Does anyone honestly think Amazon has huge teams of thieves stalking the streets looking for RDs, and also huge teams of technicians sitting around rebuilding very complex pieces of technology, just so that they can offer it for ~$13 under manufacturer price?

Essentially it’s the same as, for example, MS Windows. Buy it in a store at full price and you get warranty from MS, buy it pre-installed on your new computer at a serious discount, and MS doesn’t warranty it, the computer manufacturer does.

And please don’t take this as me hating, I’ve owned two Beltronics RDs so far and am currently shopping for my 3rd. I just find it somewhat unscrupulous that the manufacturer knows full well they are selling at a discount to resellers minus the warranty, and if someone inquires about warranty support they automatically throw out the “knockoff” card.

Just be honest about your distribution channels and promote the benefits of working directly with the manufacturer.

I bought my own Escort product on Amazon from an “unauthorized” reseller with many years as a seller there and all high ratings by customers. It was only after the fact that I found out on Escorts web site they were “unauthorized”. I contacted the reseller pretty mad they never tell you that you won’t have any warranty at all if you buy the factory sealed product from them. They resolved the problem for me by registering my serial number with Escort through their “authorized” distributer they purchase through. I’ve since verified with Escort I am under a manufacturers warranty now and the Amazon reseller certainly went above and beyond to take care of me their customer to earn their high rating on Amazon. Its clear they have no intent of defrauding any consumers, just found a way to get around Escorts attempts at price fixing. If Escort didn’t make such a great product I wouldn’t even want to buy their products just because of this price fixing, which the legalities of in itself continues to go back and forth in the courts. Last I checked such price fixing was illegal.

Going after such resellers though that truly are defrauding consumers is admirable even if the motive is self interest. There’s certainly no shortage of these types of people out there trying only to make a quick and easy buck. I’m surprised they actually had the nerve to attempt this while operating directly out of the US. Usually these people will put up a fake business front in another country out of direct US court jurisdiction, which is likely what we will soon be seeing this I-Net company doing under a new name and run by the same exact people. Seems like even under the penalties imposed on them by the legal system they never learn not to do this, just how to be trickier about not getting caught so easy. With the Internet its become a very small world for people to live in, but its still huge and out of reach for a single legal system to operate within.