Here is something new that I ran into...

[KE4AVB]

Any of you guys seen a note like this from any of your parts vendors?



How in the heck I am going to sell the parts since I am the only consignee identified on the invoice? According to the above I am not allowed to sell the parts or is this just a bunch of bulls**t.

And who do I call or contact in the U.S. government for such approval? Since when does the U.S. government controls lawnmower parts? Of contacting the government may take up to several years to get any thing approved or denied considering how slow they are at doing anything other than telling lies.

This was on an invoice for mower blades.

[bgsengine]

which vendors or brands? Might be related to the china trade problems - the chinese have become notorious for quickly copying new, popular parts within months of their first being available, most of them get their 1 or two "originals" from ebay or amazon sellers to reverse-engineer them. I also know it has applied for years on select high-tech or military grade stuff (Some sporting goods, for example, cannot be exported without license, Riflescopes for instance) However , it only ever applied to EXPORTING the products outside the USA. The weird thing about that note though, if you read it right, is you can't even sell the items to your own customers... I seriously doubt there is any such law on the books , and the vendor is playing mind games, trying to stifle online sellers that compete with 'em.. It would be direct violation of first sale doctrine - when you buy something you own it, and no one can prevent you from selling it to anyone you choose. (However manufacturer CAN refuse to honor any warranties, etc so many products can't be sold as new, even if they are brand new in a sealed package, warranty would be void, thus not new.)

[KE4AVB]

That the way I understood it too. If that is correct then I just violated it as I sold 2 of the aftermarket blades to local customer the very next day after receiving them as I had received invoice from A&I Products with this note. A&I just took over Sunbelt Outdoors Products and it is very first invoice I received from them. I got an email to my new sales rep for an explanation. She email back Sunday evening she knew nothing about so she got to talk with the higher ups to find what this means too.

All I know right now is that what little experience I had with A&I Products so far, its time to dump them. I really like those heated XTH blades and so do my customers as they were lasting twice as longer. It is same company that refused to honor the Briggs warranty even they are the distributor. They really screw up a nice vendor that I have work with for 10+ yrs. But of course the regular JD dealer got to a real pain to deal with too and A&I is under the John Deere group umbrella.

I sure hope this is not now the new norm that put all the shops out business as we can't legally sale what we buy to repair equipment; unless, we give up our customers information on every sale and wait until we get an authorization in writing to complete the sale. Too much like Communism to me.

And I see Photobucket is giving you some trouble too.