HELP Electrocompaniet stole Christmas


What a mess:
After finally deciding that spending money on the latest EMC-1 parts mod, I contacted Electrocompaniet's distributor back in October to arrange to bring my EMC-1 MkII to him directly in PA so as to avoid RT shipping risks and expense for this 50 pounder. All was set for a Christmas week mod, as I was to be in NJ visiting my relatives that last week.
I called on Christmas eve to arrange a drop-off time, and was told that Christmas Day noon would be fine, but that I had to arrange the deal through a dealer! Yikes! So I remembered Fathers & Sons and called them, arranging for the paperwork and profit to be credited through/to them. Fine. So I drove 2 hours through a nasty winter storm to arrive at Warshaw's house, where he said he'd NOT perform the mod if my EMC-1 didn't have a serial number on it, as there was a grey-market guy in New York who sold a few of these this year. I assured him that mine indeed had a serial number, was produced in spring '01, and bought used by me in summer '01. He said OK, and lugged the player into his house, saying he'd call me in a couple of days to pick it up. Great!..............
I returned to NJ and watched the storm intensify....
Two days later I called to arrange a pick-up hour, and Alan told me that he did NOT perform the mod because the player had been originally sold by a Danish dealer, and NOT through him, so he had made a decision to NOT support any players not originally sold thorough him. No warranty repars, parts, nor mods!..............
I was stunned, couldn't convince him to make an exception since he had never asked me to provide a serial number beforehand, and I went through a total of a half-day of driving through a storm to accomplish this mod.
He just told me to come pick it up at my convenience. I glumly arrived on Saturday and retrieved my untouched puppy, where Alan said that unfortunately I had to share the victimization of the gray-market. I asked if I should contact a Danish dealer to see if a board-swap could be done (of course thinking he didn't really know the answer), but he thought that Electrocompaniet wouldn't support my player either! I asked with some incredulity what was going to happen with all the players that people have when they move from one country to another (!), but he said that this policy was the only way they have of penalyzing the gray market.... I suggested that in THIS CASE he should have installed the mod because of his lack of due diligence in assessing the production/sales history of this particular CDP, ESPECIALLY given my enormous effort in delivering it to his doorstep on Christmas Day.... I left sadly but gracefully.
WHAT SHOULD I DO? I contacted the Danish dealer but he's not responded. Should I contact Electrocompaniet directly and try to arrange a board swap or purchase the parts mod "kit" and instakllation directions (I'm pretty familiar with boards and soldering)? Should Alan have acted differently? Isn't the world getting small enough so that internationally-sold products should have protected lives independent of sales point?
PLEASE HELP!
A Happy and safe New Year to all!
Ernie
subaruguru
I feel for you Ernie. I disagree, however, with your decision to make another post before F&S has a chance to come up with a reasonable trade-in offer. It seems to me that, by doing this, you are putting pressure on F&S to accomodate your UG request. I don't want to say that it's blackmail, but it certainly does put them in an ackward position.

Think about it. You bought the player on the used market for a substantially lower price than new. Why didn't you buy it from F&S? These are the risks that we take when buying used gear. Why should F&S take back a gray market cdp as a demo? How much re-sale value do you think that'll have. Would you buy a demo model that also happens to be used and, in addition was obtained on the gray market and can't (WON'T) be supported by the manufacturer or their lousy US Distributor? How much is THAT worth?

I'm sorry Ernie...It seems to me that you rolled the dice and, unfortunately, have to live with the outcome.

If you're so in love with the EC, my suggestion would be to put yours on the used market and buy a new upgraded version.

Don't get me wrong. I think that what Alan did was shitty. It seems to me that if you're going to put any pressure on somebody it should be him directly. If you need to contact EC to help you do it, then by all means. I would scream LOUD and LONG until you get the result you're looking for. Don't put F&S in the middle.

That being said...If I were F&S, I would discontinue selling EC immediately and pick up another product line. That shows integrity and puts the hurt where it needs to be...on the manufacturer who won't stand behind their products.

I'm guessing that this thread alone will have made a significant dent in ECs US sales. If nothing else, I'm sure that F&S (or any other EC authorized AudiogoN dealer) will be seeing far fewer EC sales as a result of this thread! Then again...I could be naive.
I'm having to agree with Sean and Jcbtubes here. The distributor by offering an upgrade that costs $695 is in essence selling a product. I can't imagine that this product, like all other products he sells, doesn't have a decent profit margin built in to it. There is no repair being done, and the warranty obviously doesn't cover the upgrade or it would be free. Hence Alan's decision not to "sell" Ernie his "product" is petty, exclusionary, and very obviously bad public relations. Hang in there Ernie, we'll get through to these guys. Should a link to this thread be posted over at AA? Opinions please.
Jond, an incident of this nature can cause great harm to a company's business and reputation, even if they do "the right thing" in the end. Once out news of this kind is hard to retrieve or stop, too. At this point it would probably be prudent to let the wheels of justice roll just a bit more before broadcasting the story to the rest of the world.

BTW, F&S Audio has made a very positive impression on me. They obviously understand the old adage "Always take good care of your customers. If you don't someone else will!" Can't say the same about everyone mentioned in or responding to this thread. A tip of the hat to Mike for going above and beyond the call of duty.
Fpeel,
You're probably right. Besides AA would probably get to vitrolic anyway. I also concur FS Audio is coming through like a champ. Way to go guys.