Originally Posted by
ColinL
I simply refuse to believe that. Total fish story. The scale some of the largest sellers on ebay operate upon is highly unlikely to be fraudulent or outwardly criminal in nature. They have hundreds of items online at any given time, operating in plain sight, and nearly all purchases are electronic. That's not a good way to conceal criminal behavior.
Now, what they are doing in terms of avoiding US-based distribution rules, that is improper at the least and possibly/probably illegal. But the goods are not at all stolen and the worst any purchaser need fear is that the warranty may not be valid, if they even require warranty work. Some vendors appear to not care and will offer warranty repair/replacement for items regardless of where/how purchased.
No fish story. 2 seconds on google and I pulled this up - having remembering reading about it. -
http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/...tail/3701.html
Also, like I mentioned before a Performance store manager basically would advertise on ebay and then fill orders through the stores accounts or via a "red Phone" scam - taking the red phone order and confirming local payment without actually paying and then intercepting the shipment on arrival.
Also - It's not hard to automate the QBP catalog. That's what everyone already does. When the order is place you order the part from QBP and have it next day. Easy to sell at a loss if you didn't pay for it.
I don't get why you don't want to believe that this happens. In every instance I have found the guys are eventually caught and fired, but they did if for literally years before anyone caught on.
I think you are trying to make some sort of assumption that I am somehow saying that all parts that seem to be well priced are nefarious. I am not and I haven't. I simply stated that they are suspect - could be stolen, fenced, or gray market. The vast majority are grey market.
As for those talking about pricing at a huge discount....this is in essence what came out of the anti-trust suits in the early part of the 20th century. Remember that the suits were about unfair competition for local mom and pop grocery stores because they couldn't buy produce at the prices that the A&P were selling the produce for because the A&P had huge buying power. This is where cost equity in similar markets became a talking point. The problem today is in how you try to quantify the market. Back in the day it was easy....today it is world wide.....good luck regulating that.