Back in 2000 and 2001 I was selling tons of Polar products on EBAY. I
had no storefront, so I could price my items lower than what you'd find
in a retail store. When I started selling on EBAY there were very few
sellers of Polar items and I cleaned up.
Then the number of sellers and the number of auctions increased
dramatically. Polar then changed their warranty policy so the wording
you quoted, and which shows up on their website here:
http://polarusa.com/service_repair/warranty_con.asp.
To my knowledge they never changed the printed warranty included with
the items, but I know I heard from a couple of customers back then that
Polar was denying warranty coverage. And it didn't matter whether you
bought it from an authorized dealer or not - as long as it was bought
off EBAY Polar would not honor the warranty.
Seems they did this to protect their brick and mortar retail outlets,
and those online sites that they could impose a "recommended" minimum
selling price.
I agree it seems unfair that after you bought their item from,
supposedly, and authorized dealer, that just because it was from EBAY
Polar won't honor the warranty.
If I was that kind of person, one way to get warranty coverage w/b to
buy another of the same model at a local store, get the receipt, and
then return it, keeping the receipt to send in to Polar. I don't
advocate doing it, but I know others who have done so.
