I haven’t been able to leave them entirely, but I try to avoid B&H as much as I can. They were sued by the federal government twice over civil rights violations, particularly for their treatment of Hispanic employees. It wasn’t just stuff like not promoting employees and paying them less, but Jim Crow-era stuff like not allowing them to use certain bathrooms, as recently as the past decade. Once I could’ve written off as some bad manager, but the Feds sued them again a decade later and it was basically all the same stuff, so to me that’s a cultural problem.

I also worked at a manufacturer where they were by far our biggest reseller, larger than everyone else combined including our own direct sales. They were a giant pain to work with; every interaction felt like they were flipping us a giant middle finger. Our accounting team especially hated dealing with them; we got some new people in who figured out they were always trying to claim discounts and refunds they weren’t entitled to. If our people pushed back and could show they weren’t allowed they would cave, but it took a lot of their time every month. I try now to buy from their smaller rivals like Adorama or AbelCine even if it might cost a little more; most of them were so much nicer to work with.