Retail sales are in the doldrums and Black Friday is almost here, which means the seasonal holiday shopping orgy this year promises to be a memorable one. If you are in the market for a new digital camera or camcorder, here are some buying tips that will save you hundreds of dollars, hours of time and headaches a plenty. The spammers and scammers are especially active this year, so unless you really enjoy arguing with pushy fast-talking bait-n-switch shysters from Brooklyn, it's time to calibrate your BS Meter to find the frauds before they fleece you.

1. Check out a reliable retailer you know and trust first, like Adorama or B&H Photo Video, to get a feeling for what the item should roughly cost for comparison.
    
2. Authorized Dealers are your best bet for most of the Big Names, like Canon and Sony. These manufacturers control the price of their products very tightly, so, generally, when you compare the prices from Authorized Dealers, you are going to find that they cluster closely around certain values. Any vendor that undercuts the prices of Authorized Dealers by any significant amount is almost certainly a gray-market dealer.
    
3. Check the on-line Seller Ratings, but don't look at the rating by itself: the more revealing and important detail is the number of ratings. Reliable, established and trustworthy shops typically have tens of thousands of individual ratings. The small shysters might only have a few hundred.
    
4. Click the About or Contact Us link on the seller's site and see if they are from New York or New Jersey. I don't mean to malign those two great states, but, unfortunately, the camcorder and camera scammers seem to be centered there - and if your BS meter wasn't already pushed into the red by the unreasonably low price from an unauthorized dealer with very few seller reports, it should be pinging an audible warning by now.

If the temptation is just too strong, go ahead and place your on-line order. The ultra-cheap half-priced companies that fail all four tests probably won't steal your money outright, but they also aren't going to ship you a camera. After you order, you're going to get an e-mail that says "Thank you for your order, but we need to confirm some of your information. Please call us at your earliest convenience." Give them a call back and prepare for some abuse from a pushy 2-bit grifter from Crooklyn who is going to try to shake you down for some more cash.

Some companies will ping your BS meter, but not set off the warning klaxons. Maybe the company is from New York, but they have thousands of seller ratings and their prices are only $50-60 buck off what B&H lists. These companies are typically legit, but you'll still get the "we need to confirm some information before we ship" phone call from these guys as well. After some official sounding pleasantries, get ready to say "No" to a bunch of add-ons. It'll usually start with a Columbo-esque "Oh, and just one more thing before we ship your order..."  Then the hard sell comes for additional batteries and then memory cards, warranties, cables and anything else they can think of. Just say "No." If the product is coming from the manufacturer in a sealed box (a good question to ask them), it'll be the same as from anyplace else. And while extra batteries are always a good idea, you probably don't want them at the price the salesman is going to offer. If you aren't careful, these add-ons will quickly push the price up over what you could have gotten for a lot less trouble from an Authorized Dealer.

So do your research, (1) figure out what a reasonable price is, (2) check for Authorized Dealership credentials, (3) check to make sure there are thousands of seller's ratings, (4) see if they are from New York or New Jersey and above all else, if the price seems too good to be true, it is.

Happy Holiday Hunting!

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