SM

I never complain about my bad experiences but the one I’ve been through today gotta be the worst one of them. My intentions are to help somebody who decides to deal with "Audio Creations" in the future and alert their current customers.
I’m in the market for a new TV and receiver. After reading this forum and some other online resources, I settled on Toshiba TW65X81 TV and Marantz SR-7000 receiver. I figured it would set me back ~5-6K for the TV and ~700 for the receiver, bringing it up to ~6-7K total. In about month and a half I plan to sell some of my stock that I got real cheap and use it to finance my big purchase (at least it’s big to me).

"Audio Creations" is an authorized dealer of Marantz stuff so I decided to stop by that supposedly high-end audio store and audition SR-7000. I took 4 DVDs and 4 CDs with me to go through some extensive testing. When I walked into that store, I had about 50 minutes to spare. I had a meeting ahead in about an hour. I asked owner’s permission to audition SR-7000 and he led me to one of his smaller audition rooms. He (Mr. Haim Belisha) was polite and helpful, had it all powered up for me and left me alone to test the stuff. I’ve run out of time and had to leave but still had about 20 minutes of auditioning left do. I said to the owner that I’d either be back after my meeting today or was going to come back tomorrow. There was the first red flag. He said something like this: "you need to decide soon because this model is very popular and in high demand". When I was walking towards my car I said to myself: "wait a minute, I think I’ll decide when I needed it and not when I’m told so". I had quickly forgotten about what he said though.

I had an opportunity to come back to that place today and I did. After completing the remaining part of my audition, I decided to talk to the owner about $$$ and availability. I mentioned that I’d also be interested in getting 65” HDTV ready TV from him. I had asked him what would be the best price that he could give me. Of course, his answer started with question of when I was going to buy it. I answered "in about month and a half". His reply to me was that he’d sell me Marantz at $$$ (which sounded like MSRP to me) and he wasn’t sure about price on Toshiba. I said that I’d really like to shop locally and would appreciate if he can try to give me the best price he can. After him taking a phone call, which gave some time to regroup, we continued. I said, "look, I’d really like to get that stuff from you but you gotta give me some $ figure for comparison reasons. Remember, I can always get the same stuff online." *Online* word was a flipper for him. He had gotten very defensive, started saying the he doesn’t sell online, he doesn’t haggle, and he sells mostly full package systems and individual pieces is not his main concern. I tried to interrupt him politely to insure him that I was just making a point that MSRP is not good enough for me. Well, I just couldn’t stop him. His voice was getting louder and louder. I tried it one more time. I asked him to calm down and mentioned that if we reach an agreement I’d more likely bring him another customer, a friend of mine who’s interested in the same TV but is not sure about receiver yet. That didn’t help either. His response was "I wasted 2 hours on you today" and "come back when you’re ready to buy". At this point I was steaming too. I said that he needed to learn how to treat his customers with respect if he wanted to stay in business any longer. Guess what he did? He got up and walked out of the room mumbling the same "come back when you’re ready to buy" sh*t. I got up and said that I’d never ever come back to his store again and that I will tell all of my friends about it and share my experience with all of you here. And here I’m doing just that .

OK, I’m done with my venting for today. Sorry for a long message but I needed to let it out. Thanks for listening.

STAY AWAY FROM "AUDIO CREATIONS" IN ATALNTA.

4KRG

SM

I think at one point or another we have all dealt with a saleman/owner like this. If these guys could see the future they would realize they are not in it!

I have a local snob prick dealer like that (Myer-Emco) that refuses to sell anything more than 5% off list price. I go there and waste as much of their time as I can without wasting my own. I go out of my way to call and ask stupid questions just to annoy them. Funny thing is they could have all my business, and my friends, if they would just give me an OK price. I guess they would rather make nothing if they can't make their 1000% markup, makes no sense to me.

On a side note Marantz might be interested to hear of your experience, they do not tolerate this crap from their authorized dealers. Just mention in your letter to them that they lost a sale because of this guy/store. There are ways to fix him.

tgewin

Thanks for the heads-up SM. I'm a student at Tech (graduate in May, woohoo!!), and will probably be shopping around for some speakers (L, R, C, and maybe sub--I already have some to use as rears). I'll stay away from them.

What part of town are you in? Who have you had good experiences with at this point? I mostly want to demo some Paradigm and NHT stuff, but I'm certainly open to other brands and will listen to what's around.

SM

4KRG, thanks for your support. I though about calling Marantz but I think letter would better.

tgewin, I'm in Alpharetta. That was the closest dealer to my house and I had them checked out first. That was my first experience with high-end dealers in Atlanta area. I hope the rest of them won't be that bad. Next on my list to check is "Stereo Festival II" in Gwinett. If that won't work out, I'll check place called "Sound & Cinema". Good luck to you.

Furious

SM: I totally know how you feel in situations like this. There is another chain store here by the name of Future Shop who have an elite team of salesman cut from the same mould as the person you spoke to. IMHO any store that sells home audio/video and isn't willing to move on prices is a complete and utter waste of time. I shop at another chain here (A&B Sound) and the services/prices are amazing. I have built an entire home theater from them, never having paid more then $10 over their cost on an item. I simply ask the sales person whats the best price he can do on a particular item and he promptly takes me over to their computer system, brings up their inventory and shows me the entire price point history of the item, including their cost. As they are on commission they are more than willing to let me have an item at or near their cost, especially if it means more business to them in the future. Also on more than one occassion I have gotten them to price match to a point where the item was well below their cost and they sold it with no hassles. Any store selling such items should operate like this, or at least be willing to shift on their prices. Items are marked up quite high on many occassions and they know it. A professional salesperson will take this into consideration and haggle down with you, as it makes good sense for both parties. In your case I find it even more ridiculous considering the amount of money that you were willing to spend. Any store that wont budge when your spending over 5g belongs in the same trash heap as divx, in store credit cards (with their 25-30% interest rates), etc. Hopefully you'll find some better local stores where they are more friendly, I'm sure there are some there.

billedmonds

BTW

A&B sound and Future Shop employees do NOT have access to actual cost price in their' computers. They have access only to "minimum sales price".