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That's the second time on this thread the idea has been floated that only those who face legal prosecution can be responsible for what amounts to criminal acitivity. How did we get to this point?

By employing squishy terminology. A crime is, by definition, an act punishable by law; if there is no law prohibiting the activity it is not a crime.

Not squishy terminilogy but rather malleable principles. A "me" centered society doesn't possess or even consider principles which might constrict everyone into one group with the common good in their sights.

I have to disagree with the idea a criminal act is not criminal until it is punishable by law. Laws are written in reaction to criminal activity not the other way around. No litter laws until litter became a problem. No speed limits until people could speed.

I'm not expecting anyone to write a law against what Alex does in his self-centered activities with dealers. But that does not make it any the less comparable to the results of a criminal act. Even if Alex gives the dealer a chance to meet an online price, he has entered into the social contract of commerce with deceptive intentions. Granted most of the local dealers probably know Alex by now and don't give him much time but his actions are premeditated and have repercussions which affect others.

When did it become illegal to pass hot checks? When people began passing hot checks. Criminality is not always about breaking an existing law.

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I do not see it as a social contract. Product sampling and other enticements are invitations to enter a contract. There is no social contract that compels one to enter into a legal contract by sampling the enticements.

You are wrong and you are right. The physical structure of the building is not an enticement to take what you please. That is pure rationalization and a distortion of how we go about daily life. No one drags you into their place of business. You make the choice to enter and to engage in commerce with that business.

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Product sampling and other enticements are invitations to enter a contract.

That is the rationalization of a shoplifter, "He wanted me to take it or else he wouldn't have put it where I could reach it." How many more times are you going to use the same tired response that you are blameless?

You are correct that you are under no obligation to purchase anything you've sampled. We've covered that. You are still ignoring the basic principle that once you have made the decision to make a purchase - on your own without "enticements" - you have a moral responsibility to act for the benefit of those who have assisted you. It is called remuneration and it is how the legal world operates.

Now, if your only response can be, "It's not my fault", and, "The greedy dealer deserves what he gets", you are only fueling the fire that decribes you as someone with whom none of us would care to do business.

I heard that one time, at band camp, AlexO got lucky...but then never called the girl again.

What a bastard.

Another time, he was at Border's, and he was only interested in one review in an issue of TAS, so he just stood there and read the article - and never bought the issue.

Thieving bastard.

I bet he drives over the speed limit, too.

Guys, AlexO has his own notion of the role of the audio dealer. We may disagree with him - myself included - but it's one aspect, not the whole guy.

In fact, if we are nice to AlexO, maybe he'll introduce us to his sister, KarenO or his aunt CandyO!!!

(Hahahahahahaha... maybe that's just a joke for Stephen.)

Hug for AlexO.

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I do not see it as a social contract.

Yes, this is clear. You choose not to abide by what the vast majority sees as an obligation, a sense of moral fairness.

(P.S. A social contract is a philosophical concept, not a legal principle. Think Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, etc.)

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I don't want to bore everyone with a long winded response, so those who are interested, can take a look at this link to get a feel of what I'm talking about. It's all pretty cut and dry. The first few paragraphs are all you need to read.

Once again you have distorted the meaning of the concept by trying to shove it around to fit into your tiny little definition of fairness.

What does that article say, Alex? Let's hear your explanation of what you have read.

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I do not see it as a social contract.

I think what is most troubling about your constant incantation of, "I have no moral compass", and "I share no social contract" and, "It is the dealer's fault", is it makes me wonder just when either morals or acceptable behavior do enter into your decision making process.

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I have to disagree with the idea a criminal act is not criminal until it is punishable by law. Laws are written in reaction to criminal activity not the other way around.

No.

Criminal laws codify a society's primary moral and behavioral expectations.

Laws are written to punish moral infractions perceived to be serious enough to warrant the government's intervention.

There can be no crime without breaking a law.

Driving overly fast may be morally reprehensible under certain circumstances, but it is not a crime until there is 1) a law defining speeding, and 2) one breaks this law. Only at this point has a crime been committed.

