Hi Members,
Alex contacted me about this Group Buy and I received his email a couple hours ago asking if the 7 people were okay. I emailed back saying that was fine since there seems to be good support and momentum going here. I did noticed another seller jumping in and undercutting us so I felt the need to respond.
I'm not sure how long TLC Autosport has been in business. So far as I can tell, their business license was issued on 3/15/2008. We have been in business for 9.5 years (check our domain on any registrar's WHOIS service). We're also members of the Better Business Bureau with a "AA" rating (which is only earned over time). We've also been doing business with IPCW since around the time they almost started as a business as well. We have a full ecommerce website established all these years at
http://www.matrixracing.com. We can be contacted toll free at 866-628-7493. We've had a presence on ebay since 1999 with a previous username and with our current user name, since 2001.
As a consumer myself, I like to buy my products from somewhere I know that's been around for awhile and has some track record. Saving a few dollars, to me, isn't worth the unknown in the future. To honor a warranty, a company has to actually exist long enough to honor it. We get calls every day from customers who buy things from companies that seemingly vaporize (especially on ebay) and want help with their products. We can't help since we never sold them the product and the manufacturers usually honor warranties through the original distributor (otherwise they assume it's bought through a non-authorized method).
I have no experience with TLC, so I can't speak one way or the other. They may be fine upstanding individuals getting started and that's great. I do feel, however, it's a bit unscrupulous when a sale has already been established that they jump in. I helped out one member here to get the ball rolling and felt that our company would be rewarded down the line. If assisting members results in other companies reaping the benefits of our efforts, it is somewhat distasteful. We aren't in the practice of watching group buys and then going in and saying we can beat that price a few dollars. That other company did the work so why should we benefit? There are many times we could have undercut another company's deal when a member comes to us from a forum asking if we can beat the other company, but we don't. It's not ethical and sometimes, we might even want to work with that company later. Our reputation and goodwill not only among customers, our dealers, and our vendors is more important.
I wrote back Alex, but he hasn't posted my response to him here. I apologize that I haven't contacted you through the forum directly as I left that up to Alex to do for us. We can offer the price out the door, so the shipping will be free within the continental US. Shipping is typically $20-$25. If you're in HI, AK, PR, VI, GU, APO/AE, then it would be $30. USPS has gotten very expensive lately since they switched to dimensional weights last May 2007. We take all major credit cards as well as PayPal. Again, you can call us 10a-6pm pst at 866-628-7493 and mention the Monte Carlo Forum Group Buy price. Anyone who orders these lights by Thursday will have their them next week guaranteed (except for any shipping problems by the carrier).
Should you have any further questions, you can contact us
sales@matrixracing.com or call us.
Thank you,
Alex
