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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
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,259 posts
 
Zaikesman, you need to familiarize yourself with a typical distributor/franschise agreements. These agreements are very accurate in reflecting the relative power of each party in a particular market place.

Subaruguru purchased a grey market product. Immediately prior to his purchase he could have contacted EC or it distributor, determined his purchase was a grey market good and found out EC policy on service issues. For whatever reason Subaruguru did not take these steps. In an open marketplace information is power. If Subaruguru had had all the info he could have cancelled his purchase or maybe he could have pressed for a lower purchase price. It would have been his informed decision to take such a risk. As much as some people think it's unfair, in an open and competitive market there is a penalty for not being fully informed. I guess it's human nature to not only want the low price benefits of a free market, but to also want some downside protection from ones own decisions.

BTW, in a completely unrelated action, I have been boycotting all Sony products since March, 2002. Everybody is invited to join my crusade. Together we can bring that corporate giant to its knees. AUDIOPHILES OF THE WORLD - UNITE!
unsound
7,334 posts
 
Ernie, better luck with your health! Pending a quick and satisfactory response from Electrocompaniet, if we were to donate anything, may I suggest that it would be with the stipulation that it could be towards any unit he chooses, so long as it's not an Electrocompaniet.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
pablovila
46 posts
 
Chichiuno, that's a very generous offer! But still, what will happen with the other 9 grey market players that are still around? Who will service them if something goes wrong with them? And I am not talking about upgrading, but only servicing (for a fee) them. Pablo.
chichiuno
118 posts
 
You cannot target Electrocompaniet, Many other manufactures
has the same policy, Some manufactures even post warnings of grey market sales, and warentee issues with grey market.
its a buyers beware type of issue, For everyone , for any product. As far as the other units, thats not the issue here....Ernie had expressed much liking in Electrocompaniet EMC-1, went to great lenghts to get it upgraded,Ernie been a long timer here, and likes the product, so I do not mind to contribute..... last thing Alan would of thought it would be a grey unit at his doorstep. It's a a bad situation for both parties, But Alan does have the right not to service product... he did take the time and Money to import the product. And he is the USA distubutor...
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Anthony/Chichiuno: If I might presume to take a rather large liberty here and respond for Ernie, who is probably unable to do so himself at this time, while your heart is in the right place and you are *very* generous, Ernie already has himself a perfectly good CDP, and I'm sure he would thank you, but say that your money can be put to much more important and appropriate use donated elsewhere in the world.

Onhwy61, you and I are obviously just gonna have to agree to disagree about this issue, as I am firmly of the belief that you are missing the forest for the trees, as well as conveniently ignoring the flip-flops in 'policy' evinced by the distributor's actions. 84audio has it right: How could Ernie have been expected to "know" anything about such a load of arbitrary, contradictory BS? I say to hell with the franchise agreement, this situation is much simpler and clear-cut than the distributor's position you so valiantly defend would have us believe. The guy has screwed Ernie over, and is now screwing up his market as well, which means he is screwing over not only the consumers, but also his dealers (and quite possibly the manufacturer as well, though it seems as if they may be complicit in this whole scam, or at least overly tolerant of the distributor's apparently less than stellar record and highly questionable motives/ethics - something that seems may also be the case regarding their Danish reseller).

Rationalize it any way you like, blame the victim if it gives you a sense of propriety, but your contention that Ernie was operating in a free market with open information - especially as far as aftermarket service is concerned - is laughable. The whole point here is that the company and distributor are intent on creating a closed market, apparently at any cost in customer good-will. It is they who will need protection from the downsides of their bad decisions. To paraphrase a couple of well-worn cliches using a mixed metaphor, the 'rules' in this case are both the last refuge of a scoundrel, and the hobgoblins of small minds. Ernie is being penalized for nothing he's done, and most of us clearly aren't copacetic with that. Barring any last-minute heroics, maybe you can buy his CDP from him and be EC's last customer among the members of this forum, since you're so comfortable with their policies as long as you know them in advance - and we damn sure all know them now (and I know yours and you know mine.) There's too many other good alternatives in the marketplace for the rest of us to have to tolerate, much less condone, this sort of game-playing crap. Sorry, but that's the deal as most here see it. (Now, why don't you tell us what your beef with Sony is about, instead of just asking us to participate in a boycott without any reasons being given?) Respectfully but resolutely yours, Z.
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