3rd Party Sellers on Amazon

I haven’t bought a ton of stuff through 3rd-party sellers on Amazon (I mainly try to stay with things that are eligible for Amazon Prime, since I’ve subscribed to that.) What little I have done, I’ve never really had any problems with.

Just a couple of weeks ago, however, I ordered this replacement Nikon BM-5 LCD cover for my old D70s, since the old one had gotten cracked at some point. Sure, ten bucks is probably a bit much for a little piece of plastic, but that’s just the way things go with some Nikon accessories. The seller was lasted as “CAMSDIGITAL”, whom I’d never heard of before, but didn’t really think anything of it.

When the BM-5 finally arrived, it wasn’t a real Nikon BM-5, but a cheap knockoff made of brittle plastic, with a different pebbled finish to the plastic (the Nikon has a matte “etched” finish), the label “for NiKon” [weird capitalization theirs], and the clear area through which you view the LCD was distorted and warps everything viewed through it.

I complained to the seller through Amazon and asked for a refund — as if I had known this was a cheap knockoff, I certainly wouldn’t have paid ten bucks for it. The seller responded that they would check it out and get back to me the next day. But as the next day passed without a reply, I wrote again, this time with no response at all. Eventually, I contacted Amazon and submitted a claim under their A-Z Guarantee, so they would step in and sort this out.

A week later, there is no resolution from Amazon yet (I wasn’t expecting one for another week), but in the mail last night I receive a similar padded envelope containing a real Nikon BM-5 with the original packaging, protective plastic film on the viewing area and everything. The weird thing is, this package was from Adorama. Looking on Amazon’s site, Adorama is now listed as the seller of this item, and not CAMSDIGITAL. So, what’s going on here? Are they the same company? (I doubt it — the CAMSDIGITAL order shipped from Amherst, MA, but Adorama shipped from Elizabeth, NJ). Is one company making up for the failings of another?

Best guess at this point is maybe the A-Z Guarantee staff is now hounding Adorama to fix the order since they are now the “seller”, even though they weren’t when I originally ordered it. I’ve got another email in to alert them to what’s going on. I’m glad I finally got the real BM-5 I ordered, but I hope I didn’t somehow get the wrong people in trouble.