We're splitting hairs where you and I in essence agree. Let's put it this way, once the speed limit law is passed, I can say the person who originally caused the law was a "speeder".

How convoluted do you want this to become? I've said Alex is a shoplifter who cannot be prosecuted under existing law.

Bottom line, Alex is not playing by the rules.

It's time we move on to the punishment phase of this trial.

AlexO has even made incriminating statements that verify his guilt in this matter.

I vote he buys the first TWO rounds when we meet up.

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In fact, if we are nice to AlexO, maybe he'll introduce us to his sister, KarenO or his aunt CandyO!!!

(Hahahahahahaha... maybe that's just a joke for Stephen.)

Made me laugh.

Mmm...
KarenO

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We're splitting hairs where you and I in essence agree.

Uh...Jan...you raised the issue and asserted the claims. Why fuss now?

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Let's put it this way, once the speed limit law is passed, I can say the person who originally caused the law was a "speeder".

Once again, no. Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits ex post facto application of criminal law.

As previously stated this is a moral question, not a criminal or legal issue.

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Uh...Jan...you raised the issue and asserted the claims. Why fuss now?

Because I really don't know what your point is, Elk. We agree Alex should place some moral weight on his decisions. We both agree laws are often created after the offense has taken place. What exactly do you want said?

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As previously stated this is a moral question, not a criminal or legal issue.

What can I say to make my feelings more clear? IMO Alex is a shoplifter who cannot be prosecuted. He has given the dealer the treatment he deserves, at least as far as Alex is concerned. That no law prohibits such action is clear. That does not remove any harm done to the other party or in a larger sense "parties", nor does it alter the premeditated intent to do such harm and it certainly leaves Alex just as culpable in the final judgement. If you wish to split hairs further we can discuss who will make that judgement.

Do I want Alex thrown in jail for his indiscretions? No, I would prefer he simply grow a soul.

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We're splitting hairs where you and I in essence agree.

Uh...Jan...you raised the issue and asserted the claims. Why fuss now?

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Let's put it this way, once the speed limit law is passed, I can say the person who originally caused the law was a "speeder".

Once again, no. Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits ex post facto application of criminal law.

As previously stated this is a moral question, not a criminal or legal issue.

I wonder when the "Deceptive Hi Fi Shopping Practices" statutes will be enacted. Once those laws are passed, AlexO will be risking big trouble.

Big.

I can't wait for the day we see AlexO doing the Scooter Libby walk out of Sound By Singer.

They only have solid state in the big house, Alex.

Think about it.

I met Alex in person at a (gasp) hifi dealer. And I can assure all concerned citizens he didn't steal a thing. He didn't even belch out loud or take a breath mint after dinner (perhaps an error in judgment). And while I have a hard time matching up the guy I met over music & beers with the guy who appears in this thread to be woefully inconsiderate, I just have to figure it

Uhhhh, did someone think I meant Alex walked out of the store with merchandise shoved down his pants?

Nawww, that's supposed to be a joke. Right?

Uhhhh, Jan. On a scale of 1 to 10, how seriously do you take yourself? And then, this may be the harder part, how serious do you think I am? Same scale. Do the math and then you tell me if someone was joking or not. No cheating now. BTW - I'm encouraged to see you use the word "joke" even if it is just supposed. Damn! No hints!

Oooh, you're a wry one you are! Not quick to catch humor but whatever.

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Because I really don't know what your point is, Elk.

Simply addressing your specific query:

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That's the second time on this thread the idea has been floated that only those who face legal prosecution can be responsible for what amounts to criminal acitivity. How did we get to this point?

It was just a page ago. How did you get lost so quickly and so easily?

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I can't wait for the day we see AlexO doing the Scooter Libby walk out of Sound By Singer.

When he does the perp walk, will his hands be tied with Monster Cable interconnects?

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Dude, I did 6 hours in the big house for jay walking during the Guilliani era. Don't mess with me.

Whoa.

