anyone heard of Portus Digital?

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Fair enough on the comments about this 'company', but what's the issue with the £ key? None of my keyboards - laptop or desktop - have this, and I don't think I've ever seen one with it for sale outside the UK. Mine all come from South Africa, which uses the US type, but there are workarounds.
 
MartynK said:
Fair enough on the comments about this 'company', but what's the issue with the £ key? None of my keyboards - laptop or desktop - have this, and I don't think I've ever seen one with it for sale outside the UK. Mine all come from South Africa, which uses the US type, but there are workarounds.
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On its own, nothing. But it just seemed incredibly coincidental that the "UK customer" who joined the forum just to tell us how good his service from Portus was had a poor grasp of English and didn't know how to define the £/GBP/Pound in his style of writing.

All added together just made it seem like a planted stooge posting on behalf of the company.
 
Hi, yes its another 1st post about Portus!! Not because I've used them but because I searched the best price on the D5100 to replace my D40X and their name came up, I then did a google search on them before ordering (for £289!) as it was so much cheaper than everyone else.

If it is thought that they are dodgy, can anyone recommend anyone else that can even get close? Steep says that Panamoz has them beaten on price (on most things) but I just searched their site and the best deal they had was £478. Currys are £100 cheaper than them!

Anyway, any more recommendations gratefully received
 
usual suspects if you want a 'reputable' grey importer (if you don't consider that an oxymoron) are Kerso (aka flash camera), Digital Rev, Panamoz and Hdew ( UR galaxy used to be okay too - but ive not 100% they are still going)

If you want to buy in the UK i'd suggest a dedicated camera shop like ffordes, T4, mifsuds, LCE, Park etc (they won't be as cheap as currys, tescos etc but service will be a lot better)

If you want to buy second hand i'd say either those above or a second hand specialist like Camtech or MPB (theres also the classified here but you can't go that route until you have 60 days membership and 25 meaningful posts)
 
Its another grey importer - based in HK - I've not used them so i'm not saying whether they are good or bad per se, but the same provisos as generally apply are applicable here - no nikon warranty, only the importers own warranty , no manufacturer cash back etc

i would however personally be a little concerned that the only contact address they give is a post office box in hong kong

at the end of the day buying grey is always a trade off between price and the ammount of comeback you have if it all goes ostrich shaped so you pays your money and takes your choice
 
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big soft moose said:
Its another grey importer - based in HK - I've not used them so i'm not saying whether they are good or bad per se, but the same provisos as generally apply are applicable here - no nikon warranty, only the importers own warranty , no manufacturer cash back etc

i would however personally be a little concerned that the only contact address they give is a post office box in hong kong

at the end of the day buying grey is always a trade off between price and the ammount of comeback you have if it all goes ostrich shaped so you pays your money and takes your choice
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And I would add to Pete's advice that if you do decide to take the risk of dealing with an unknown person in HK, make payment by either Paypal or credit card and no other method, at least if it goes wrong you have a modicum of protection.
 
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Dave1 said:
And I would add to Pete's advice that if you do decide to take the risk of dealing with an unknown person in HK, make payment by either Paypal or credit card and no other method, at least if it goes wrong you have a modicum of protection.
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Yes I would always buy with C/Card or PP when dealing with someone new. With regards to the Warranty, is it that important? I've had my Nikon D40X now for 7 years and its never had a problem, have I just been lucky?
 
by definition its not important until something goes to crap - and whether one will or not is more or less a matter of luck of the draw

only you can decide whether the protection of a decent warranty is worth the increased cost of not buying grey.
 
I have taken a leap of faith and have ordered a new Canon camera from them.

I am due to receive the Camera and other accessories by the weekend. I will let you know how I get on.

David at Portus seemed really helpful on the phone.
 
Slowhandtrap said:
I have taken a leap of faith and have ordered a new Canon camera from them.

I am due to receive the Camera and other accessories by the weekend. I will let you know how I get on.

David at Portus seemed really helpful on the phone.
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We should have a name for this (like Godwin's law for Nazi references).

A new user who registers just to tell us (in the first post on the forum) how they ordered from xyzGreyShop.com and how wonderful the company is.

