K
kfandre
Guest
What is the name of your state? Texas
Puchase location is New York, via Internet.
Is it leagal for a manufacturer to deny warranty coverage on a product based soley on the fact that the product was not bought from an "Authroized Dealer"? I'm referring specificly to a high end home theater component manufacturer, Denon. It is their stated policy, http://www.usa.denon.com/home/, to void the warranties on all products not purchased through an authorized seller.
I havent bought the product yet but in shopping around I've found amost a 40% - 50% difference in price between authroized dealers and so called non-authorized online dealers. The products themselves are no different and often wind up in un-authorized channels because authroized dealers over buy in order to receive quantity discounts. Then they sell their surplus to discounters. Most often these discounters don't mention Denon's policy and advertise the products as having a 2 year manufacturers warranty.
Besides being an obious attempt at price fixing, from a consumer's point of view this is a rather deceptive practice. How can can a consumer be expected to police a manufaturer's suplier network for them? Afterall, a Denon receiver, is a Denon reciever, is a Denon receiver no matter where the product came from.
My question then is what consumer laws should one reference in trying to force a manufacturer to honor their warranty. Also, have there been cases tried in the past on this point? Are manufacturer's liable for FTC imposed penalties if they refuse to honor their explicit warranty? If you were to draft a theatening letter detailing all of their violations of the law and the remedies that you could potentially pursue, what would you put in it?
thanks,
Kevin
Puchase location is New York, via Internet.
Is it leagal for a manufacturer to deny warranty coverage on a product based soley on the fact that the product was not bought from an "Authroized Dealer"? I'm referring specificly to a high end home theater component manufacturer, Denon. It is their stated policy, http://www.usa.denon.com/home/, to void the warranties on all products not purchased through an authorized seller.
I havent bought the product yet but in shopping around I've found amost a 40% - 50% difference in price between authroized dealers and so called non-authorized online dealers. The products themselves are no different and often wind up in un-authorized channels because authroized dealers over buy in order to receive quantity discounts. Then they sell their surplus to discounters. Most often these discounters don't mention Denon's policy and advertise the products as having a 2 year manufacturers warranty.
Besides being an obious attempt at price fixing, from a consumer's point of view this is a rather deceptive practice. How can can a consumer be expected to police a manufaturer's suplier network for them? Afterall, a Denon receiver, is a Denon reciever, is a Denon receiver no matter where the product came from.
My question then is what consumer laws should one reference in trying to force a manufacturer to honor their warranty. Also, have there been cases tried in the past on this point? Are manufacturer's liable for FTC imposed penalties if they refuse to honor their explicit warranty? If you were to draft a theatening letter detailing all of their violations of the law and the remedies that you could potentially pursue, what would you put in it?
thanks,
Kevin