Didn't know that.

Would you like us to address you as "sir"?

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How did you get lost so quickly and so easily?

Yeah, how'd that happen? You must be in the market for $150 headphones.

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How did you get lost so quickly and so easily?

Yeah, how'd that happen?

Only you can tells us what happened to you and how you got lost. Perhaps your mind was drifting. Criminal negligence perhaps.

Don't forget however to address Alex as "Sir", however.

He is inarguably one tough dude.

'Scuse me, sir, I unnerstan' you're the shoplifter here? Woul'you please just step outside and remain there?

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Don't make me zap you with your own taser.

Love that jaywalker 'hood language.

Makes me feel part of the gang.

Buddha was right about the ontological status of this horse. DOA. I give you, "'hood" and "word." Cliches seem always to deliver the death blow.

You all shop your ways, I'll shop mine. The arguments presented, no matter how well or poorly, have dwindled down to pseudo-gangsta cliches.

I can tell within 20 seconds of the first verbal contact with a dealer (or one of his minions) whether or not I will buy from his shop. So can all of you. Internet or no internet.

Requiem.

"Shopping around" is test driving a Ford, a Toyota, and a Hyundai and subsequently buying one from one of the dealers you visited. This is perfectly fair and appropriate behavior."

Hmmm, no offense, however, when I buy a Ford or a Toyota, I go in with the invoice pricing. I do compete on a local level for whatever car I buy. I have gone to as many as 4 dealers in a metropolitan area and saved thousands due to one dealers "footprint" compared to anothers. A brick and mortar Hi End audio shop should be no different. Especially if dealing with a 5k-15k amplifier or speaker. It costs just as much. However, when I do go to a dealer, I announce ahead that I am shopping and have heard this equipment before. Nothing false about that. I rarely find a listening room set up the same either. It may sound completely different at another location. Oh well, I think the car/audio analogy is apples to apples. Just another persons opinion...and yet we all have one

Not really. You forget about dealer PAC and incentives plus the desire to be number one in an area or the entire US. I've worked at such a dealership and on a Saturday night at the end of the month you could get a smokin' deal on an Accord LX four cylinder if it meant the dealership was likely to gain the advantage of being number one in the country. That's advertising advantage in a full page ad in Saturday and Sunday papers, that's choice of cars and more cars from the factory, that's lots of things no audio retailer has at their disposal.

At a volume auto dealership you are dealing with a very different commodity than what a high end audio dealer stocks. I don't know the figures but I would guess about 85% of the adult US population owns a car. That makes for a very different client base than what the high end audio dealer expects to see from the 2-3% of the population who might buy a better than average audio component. At the high volume Honda dealer (#1 in the US at the time I worked there) we had forty to forty five salespeople on the floor on a Saturday and sold 70-90 cars in a day. We knew the other five local Honda dealers got some of our customers simply because we couldn't get to all of them on some Saturdays and some people wouldn't drive back to our dealership if another dealer offered them close to the same deal in a more relaxed environment. It was volume sales at the car delaership which is very different than building a relationship with a client while discussing the advantages of a transmission line enclosure. A prospective new car shopper knew which cars they were interested in and they got a quick test drive of usualy no more than two cars and then it was into the office to make the deal or on to a new customer with the last leaving with a card and a smile. It was not uncommon in the audio shop to see a customer walking in with a stack of LP's not even clear on what products we sold. The Honda dealer sold Hondas, the audio dealer sells a few dozen lines at a time. One client on a Saturday could expect to get a few hours of our time in the demonstration rooms with various products being moved in and out of the room. Where the volume Honda dealer saw 400 people walk through the door on a Saturday, there were times at a slow audio dealership when we all hoped no one returned the two blank Maxell tapes we had sold the day before. If you are selling sufficient numbers of the bread and butter Accord LX, four cylinder sedan with automatic transmission, you can afford to make a little less on each vehicle and get it back on volume. Not so easy to do on a $15k Koetsu.

