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Electronics Valley via eBay has the EOS 5D Mark IV grey market for $2759.99. This is within $10 of the lowest price we’ve seen yet for this camera (grey market).
Many readers have written in letting us know about this deal (thanks!), which started last week. We were hesitant to post, due to previous issues with order fulfilment from this dealer. Early reports indicate that orders are being filled and shipped smoothly, so we are now giving it our stamp of approval and sharing this deal with our reader community.
A large caution now accompanies all such grey market deals from this dealer: this is a grey market item from an unauthorized dealer, thus no Canon USA warranty is guaranteed (the seller provides a 1-year warranty.) The seller has a large $400+ restock fee that they do not hesitate to charge for all non-defective returns. In previous sales, the dealer had lengthy delays (while providing misinformation on the true order status), so customer service isn’t their strong point.
If you’re willing to tolerate all of the above you can get a fantastic deal on the EOS 5D Mark IV. If not, please consider our street price of $3099 from a reliable authorized dealer with excellent service.
I’d never buy from them again…
A couple years ago I bought a cheap Tamron lens that ended up being defective and gave me all kinds of problems (seems to be the electronic parts were bad somehow, aperture would be stuck, getting blown out shots, etc) after about a month. It took A LOT of emails back and forth and after a few months did Electronics Valley eventually send me a replacement… I had to keep emailing them and threatening to go to eBay, reporting to BBB, just to get them to respond. It was like pulling teeth. Now this was with a cheap zoom lens. I wouldn’t even risk it with something much more expensive like a brand new 5D body! It’s not worth the gamble just to save a couple hundred bucks.
Anything like a body and higher end lens I’ll always go with authorized dealers. The street price here is already really good. It’s worth it going the legit way!
Thanks. Yes, if you experience an issue like a truly defective item it’s a pain to get this particular dealer to resolve it. You need to threaten escalation, eBay, PayPal, credit card, etc.
You give your stamp of approval, but–with a ‘large caution’?? And you appear to single out this particular dealer as being perhaps untrustworthy (I’m, reading between the lines here). I’m not sure I understand. And I certainly, in this case, wouldn’t fall in line to order.
This dealer is the largest remaining grey market Canon dealer (they’re also known as BigValueInc, 6ave, etc.) and they have the longest history, which includes many issues over the years. It comes and goes (things will run smoothly for a while, then a couple deals will go hairy.) It seems to change from deal to deal.
We didn’t want to post this deal until it seemed like a stable deal. In other deals, people have gotten shipping confirmations for items that weren’t really shipped until a week later.
The other smaller grey market dealers (deals-all-year, redtagcamera, etc) seem much more reliable with lower incidence rates of complaints.
Years ago if you’d asked me if I would personally choose grey market or authorized dealers, I would have said go grey market for the savings. It looks like the industry has changed over the last few years with the biggest grey market dealers increasingly relying on upsell calls, restock fees, and pre-sell hijinks to make their bottom line. Today I would first recommend authorized dealers instead.
I recognize some readers want better deals than authorized dealers. Saving 10% via grey market is a decent tradeoff, which makes this deal something to consider. I’d say ~98% of orders go smoothly, just be prepared to spend some time dealing with it if you are in the unlucky 2%.
At least we get the choice 🙂
OK, but there were all kinds of red flags, not to mention the highlighted word ‘Caution!’ in your promotion. So it made absolutely no sense to me why you would advertise this. IMHO, I think you’re undercutting your marketplace value here.
The CPW just tell you there is a deal and the risk. And then you make your own decision.
I appreciate the feedback. I post contrasting deals like this to give people awareness and an understanding of all the different options available to them out there. For every reader who’s asking “why did you post this?” there is probably one who has e-mailed and asked “why aren’t you posting this?”.
I bought one from this company 3 weeks ago. Everything went smoothly. Interesting to see the price went up a few bucks, guess I bought at a localized low!
Bought my 5d mark 3. Three years ago from 6ave no problems so far.
Price becoming more fair…
If you have a credit card that offers price protection (many do), buy the $3099 one and use this price to make your claim. Good luck.
can this price protection actually work? i’m interested to get 1 from ebay for $2800 now.
Check your terms of your credit card. Doesn’t apply to auctions, refurb, certain other things, but I got $500 back from Discover.