How about Mugs Law? ;)
 
Dave1 said:
We should have a name for this (like Godwin's law for Nazi references).

A new user who registers just to tell us (in the first post on the forum) how they ordered from xyzGreyShop.com and how wonderful the company is.

How about Mugs Law? ;)
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I only registered and commented for the benefit of others who may be concerned about dealing with Portus Digital.

I really don't understand the point that you are attempting to make.
 
course you did

the point he is making is we are over run with people who register - make one or two posts saying how great xyz grey importer is , then never come back . Oddly these hit and runners never say anything negative , and frequently their posts are in support of companies about whom most of the regular members have very little good to say.
 
Mark

5 people have registered on this forum solely to contribute to this thread to praise this supplier. Each of them has made a couple of posts just on this thread, not contributed anywhere else on the forum and then disappeared after a handful of posts. That's why people are suspicious.

It would be great to see some of the photos they had taken with their bargain kit or to see some questions or suggestions they have for using their value cameras. I look forward to seeing some of your work.

Mike
 
Rockman said:
Mark

It would be great to see some of the photos they had taken with their bargain kit or to see some questions or suggestions they have for using their value cameras. I look forward to seeing some of your work.

Mike
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Good point.

Slowhandtrap, how about a few photos on Flickr to show how well your bargain works?

But I do think we have too many cases of Shills Law (;) credit to TBY for that descriptive name :D) not to be suspicious of this sort of posting.
 
I would love to be showing you the photos I have taken but I received a call on Friday to say that it should be dispatched on Monday. I phoned them this morning and they don't know if it will be dispatched today!

I will keep you posted as I am keen to know if they are reliable and trustworthy.

They do say most orders dispatched within 3 - 5 days!

Incidentally, I only posted on here to let others know of my experience and for no other reason.

I hope I am not a Mug!
 
Slowhandtrap said:
I would love to be showing you the photos I have taken but I received a call on Friday to say that it should be dispatched on Monday. I phoned them this morning and they don't know if it will be dispatched today!

I will keep you posted as I am keen to know if they are reliable and trustworthy.

They do say most orders dispatched within 3 - 5 days!

Incidentally, I only posted on here to let others know of my experience and for no other reason.

I hope I am not a Mug!
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Oops, must have been a delay in Hong Kong in sending it out.
 
Just received a call from David at Portus Digital to say all the items ordered are now in stock and will be dispatched on Tuesday 4th June with next day delivery.

I really hope I can trust them to deliver as promised as they have already missed one deadline.

Once I have my new camera, I will let you know and post a photo or two.

Can't wait!
 
I Googled them before I ordered as I was a Doubting Thomas who hates to be made a mug of! I did not want to part with my hard earned money if it was a scam.

I really hope they are a genuine organisation but there is little to be found about them and that's why I went looking.

I will know tomorrow when they e-mail a tracking number for their dispatch.
 
I have just purchased 1 Nikon D5200 + 1 Nikkor 18-200mm VRII. I really don't know what a Grey Market is and how it works in deep, but all in all, I bought from a UK website of a UK shop (and I did not receive any tax to pay). I can confirm that I couldn't claim the cash back from Nikon UK because my package was missing the Europe Nikon Warranty (but at this stage I don't mind because price was really competitive for these two items: £878). The shop gave me a warranty of three years directly through them. Beside I received an UK charger adapter (the original plug is American) and I find the camera manual on a CD-ROM instead of having it printed.
However, the packaging was unopened and undamaged, the camera and the lens are perfectly working. Both made in Thailand.
The delivery was late (10 days) because there was a Bank Holiday involved. Customer service was good. I called them at least 4-5 times, due to the above mentioned delay, and a man in a perfect English accent (not like mine which is Italian even though I write with an English keyboard with a £ symbol...) answered kindly to my questions promising me to call me back for news on my purchase delivery and he did 1 on 2 times.
To conclude I would recommend the website to buy, but that depends completely on you. In fact while the adapter and the manual are not such a big problem the warranty might be a big one in case of a future manufacturing fault: the time for the delivery and the repairing might be sensibly longer than the Nikon UK service warranty provides (I suppose, but accordingly to my experience with the electronic devices I bought in the past ten years, it's just a remote possibility).
 