Back in the 1970's I worked at the number one Advent dealer West of the Mississippi. Did we let everyone know we were the largest mover for the Advent line? Sure, and we got one of the first NovaBeams in the country - a $5k, two piece, 72" projection TV selling in the 1975 economy, there's a mover for ya. Did we discount Advent? No. A few bucks off if you bought a system with certain components was the offer. In the end with a company such as Advent was at the time we got the same price sheet as every other Advent dealer West of the Mississippi.

For any new car dealer the profit is in the service department which is not the case for 99% of the audio dealerships today who send equipment off to the manufacturer for service - and the manufacturer doesn't pick up shipping costs for a 125 pound amplifier. There isn't a new car dealership I am aware of that doesn't also have a pre-owned lot that generates large amounts of profit as often as possible. When I worked at audio shops that took trades on audio gear, the pre-owned department was thought of as a service to help clients move up to better gear and was not a high profit area for the dealer - all of them also offered a consignemt sale which netted the dealer 10% of the sale price of the old gear and then they paid commission to the salesperson out of that. Ask any new car dealer if they could survive on the profit generated from new car sales alone and you would very likely get an answer you don't seem to have taken into account in your reply.

The bottom line, however, is you still buy from one of the dealers who offered the service of a test drive and had the product in stock locally. No one here is disputing the simple truth that an audio shopper might visit several local dealers and then not buy from all but one of them.

Sorry, I feel your comparison is pineapples to Toyotas.

Post deleted by Stephen Mejias

Great post Jan. High-end audio sales is really different from ANY other business that comes to my mind. Most dealers are only 1 or 2% profit away from closing

Lots of tightwads complained about fair trade laws in the 1960's and 70's. They never got anywhere because all dealers were willing to work within certain guidelines with any client. Didn't you read the line about a discount being offered on a system sale? Name me one manufacturer who got put out of business by Fair Trade lawsuits. Name me one dealership that went under because they wouldn't work with customers. If we offered you an extended warranty on the equipment or complete delivery and set up for no cost, we were not in violation of the Fair Trade laws. Of, course, that doesn't matter to someone who only looks as far as their nose and is willing to cut off that nose in spite of their face. Fair Trade went the way of the dodo because the laws never applied to the real world.

When you shop only by discount off retail, don't you know there's some other schmuck who is doing the same thing? So how do you know you got the best deal and the lowest price? You don't! So, if you didn't get the best deal and lowest price, what's the point? If I sold every Large Advent in a walnut cabinet at the same $127 price, then everyone gets the same fair deal. You don't have to go home and think someone might have got a lower price than you did. You can sit and listen to you music. Of, course, that's not good enough for people like you.

So what happens to appease fools like you? The US car manufacturers offer $5,000 discounts on their vehicles. Wow! $5k off a Yukon when Honda wants to discount their Civic by $200. Which one would you buy?

And that's part of how the US automobile companies got to where they are today - with Toyota taking over from GM as the largest manufacturer in the world. And that's why a Honda Civic still has one of the highest residuals in the auto business.

Don't give me that tired old BS about discounts, dup. I've been there for the last thirty years and I've heard all the reasons for why discounts are good for business and I've seen literally dozens of companies that discounted to sell product end up going out of business and nobody missed them except the people who then wanted their broken gear serviced and bitched about the dealer going out of business. Here you go, sir, let me serve you a bit more of your own nose.

What's the matter with you, dup? Do you simply ignore everything that doesn't fit into your tiny, little, misguided, preconceived universe? Good grief, dup, wake up!

How many people own a washing machine in today's economy? OK. So it's not the same as the small percentage who own high end audio. How many manufacturers of washing machines are there to look at? OK, so that's not the same as the thousands of possible high end audio companies you could shop. Do you ask the washing machine guy to do a few loads of your dirty laundry and compare the results to another few machines doing a few more loads? Do you have a reference for "clean clothes" for comparison?

Oh, right, you don't use a reference for hifi either, do you dup?

So what's your point, dup? Or, as usual, do you not have one?

