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Adorama trying to upsell?

Small rant here on Adorama, a NY based professional photography company that I had a lot of respect for.

I just ordered a digital SLR from them (my first!) and received the expected confirmation e-mail from them -

Your Order will be Processed after Verification and Credit Card approval. If there is any need to contact you for credit card verification, declined credit card payment, back order situation etc, we will contact you by email. Kindly follow up on your emails.

Sure enough, I received a personal e-mail from one of their reps asking me to call him. It was simple and to the point -

Thank you for your order. It is being processed today. Please call me at [this 1-800 number and ext] at your earliest convenience.

“Okay, no big deal,” I thought. “They just want to verify high dollar amount orders.” I admit I was a bit skeptical - the e-mail was rather vague and did not state “Your order is on hold until we receive word from you.”

So I called. I waded through their menus and got to talk to the rep who e-mailed me.

He did look up my information by my home phone number. He confirmed the products that I ordered. He also “verified” my shipping address (which I entered on the order form).

But he also offered Adorama’s special 3-year extended warrant on the camera I purchased. Covert upsell or genuine offer to take care of your customer? Feels like a cleverly disguised (and elaborate) upsell that took 10 more minutes of my time than I would prefer to have given.

Come on, Adorama: I’ve heard such good things about you. I saw your extended warrant offer on the “related products” sidebar. Do you feel this move really respects your customers? Or have you determined that this is a good way to improve your margins?