Below is an email I unfortunately had to send to B&H Customer Service just now.

To whomever this may concern,

I ordered a black Incase Nylon Backpack Mfr. CL55092 on July 11th from your online store. I received it today (July 16th) and everything was perfect… except that it wasn’t exactly the right backpack.

This is where it gets rather confusing so please read carefully. Naturally, I was expecting to receive the item I ordered on your website to be exactly like the item pictured and described on the link given previously. It is exactly the same backpack that is listed on the manufacturer’s website.

And this is where the problem is. As soon as I took the backpack out of the shipping box I saw that it looked different from what I was expecting. After a few minutes of research on Google I found out that what was sent to me was actually this. The reason I’m linking you to the Apple Store website is because it is the ONLY website I could find that shows the actual backpack I RECEIVED today. Now after reading through the description on the Apple Store link I realized that this backpack has the EXACT SAME name and Mfr. Part no. as the one shown on your website but is apparently a newer redesign of the same Incase Nylon Backpack featured on both your website and Incase’s website.

Funnily enough, this “new” redesign is not even displayed on Incase’s own website. Very strange that it’s only sold through the Apple Store.

I don’t know if you, the reader of this email, will instantly see the differences between the backpack listed on your website and the one I received so let me quickly point out some of the most obvious ones:

1) Compare the front of both backpacks. You can see the one listed on the Apple Store website is rounded at the bottom and rounder in general as compared to the one listed on your website.
2) Compare the sides of both backpacks. The difference here is very visible. I don’t think I need to describe it. Notice the side pockets.
3) Compare the back of both backpacks. I realize it is somewhat difficult to see the back on the Apple Store website but just by looking at the bag I have in front of me I can see that the upper back padding is joined in one piece whereas the backpack pictured on your website has two upper back paddings.

Besides this, the inside appears to be the same on both backpacks.

I realize this may lead you to believe that I’m just a very picky customer but to me these differences are quite an annoyance because one of the major reasons I wanted the backpack pictured on your website was because of the side pockets and a more linear backpack (without all the rounded corners). The shoulder and back padding on the “new” release also doesn’t appear as high quality and feels kind of cheap to be honest. But that’s obviously none of B&H’s concern as you’re just a retailer not a designer ;)

I’m guessing there was just some sort of mistake in the purchase of inventory by B&H because of the exact same Mfr. Part No. on both products and they received the newer design from Incase without knowing of it and did not update their website to address this change. Strange though that Incase itself did not update its website with the redesign.

Well sorry for making this email so long-winded but I just wanted to include as many details as possible and to make it easier for you to understand the problem I am facing. I really appreciate you reading this.

My ultimate question is… is there any way for me to receive the product pictured on your website in return for the backpack I have received?

Thanks a lot again for reading through all this and I hope you can help me out.

Illya

Let’s see what they have to say. After all, newer IS NOT always better.

UPDATE (July 17): So they replied today with this:

Thank you for contacting the customer service department at B&H Photo Video and Pro Audio.

Thank you for your e-mail.

We enjoy long e-mails :)

We apologize, but it looks like they stopped making the old one. We can not find a place that has it. What would you like to do?

I told them it’s OK and I’ll just stick with what I have because of the circumstances. But I told them to update their site as soon as possible. Oh well…

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