roberto.carpano said:
I bought from a UK website of a UK shop (and I did not receive any tax to pay).
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(shills law - again :bang: )

and no you didnt - they are a grey importer , so their main base of business will be in which ever low tax zone they import from (probably hong kong), if they were a uk business they'd charge a price to cover import tax (and Vat if they are over the threshold)

Also the reason you have a warranty directly from the shop is because the manufacturer warranty isnt valid on grey items
 
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roberto.carpano said:
Beside I received an UK charger adapter (the original plug is American)
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So not only tax evasion but now also breaching UK law with regard to H&S requirements.

It isn't permissible to supply a plug adapter and a foreign plug in the box, but then as they are an HK retailer UK law probably doesn't bother them :shake:.

Oh, and thank you for searching the Internet for this forum and joining up just to tell us all about the wonderful service :wacky:.

As Pete says, Shills Law strikes again :shrug:.
 
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The wording in that post, sounds very similar to many others on The Review Centre site. :thumbsdown:
 
Lots of single posts recommending the company.

The thing with these company warranties rather than manufacturer is, what happens when that company closes, such as has recently happened with a number of people who bought from another hong kong company.
 
I wonder if all the single posters (or the couple with god knows how many dupe accounts) realise that all they are doing is making the company look more and more desperate.

you don't get single post bombing for UK businessses , you don't get it for the established greys like kerso, hdew and Drev - it only seems to happen for a certain type of business.
 
big soft moose said:
I wonder if all the single posters (or the couple with god knows how many dupe accounts) realise that all they are doing is making the company look more and more desperate.

you don't get single post bombing for UK businessses , you don't get it for the established greys like kerso, hdew and Drev - it only seems to happen for a certain type of business.
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Exactly, and as a result 'Portus Digital' are firmly on my list of firms not to deal with.
 
big soft moose said:
I wonder if all the single posters (or the couple with god knows how many dupe accounts) realise that all they are doing is making the company look more and more desperate.

you don't get single post bombing for UK businessses , you don't get it for the established greys like kerso, hdew and Drev - it only seems to happen for a certain type of business.
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its certainly ironic that the more shill's we get in this thread, and the more their input is debunked by multiple member posts, the more often that this thread is bumped to the top of the search when you type "are portus digital safe" into Google... :bonk:

counter productive much ?? :LOL:
 
Just spotted this thread and its the funniest thing I've read this week.
 
as an already existing member here ( but with only a few posts to my name ) im in the hunt for a canon 60D as im just on process of selling my x-E1.. and yes I came across Portus and no I haven't purchased from them but like some of the first time posters here I did a google search for portus to check them out and this thread came up. so find it disheartening the number of people who accuse first time posters of being fakers soley posting to try boost a company that isn't up there with the likes of MPB, park cameras, mifsuds etc etc.. yes they may be dodgy but they also may be genuine. think people need to cut some slack and unless they can come up with hard evidence of a shonky company need to lay off the attacks. hardly welcoming to new members and pretty bloody arrogant too to assume every new member giving a positive review is dodgy.. off to research now some more rather than speculate on things you don't have facts on.
 
How about people like post 64, searched, signed up and posted to say how he had already bought from them and what a wonderful experience it was?
 
dean messenger said:
as an already existing member here ( but with only a few posts to my name ) im in the hunt for a canon 60D as im just on process of selling my x-E1.. and yes I came across Portus and no I haven't purchased from them but like some of the first time posters here I did a google search for portus to check them out and this thread came up. so find it disheartening the number of people who accuse first time posters of being fakers soley posting to try boost a company that isn't up there with the likes of MPB, park cameras, mifsuds etc etc.. yes they may be dodgy but they also may be genuine. think people need to cut some slack and unless they can come up with hard evidence of a shonky company need to lay off the attacks. hardly welcoming to new members and pretty bloody arrogant too to assume every new member giving a positive review is dodgy.. off to research now some more rather than speculate on things you don't have facts on.
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So you think that numerous people signing up to the forum, only ever posting in this thread to praise Portus, and never posting anywhere else in the whole forum isn't suspicious?
 
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