It's very likely a dealership will try to forget a client like you, dup. But, believe me, your stench sticks around like the aroma of spoiled fish.

Nice thought Alex, but do you know how much you have to charge in labor for it to be profitable? Consider the expenses

1. two full time employees who have brains and use them, because many high end products are far too heavy for one person to handle safely.
2. Health care for said employees
3. Vehicle costs (vehicle, insurance, fuel, maintenance)
for two vehicles. The second vehicle so that when they are working with smaller components they can do jobs separately. Of course we are talking about big vans so the fuel costs are through the roof.
4. Tools
5. Other insurances to cover possible damage to homeowners property.

I just left a high end retailer about 6 months ago and I can tell you that we were charging $110 an hour for two guys and labor WAS NOT profitable. It was near break even.

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Perhaps they should consider just being nicer to the people who walk in.

This from the guy who says (paraphrasing), "I can't stand to be in the company of audio dealers", and, "They get what they deserve." You get back what you bring to the party, Alex. You have been labeled a pariah, a leper, and a blood sucking parasite by the local dealers. How do you expect dealers to treat such an individual? Think two way street here, fella.

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Well, then perhaps they should take a cue from the auto retailers and offer SERVICES for which they can charge and make that their main line of income

Hey, Alex, since when have you wanted to pay for services? The local dealer offers the service of an audition against other models of interest, he offers the service of having the product in stock, she offers the service of same day delivery and return and assistance if there's a problem. The local brick and mortar dealer offers lots of services that have been pointed out to you and you have rejected them all as "the cost of doing business" and underhanded schemes for making you buy from them. You've even called the dealers dishonest for suggesting they should get a higher price for their services because you don't want their installation services and you don't care about after the sale service. All you care about is your own bloody cheap price.

You don't want to pay for services!

You don't want to pay for any service that would cost you one single penny more that you can spend from some garage operated "I'll order it when you pay for it" rat bastard owned shop on the internet. So don't hang your hat on that line of BS, Alex. You are simply rationalising your way out of playing fair and in the process you are not being consistent. If I have to give anything to dup, it's that he is consistent. His ideas are always f***ed up.

dup brought up fair trade laws. You know what's fair? Everybody pays the same price. Now that's fair - fair to the client and fair to the dealer. You want a model for that business decision? Honda. Low discounts, when possible, and the highest residuals year after year and high sales year after year. Now, you want a business model for your way of doing business? The Yukon. $5k just for opening your local newspaper (Which is also a rip, eh, Alex? $1.25 for news you can get for less somewhere else!) and another $5k off the moment the bumper leaves the dealer's driveway. Go ask a bank what the residual is on a two year old Yukon. Yeah, GM can make it up by financing that same product at an inflated residual hoping to ship all of the returns leases to Mexico. Now that's a business model to be proud of. It cost them $15 billion in losses this past quarter.

The only thing guys like you are interested in is paying the lowest price. Well, like dup says, only one of you ever pays the lowest price so the rest of you are all loosers by your own model of how business works. All of you - Loosers! How's it feel, Looser?

Why is it that the two people most committed to discounts above all else and who have the most unreasonable concepts of how a small cottage industry business should operate are the two people who have never worked any retail job?

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You are correct. I do not wish to pay for services, but that's me. *I* don't want to pay for services. Someone else finds value in it. All I'm saying is: separate the price of the gear from the price of the services. This way, those who wish to pay for the services, get to do so and those who do not wish to pay for these services just get the discounted gear.

AlexO-

This is an interesting idea and in some ways I agree with it in some scenarios. For example, if you were to contact a number of dealers that carried the same product, not receive a demo and ask no question other than "what's your best price on XYZ" then promise to require no delivery or service after the sale of any kind then you would be golden as far as I was concerned.

Most people don't do that they exploit the system to try to get the best of both worlds. They want to go to a dealer, receive a demo, ask numerous questions, then try to find it cheaper through an internet reseller or on the used market. Then use the dealer to help handle warranty issues. Any reasonable person would agree that th dealer is really being taken advantage of in that situation.

