Caveat Emptor
Consumer electronics markets have been under attack by poor and misleading internet selling for a number of years now. This has had a marked effect on trader's opportunities to cover their costs when selling to the general public. Unfortunately, there are always online "heroes" prepared to sell products at a loss in order to clear them from their stock rooms. There are also those who are selling counterfeit goods online and simply pulling the plug on their business to avoid detection. Car audio products are not immune to such practices and we have recently received a number of pleading emails from members who have fallen foul of such practices. In one case, I was contacted by someone who had purchased a sophisticated product for the their car from Europe. This saved them 20% on the retail price that the same product sells for in the UK. Unfortunately, they were unable to make the product work once it was installed and contacted the local UK distributor for help. Clearly, the UK distributor and its network of resellers are unable to do anything in these cases as they have not made any income from the product. The law states that all warranty support is the duty of the original reseller, which in this case was an internet seller in a foreign country!
The hapless purchaser had no choice but to pay a local installer to sort the problem out therefore, negating any saving made on the original purchase of the product. Caveat Emptor indeed!
See you later this month
Carl
Editor
