Electrocompaniet owners

Unsound,

I am all for freedom of speech. And it is not collusion for a manufacturer or even a dealer to request that you not announce the price you paid to the public for a particular item. Especially if someone is getting something AT COST for 20% of what everyone else is getting. Manufacturers do their best to conceal their exact cost on their products. This information is CONFIDENTIAL to a manufacturer. They do not want the public to know this confidential costs. And the public really does not have a RIGHT to know (no laws state that a manufacturer has to inform the public of their costs). So where is the collusion? Non disclosure agreements are signed all the time in the business world. Many times if I am talking to a manufacturer of a specialty wireless telecommunications product (I am in wireless), we have to end up signing an NDA. This is simple business. We cannot have them talking about our system specifics to others and they do not want us discussing their products or pricing with others.

EC IMHO SHOULD have charged Ernie more to preserve the integrity of their product and the integrity of others who are going to do the upgrade of the product in the future at full price. By charging Ernie 20% of retail (and Ernie effectively posting it online), EC has made a serious error in judgement. If I were making the decision, I would have charged Ernie $500 to $600, basically $200-$300 off for his time, effort, and because he is going to do the installation. This would have at least preserved EC some integrity.

Think about it.... How would you feel if you had a EMC-1 mk2 unit and wanted to get it upgraded now????? You take it to a dealer and he says the upgrade will be $800. You say, I know that this guy at Audiogon got the parts for $80, and the labor cannot be more than an hour or so. Why should I pay $800 for something that costs Ernie $80 or so + his time to do the upgrade?

Personally if I had an EMC-1 mk2 and wanted to upgrade, I would be very upset. Luckily I sold my EMC-1 mk2 over a year ago.

Back to collusion. Just because a manufacturer tries to not let the public know their exact part costs, this is NOT collusion. This situation is very much like being employed by a company and the relative salaries. Any company will tell their employees DO NOT discuss your salary with your fellow co-workers. It is NOT collusion for a company to keep people from discussing and finding out other employees salaries. This is confidential information, and knowing another's sallary can only really lead to negative situations. It is the same thing as knowing the exact costs of the parts a manufacturer pays for a particulat item. This information should be considered confidential by any manufacturer. If the public knows the exact costs of components a manufacturer makes, it can only lead to negative situations for the manufacturer.

Personally, I am happy that they solved Ernie's problem. I am even happy that Ernie got a heck of a deal. But I feel a bit badly for other EC owners who will have to pay ECs 500% mark up on the parts and labor if they want to upgrade their EMC-1 mk2's in the future.

I am just glad I do not own any EC gear now because if I did, I would sell it on principle alone. People representing EC handled this poorly from day one, and it does not surprise me that EC is also making mistakes in solving this problem.

KF

Tok20000, Of course you are absolutley correct...in ordinary circumstances. These are pecular circumstances. In this circumstance Ernie was denied satisfaction going through the traditional channels. As such he appealed to the Audiogon community for help and satisfaction. His appeal was welcome, because by it's very nature it helped the Audiogon community from having to repeat his misadventure with this particular manufacturer and it's distributor. The Audiogon community is now party to the issue. It would be somewhat disingenous for Ernie to appeal to the Audiopgon community, recieve satisfaction and then turn his back on them by not disclosing all the details, which would have put the community he appealed to in the same jepoardy. This manufacturer and it's distributor had every opportunity to maintain the confidentiality of their business proceedings, but they blew it. Much like the scenerio when one party takes another party to court, those confidential issues becomes public. Definition of collusion: Secret agreement for a wrongfull purpose, especialy between persons wishing to defraud another or between persons who wish to appear as adversaries. Considering all the details, I think the word is appropriate.

I'm sorry, but I for one do not and will not ever think that Ernie got a heck of a deal. I will bet that Ernie's time is valuable. He has not been compensated for the time and effort he put into this nor for the time he will have to spend to install the parts. In addition, I also feel that we as consumers have the right to as much information as we can ferret out about a retailer, distributor, or manufacturer, in order for us to make fully informed choices about what we consume. Its a free market after all - and I for one would like to be as informed as possible before I make my choice.

A very interesting thread.I salute Audiogon for not shutting it down though it does not belong here.I am having trouble to form the opinion on all this.Still I believe that 'negative advetising' is a good thing,and it looks like this company deserves it;like many others.But,I must say that this is not a truly free market,in fact it is highly regulated with many things going on beyond our awareness.Tok20000,any agreement can be bought out-the price should be right.Now,that's free market.

I have a similar situation to Ernie's, in that I bought an EMC-1 MKII last year which turned out to be sold through the Danish distributor. I decided to inquire directly with EC about the U.S distributor's poor handling of non-U.S point of origin EC products. Tell me if you think I'm wrong, but it seems from their message that they may have had a little talk with the distributor, Alan for his handling of this situation. Their response to my inquiry may mean that, in the future, others in Ernie's and my position should be able to have their EC products updated regardless of the point of origin. Maybe there's hope for EC, yet?? Here is a copy of their response.

Dear Mr. Shapiro.

Thank's for your consern. Our policy is to help coustomers, regardless where they have bought our product. So I think the matter discussed on the web, was an singel case and not our distributers in the US normal policy. I can not answer for him, but I will think in the future he will upgrade any products even if they were bought on the moon..... But to his defending, I can understand his way of thinking to keep the secondhand prizes higer.

Best wishes, Vigleif - EC