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Ok, first of all, if you're going to get on DUP's case about misspelling "teh", then I suggest you open a dictionary and find out the difference between "lose" and "loose".

Oh, that does take the wind out my argument, doesn't it?

I never have given dup grief over how he constantly misspells "teh". I have given dup grief over his total lack of spelling skills and inability to proof read his posts and mostly I have given dup grief over his complete lack of ideas, the few of which he holds on to cannot be communicated with any sense of comprehension when read on this forum. What's dup got to do with your argument, Alex? Surely you're not showing your allegiance to dup here, eh?

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Secondly, that quote makes very little sense. There can be multiple people paying the same low price. It's not a matter of competition among consumers.

Well, sure it is. I've never met anyone intent on getting the lowest price and the biggest discount who also wasn't fixated over the lowest price and the biggest discount. Otherwise, you wouldn't expect the dealer to accept the lowest deal in the first place and you wouldn't refer to dealers as "leeches". How am I supposed to take you seriously when you constantly betray your animosity toward anyone trying to play fair?

And I do speak from a position of experience dealing with people who are fixated on the lowest price and biggest discount, Alex, while you are speaking only from a position of rationalising your actions. Your only experience is one you consider foul and distasteful and only from the buyer's side of the deal. That doesn't make for a convincing argument no matter how you gussy it up and end up being more and more inconsistent in your arguments. Your argument, as I remember it from our first discussion of this topic, was that you "deserved" a better hifi than you could afford at dealer prices and, therefore, the local dealer "deserved" to give it you no matter their costs. I suppose I should be thankful you haven't pulled that one out in this thread though I do suspect you haven't altered your opinion on that matter. You "deserve" the lowest price because you went on line and found some schlub working out of his basement who is willing to order it and have it drop shipped to your address.

Right!

First, you argue the dealer should accept the services as a part of doing business, then that the dealer "entices" you with services and then that the dealer should build his business model on services you don't want to pay for and now you don't care about services at all. It's hard to follow that model and I don't think it's being taught in any business school.

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Thirdly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get the biggest discount one can get and shopping around to get that price.

Alex, are you just ignoring that we all agree that everyone should pay the least amount for the most possible? And that the dealer should be allowed to make a "fair" profit from their expenditures - well, some of us are talking about that last point.

That's not what's in dispute and you know it. It is not about "the discount", do you still not get that at all? It's about what's fair to everyone involved and not bringing in unfair competition to force down the fairness level to just one of the participants - the local dealer. It's like hustling pool, Alex, or fixing a bet. If you don't want what the dealer has to offer, don't even go to the dealer. If you go to the dealer, then be fair with the dealer.

What part of that can you not get into your head? That's what we are discussing. What are you talking about?

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You are correct. I do not wish to pay for services, but that's me. *I* don't want to pay for services. Someone else finds value in it. All I'm saying is: separate the price of the gear from the price of the services. This way, those who wish to pay for the services, get to do so and those who do not wish to pay for these services just get the discounted gear.

Then why did you pretend you were interested in paying for those services? I get the feeling this is how you do business. I'll do this if you do that but then you don't end up doing what you promised. That's not how "fair" works.

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The problem with this paradigm, as I see it, is that dealers really don't provide enough value for the services they offer to have people actually pay for them when given a choice. So, I suggest that if they are to stay in business, they should figure out how to provide an actual value rather than being financial leeches in the distribution chain.

The problem with that paragraph, as I see it, is that anyone who goes into a dealership truly convinced the dealer is a "financial leech" is never going to be satisfied with whatever the dealer tries to make happen. You don't want services, you want a discount - period. But you throw up services as a smoke screen that is supposed to divert my attention while you pull the Ace from your sleeve. Please, Alex, stop pretending this would even happen with you. You are fixated on the lowest price and the biggest discount and you don't care what the local dealer's situation is. I know. I've talked to way too many "Alex's" in my day to not know exactly how you think.

