poor customer support from EARTHQUAKE, do not buy!

[HTenthusiast]

If you want a company that cares about customers, DO NOT BUY FROM EARTHQUAKE!!!!

I purchased the MKIV-10 new from a reseller on Ebay. The subwoofer itself has a nice fit/finish. However the sub starting clipping/cutting out when playing very bass heavy movies at moderate volume. The output was also WAY less than I expected. I emailed Earthquake tech support for help. This is when i found out THEY WILL NOT HONOR THEIR WARRANTY IF THEIR PRODUCT IS BOUGHT VIA EBAY OR ONLINE.

How utterly rediculous. Regardless of who you bought the product from, a company that cares about its customer will honor a warranty if it was a new product. There is no valid reason not to honor it. In this day an age, a huge amount of products are bought via Ebay, and to not honor those purchases is ludicrous.

Instead of being apologetic or concerned, they took an attitude of "not our problem" and brushed me off in curt manner and will not help me.

Definetly not the way a company should treat customers.

[brulaha]

Most companies will not honor warranties if not bought through an authorized reseller. I'm sorry to hear you’re unhappy, but I wouldn't blame earthquake. The product you bought my have been damaged prior to making it's way to ebay. Can't fault them for someone else's negligence.

[HTenthusiast]

The ebay seller DOES work for one of their authorized dealers.
But regardless, most companies WILL honor a warranty if bought on ebay, hell, most companies don't even ask where you bought it. Sony, panasonic, sharp, etc........buy a product on ebay and you can still have it serviced under warranty.

However, if that is their policy, fine, but if they really cared about their customers they would have been apologetic and tried to help me in another way instead of just brushing me off rudely.

The written warranty they put with the product makes no mention of excluding sales on Ebay.
It says warranty is 2 years if INSTALLED (not sold, installed.....I doubt many dealers drive to your house and hookup your sub for you) by an authorized dealer, and 90 days if not. So according to their own paperwork, I should still get a 90 day warranty.

[bacchanal]

Basically all manufacturers of high/mid-fi gear that do not sell direct will not honor online/ebay sales. The reason for this is that they want to protect the dealers... the hi-fi audio shops. A lot of times you have to go through an authorized dealer to get your warranty worked out.

It works this way in many industries, not just audio/video.

Especially if you're buying on ebay, I would pretty much assume that you're never going to get a valid waranty, even if you buy from a shop.

[N. Abstentia]

Welcome to the wonderful world of buying grey market gear from a person not authorized to sell it.

Next time my guess is you'll actually visit a real store and not some online flea market.

[hershon]

For the last few years I've noticed a significant trend in companies such as Paypal, Ebay, etc.,, that if you initially approach politely and reasonably to them, they'll spit in your face & the only way to get them to do what you requested in the first place is contact them and act like a totally deranged obsessed psycho to them- honestly. You should threaten legal action, say you're going to your congressman and local TV reporting station, a few newspapers & also mention a group related to your religion and or minority, as you suspect (if you had an identifiable last name associated with a religion or a minority- you take a guess!, as you have been ripped off by them. In all likelyhood, based on my experience, they will refund your money and make ammends and send you a letter saying that they don't have to do this & imply that they are being kind to you.

[HTenthusiast]

Welcome to the wonderful world of buying grey market gear from a person not authorized to sell it.

Next time my guess is you'll actually visit a real store and not some online flea market.

Ebay is the largest online marketplace for the entire planet, not some grey market.

btw, the guy who sold it said he will take it back, send it in for service via the authorized dealer that he works for, and send me a new one in the meantime. so earthquake will end up fixing it anyway, and my online ebay seller is providing better customer service than them.

[drseid]

First off, I have had my share of Ebay deals go awry, so I can understand your feelings to some degree...

That said, buying off Ebay is indeed the grey market, and most likely your seller (whether he/she works at an authorized dealer or not) is *not* authorized to sell online by Earthquake. It is he/she who is in the wrong here,,, not Earthquake.

I am happy for you that your seller is willing to handle the repair by sending it back to Earthquake for repair, but technically he is again violating Earthquake's policy (and possibly the law) by mis-representing the return as a good that was purchased at his authorized store, when it was actually sold unauthorized on Ebay. My advice is to keep quiet about those kind of deals for obvious reasons.

Good luck with the subwoofer...

---Dave

[Lord_Magnepan]

I dont know any "good" company that honors warranty for products bought on ebay. Ebay kills their efforts in displaying their products with stable prices in a great store chain. Rather spend the 20 bucks more and go to a store.

-Florian

[HTenthusiast]

First off, I have had my share of Ebay deals go awry, so I can understand your feelings to some degree...

i have no problem with ebay.......in fact.........i have better experiences buying things on ebay than at any type of large store. the majority of large ebay sellers have over 5000 transactions with +99% positive feedback..............what large store can say that 99% of their customers are satisfied with them?

anyways, as i said above..........if EQ doesnt want to honor the warranty, thats fine, theyre entitled to their policy. however they should change their written warranty to reflect their policy, because it makes absolutely no mention of purchases outside of a direct dealer, it just mentions installation.

but the underlying message is that i am disatisfied with the manner and attitude in which they handled it..........they showed no concern or care towards their customer, and none of you would want any of your companies to do that, would you?

[Worf101]

Ebay is the largest online marketplace for the entire planet, not some grey market.

btw, the guy who sold it said he will take it back, send it in for service via the authorized dealer that he works for, and send me a new one in the meantime. so earthquake will end up fixing it anyway, and my online ebay seller is providing better customer service than them.

I do a lot of ebay transactions. I'm glad to hear you're gonna get some satisfaction in this case. I hate to see people stuck with broke stuff and pissy company support. I just bought a used 5 string bass from a guy on ebay who was... shall I say, less than forthcoming with the actual condition of the bass. But I got it at such a low price any repairs will still make the purchase a steal. Ebay will always be a caveat emptor process.

But even going through an authorized dealer is no guarentee of proper treatement I purchased my first DVD player, a Pioneer, via an authorized dealer. It was the worst piece of crap I ever saw. It died in less than 3 months. I wound up having to sic the Better Business Bureau on Pioneer to get satisfaction. They have made a life long enemy and I will take any opportunity I can to ruin them. So the truth of the matter is all purchases are crapshoots.

Da Worfster

[Woochifer]

Sorry, but you got the short end of the stick in search of a bargain. Good to hear that your online vendor decided to step up to the plate for you, but in this case it's not the manufacturer's fault at all. Earthquake is hardly alone in enforcing this kind of warranty policy. Yamaha, Klipsch, Denon, B&W, Paradigm, PSB, Energy, NHT, Dynaudio, and Boston Acoustics are just some of the companies that have equally strict policies about not providing warranty support to people who buy from online and other unauthorized vendors.

In this case, the online vendor can make any claim that they want regarding their "authorized" status. But, if the aftersales support or warranty is at all a concern with you, then these are questions that need to be asked BEFORE you commit your money, especially on Ebay where as others have correctly pointed out, I don't know of a single higher end audio company that authorizes their products to be sold through that channel if they have an authorized dealer network. All you had to do was contact Earthquake and ask them if this Ebay vendor is an authorized dealer that gets warranty support. If you don't ask the questions before you buy, then it's your own fault if you need aftersales support and it's not there for you.