better next time!

I see you are a disciple of the guilty-before-proven-innocent principle.

From the bit of googling I did, the suits appear to be settled. People seem to take considerably settlement checks as an implicit indicator of some truth. Granted there's probably more to the story.

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