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I know exactly what I want to hear and I ask to hear it.

What happened to the Alex who didn't even want the sales staff to talk to him and didn't want them to demonstrate the equipment? He was here just a few pages back.

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I don't ask for advice, I don't ask questions, I "waste" as little of their time as possible.

But you take time to look in their price book (computer). That's big of you, Alex.

If that's how you really do business, Alex, you don't need the local dealer at all. Ask the on line dealer what stuff sounds like since the on line dealer is the one you want to do business with and the one you "trust". <cough, cough> The system never sounds the same at the dealer's as it does at your house anyway. The difference is the local dealer will help you when you find that out.

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Once I get my price, I will contact the dealer again, (provided they didn't rub me the wrong way the first time around) and I will give them an opportunity to give me their best price.

Yep, hard to imagine anyone rubbing anyone the wrong way in this scenario.

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If they come close to my best price, I will consider purchasing from the dealer. If they don't, I will thank them for their time and I will purchase elsewhere.

Sorry, Alex, I'm not buying this "thanking" them and it is big of you to "consider" buying from the local dealer.

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Perhaps this is where all of this animosity is stemming from: I assumed that everyone who shopped online did this.

Right! And dup assumes everyone must have 5k watts of amplifier power. Never questions it as a matter of fact.

How long has it been since we first discussed this, Alex? Nobody agreed with you then. And you still haven't looked around and said, "Hmmm ... "?

So does this mean you'll change your ways since no one here is agreeing with you?

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Having said that, I also noticed that most dealership idle 95% of the time, so it's not like you're taking time of the sales person from another customer since there are usually no other customers present.

Oh, my! Now there's a rationalisation for you. They're not busy so they must not be paying rent or utilities or insurance, salaries, cost of a company vehicle, planning for their retirement, calling past clients to check up and provide those services you're not willing to pay for, reading about and listening to the equipment they do and don't sell so they can be better informed when someone who does asks questions can be provided with the correct information, auditioning new product so they can stay abreast of the competition or ...

Alex!!!

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In any event, bitching and moaning about the Internet or the evil online purchasers will do nothing to firm up the dealerships' bottom line. Perhaps they should take a second look at their business model and practices and see what can be done to assure their survival. Obviously, charging list price without offering the type of value that potential customers would be willing to pay for isn't working.

That is so pathetic it doesn't deserve comment.

You know, Alex, part of what pisses me off so much about how your approach this is, in your view, there are no repercussions from what you do. This is all about one deal and how the dealer should operate to make you - and you only - happy. No matter how distasteful I find your actions what really annoys me is that you ignore the benefits to be had in the long term. You ignore the fact the way you shop is more likely to cost someone else higher prices at all dealerships. You ignore the fact the dealership might not exist in a year's time if "everyone who shopped online did this". Most of all you ignore that this is a local business person trying to put something back into their local community. You ignore the lost wages to the local employees and the lost revenue to the city to provide more services to everyone. You ignore the fact the wages paid locally mean someone in your town buys a house and plants a tree and makes their neighborhood better rather than just going off to work at WalMart or 7-11. When someone locally has more cash they can spend it at other local dealers and spread the wealth around. You ignore the old adage that a rising tide lifts all boats. You ignore the basic fabric of your community when you screw the local business people.

That you can't see beyond your own nose is really infuriating. It's the same thing that makes dup so aggravating. You're in it for yourself and nobody else counts. That's so short sighted it's almost unbelievable - if it weren't so damn true.

That doesn't deserve a response. You're not only a fool, you are a creepy fool.

Quote:
I don't think it's inappropriate to take advantage of the pre-sale facilities to sample the systems you're considering in the most unobtrusive way possible.

If you actually make effort to demo a component "in the most unobtrusive way possible" it is clear that you understand that what you are doing is taking something from the dealer with ill-intent.

If you really thought what you are doing is right, you wouldn't bother to be unobtrusive.

I have suspected all along that you fully understand the consequences of the actions you propose and are just enjoying playing devil's advocate.