Price fixing much, unfortunately your little cartel you have going would be considered illegal under US antitrust laws. Yet another reason not to do business with these 3 companies.
It isn't "price fixing". MAP (minimum advertised pricing policies) are an industry standard in the aftermarket performance and upgrade business. Companies like Rigid, Vision X, ICON, FOX and many many others have minimum advertised prices that they require dealers to adhere to to maintain their authorized dealer status. Some companies will not honor a warranty claim if the customer cannot prove that they paid that MAP price when they originally purchased the products.
As for the assertion that this issue is a reason not to purchase from "these three companies.
1. SVC and Freedom Motorsports got into a pricing war. It got heated and became public. That was indeed handled wrong with unauthorized points to both companies by a sales manager at PC that is now no longer with their company as a result.
2. Pedal Commander did not actually authorize the "commandment" that we must sell at $299 period, that was a misunderstanding that arose from the unauthorized actions of that same sales manager.
3. That sales manager was also responsible for the different promotional codes on other forums offering different discounts to different forums.
4. Pedal Commander, has actually handled the issue on their end quite well. Making sure that SVC and Freedom know what they are authorized to do and how. SVC and Freedom have worked out our differences and come to a solution that is actually pretty good for everyone, including the forum members as a whole.
As for the way that PC has handled themselves in this thread, while I would handle some things differently, their attempt at being involved in the first place, trying at all to smooth things over is more than I have seen many other manufacturers do in a long time. The bed side manner may leave a little to be desired, but the slamming from forum members for what is essentially a misunderstanding is unwarranted. They are a business, in business to make a profit. As are all manufacturers out there with similar and larger markup profit margins. They offer a decent product at a reasonable price point and do indeed allow their authorized dealers to provide for discounts to their customers. They got to the bottom of what was happening and why and handled it, up front and in person so to speak. That speaks volumes to me. especially when I have seen companies, some of which have been vendors on this forum, that have had issues arise and never once tried to handle the issues in any way, much less putting themselves out there in the open and attracting the criticism I have seen in this thread.
In the end, it isn't price fixing and there definitely isn't anything illegal about it or against US antitrust laws. That is simply a wrong assessment.
and for that I apologize.
