A new, deceptively well-designed “camera store” is falsely advertising premium, professional cameras at half their retail prices.

FrameCurve is a fraudulent, and illegitimate retail website. The site advertises high-end, professional mirrorless, and DSLR cameras at a fraction of their prices to prey on customers looking to buy a new camera body. I will include screenshots of their website, the items they claim to have for sale, customer reviews, and when the website’s URL was created.

This article is for those of you out there who may be in the market for a new camera body, are looking to upgrade, and are looking for the best deal. I am writing this to help protect my fellow photographers, and videographers searching for trustable retail options.

When I was recently shopping for a new camera body, I came across a website that had unbelievable sales. I was initially looking for a Canon 5D MIV, and found a listing on Google Shopping for just $999.

Now, for anyone who is a photographer, or videographer that knows how expensive a 5D Mark IV is, this would be unbelievable. So unbelievable that it’s too good to be true. It in fact was too good to be true, as we all know most things are if they appear in said way.

Anyone who has seriously combed the camera market knows that some of the best deals on 5D MIV cameras come nowhere even close to what this body is priced at. B&H Camera, a reputable retail site, has them listed at $2,500.

That’s the issue though, someone who would be either desperate to purchase a camera of this quality at this price point, might just buy it, or someone fresh into the camera market with a thousand dollars to spend, might just spend it.

For those out there who might be saying, “Oh, well, it’s your fault if you can’t tell that a scam is a scam” or “If you get scammed you deserve to lose your money” all I have to say is that I would rather have someone give me a fair warning to steer clear, make a smarter decision, and save your money. Why anyone justifies manipulating people to take their hard-earned money, I will never know.

I digress, a common theme on FrameCurve is just how outrageous some of these deals are on the website. Take for example, this Canon EOS R, a camera that retails at $1800 on B&H, going for just $999, almost half its retail price anywhere else on FrameCurve.

Now, what really makes FrameCurve look “legit” is their security logos at the base of their listing pages (by the way, McAfee is definitely not the most secure) with Norton, PayPal, and McAfee, as well as their claim to be a Canon Authorized Retailer. We’ll shortly find out that they are not. Finally, they are also a Hyper Text Protocol site, which is a basic way of securing a website on the internet.

What’s funny about Canon Authorized Dealers, is that Canon has a PDF file you can download directly from their website that alphabetically lists all of their authorized dealers. I’ll embed the PDF here, in case you’re interested in seeing who else is on it. Lo, and behold, guess who wasn’t on there when I scrolled down to the F’s?

FrameCurve is a new website. It was created in August of 2020, and I’m not sure how long it will exist for. Using CubDomain, I found out when the site was created.

A simple Google Search of “is framecurve legit” returned the results from trustpilot.com, and the results did not look good.

“Fraudulent,”a customer of FrameCurve wrote, September 29th, 2020.

“The other reviews are exactly right. Ordered my EOS R camera for $999.99 and it never came. Each time i contacted customer service for details on tracking and shipping, they just gave me a new ship date of 8 more days and kept pushing it back. Escalated with Paypal for a refund” one reviewer wrote on September 30th, 2020.

There is only one other website that shares customer reviews for FrameCurve, and it is spammed with false 5-star reviews. That’s also partially the reason I chose to write this article, seeing how few people had reviewed this site, and the potential of people losing thousands of dollars. I mean, they even have 1DX MK II cameras on their site. Someone could lose upwards of $6,500.

It took me a second to spot that this website was fraudulent, and once I did I felt there was a serious need for someone to spread the word and explain why you should steer clear from this site. However, if you’re still in the camera market and are having a hard time deciding where to spend your money, and who you can trust, then I have two suggestions.

1. B&H, Adorama, MPB, or KEH Camera.
2. Your local camera store.

Don’t go to sites or places that seem too good to be true, because it’s likely they are. There’s a reason people go to those places I listed first. They do a good job. I have ordered lenses, and equipment from all of the sites I listed above, and I was extremely impressed with all of their shipping packaging as well as response and shipping time. It’s better if you can go to your local camera store and get your equipment from them if possible, but I understand we are all looking for deals, sales, clearances, etc. Local camera stores are going to be your best bet for finding a reliable and knowledgeable source of products and information most of the time. Hope this helps, and always keep creating.