Guys, I would strongly recommend only buying through the official Amazon website to be fully protected (in whatever country).
I have noticed a lot of pop up shops with no track record asking people to contact them before buying - which sounds dodgy to me and probably is?
I was covered by amazons A-Z cover though and they refunded my money.
They definitely are dodgy and Amazon is full of them at present! I tested the theory and placed an order... obviously it never came
The marketplace accounts are genuine but they get hacked and populated with fake items at great prices and a message asking you to contact them via email first to enquire about the item. They email you back with an even better offer than the amazon price they had listed and ask you to send them your details, with a promise that Amazon will contact you with a money request. I never went this far, but this is obviously the point at which you would receive a fake amazon email asking for funds. I confirmed this was fake, simply by trying to purchase the item through the amazon market place and then looking up the details on the amazon seller and contacting them. Lo and behold, they had no idea what I was talking about! As I had made the payment through Amazon it was returned to me the next day.
Avoid these like the plague
I'm no legal expert, but I believe unofficial price standardisation in the UK runs something like the distribution model of a famous fruit based company: goods have a retail price (on sale on the manufacturers store or website) and are sold to other stores/distributors at a fixed rate on the understanding they won't undercut the official Fruit Store produce by more than a few % (not including bonus offers/included accessories etc). If the store then drops their own margin to undercut the maker by more than the agreed amount, our fruity friend refuses to sell them any more stock.
It's legal as the manufacturer aren't obliged to sell their stock to anybody, so it's just a way round the produce fixing legalities in practice. Want to sell our gear? Do it at our prices. This occurs across multiple industries and product types, but can be frustrating nonetheless.
That's why dealing direct with companies like Trinity is refreshing - at least you know the lettuce on offer is the one Bob plucked out of the sky, not the one he's being forced to sell it for by the makers!
Anyway, back to headphones - looking forward to the PM4 landing shortly as per Bob's last post. Hoping they get the UK batch out by the weekend so I've got a new toy to play with next week...
