As my trip to St. Thomas gets closer, I’ve been shopping around for good deal on a DSLR camera. My brother-in-law works in a camera shop and is a professional photographer so I asked my sister if he could recommend a good camera and somewhere I can get a great price.

Well, my sister sends me back a link to a great price on a camera with the caveat that some sites that have a great price on a camera often sell it without the battery then charge a lot for a battery. I’m not new to some of the sneaky tricks that businesses use and this sounded on par with most other tricks I’ve seen. Boy was I wrong!

Now I am not going to link directly to this website to increase their page rankings, but I will tell you the name of the company is Expo Cameras. Just throw a dot-com on the end of their name and you can pay them a visit. Take a moment to browse their Nikon camera selections. I was directed to the D40 by my sister and found the $399.00 price to be a great deal!

I took a look at the specs on the camera and notice that it’s weight is noted as “without battery” twice and nowhere in the description of the product says one is included. Now I know any product that uses a battery needs to have a backup for when your first one runs down, so I am already thinking I should probably buy 2 batteries and a charger. So I scroll down to the batteries for this camera and I am floored by what I see.

These people want $199.00 for a rechargeable camera battery! Are you freaking kidding me? So I think, maybe that’s a typo or it includes a charger or something. I click the link to view the product and get an even bigger shock. The price is not only for ONE battery but it’s crossed out retail price is $279.00! WOW. You mean to tell me that the manufacturer actually lists this battery at $279.00 MSR? Talk about needing a tub of Vaseline, that hurts!

I know that those batteries can’t cost that much or retail that high, that’s just crazy. A quick search at Google lists the battery starting around $16 so there is no way this thing has a suggested retail price of $279. Considering the outright assraping on the battery price, I am going to bet that the camera does not come with a battery. Even if my sister hadn’t slipped me the battery overcharging hint, I think only a moron would pay that much for a battery.

Meh!
Skunky