''Manuf. warranty '' with non-authorized vendor ?

well at least American spent the time to sell/speak to you.

I called them a while back to purchase a Sony ES DVD player and was told they don't waste their time on DVD players less than $1000, Hang up.

Yeah, that's the way to do business. It's not unusual for some one to test the waters with a small purchase, before committing big money, especially with an internet vendor. Sheesh!

If the manufacturer says the dealer is not authorized, and if the dealer ssys that they are authorized, then one of them is wrong. Now who is more likely to know whether there is a manufacturer's warranty or not? I would think it would be the person who is actually honouring the warranty, i.e. the manufacturer.

I would buy nothing from a business that lied to me on such a fundamental point. If they lied to you about that, what else have they lied about?

This whole authorized v. unauthorized dealer business is BS, IMO. The manufacturers are just as responsible for this problem as the "unauthorized" dealers. It's not hard for a vendor to find out who's selling their products and how those products got to those dealers.

The truth is that some manufacturers don't want to sacrifice sales by having a strictly policed distribution channel so they basically create two categories of distribution - authorized and unauthorized. They sell unwarrantied product at a discount to distributors who then sell them to unauthorized dealers. I can think of several top tier electronics manufacturers who participate in this sort of practice.

IMO, it's a bit myopic because you are certainly not building brand loyalty by denying a customer (who may have been lied to by the dealer) warranty service. I guess that's what it takes to compete in CE.

This is my second post. We will see if it gets through.
In line with Tim916's post, perhaps the reason why manufacturers "turn a blind eye" toward the unauthorized channels is that the units entering said channels may not be 100% meeting spec like the units that make it to "authorized" dealers. Instead of taking a yield hit, they sell at reduced costs with out any warranty...

seems a bit illegal (if true) but that is way out of my comfort zone...

just a thought...but it is odd isn't it... I mean how hard is it to know your distribution channels?