Pricing Policies

[RndyPotter@aol.com]

- - - - - Original Stuff - - - - -

 If my memory serves me well, back in about 1984 the Reagonites
investigated PTG for price collusion and forced some major policy changes
on PTG.  This was about the same time they were busy deregulating the
savings and loan industry--which made a few wheelers and dealers rich and
which we'll all pay for for a long time.  So never underestimate the
stupidity of government.

Walter Sikora, RPT


At 05:09 PM 12/8/95 -0700, you wrote:
>I don't think that there are few enough tuners for "price fixing" to
>be a valid charge...it is usually used when there are just a few
>players, when their collusion leads to a virtual monopoly (no competition,
>so prices higher than what competition would induce).

>Steve Richardson


>  > Date:  Tue, 05 Dec 1995 07:58:06 -0700 (MST)
>  > From:  ATodd@UH.EDU
>  > To:    Multiple recipients of list <pianotech@byu.edu>
>
>  > Bill,
>  >    I wasn't asking for prices. I just wanted to know if anyone knew why
>  > some tuners charge more for grands than for verticals.
>  >
>  > ***********
>  >    That's fine if the teahers have a tuning price thread going. If we
tuners
>  > start one, the FTC will for sure give it a yank!
>  > ***********
>  >
>  >    Thanks.
>  >
>  > Avery Todd
>

There really is no bona fide documentation for this nonsense.  Just a letter
of opinion from an atty. who was practicing before the FTC.  FTC hearing
records, which are published as Federal documents show no hearings...

Horace>

Horace Greeley           Email: horace@compadept.com
CompAdept Corporation          Voice: (415) 988-9560 x203
1032 Elwell Court, Suite 240                   Fax: (415)   988-9905
Palo Alto, CA 94303-4309                       http://www.compadept.com

- - - - - New Stuff - - - - -

Thank you, Horace! With the exception of myself, I have not heard anyone else
admit, in public, that this whole FTC thing a dozen years ago was bogus.
It was bogus! Shadow dancing, at best.
And no, Walt, the Reaganites had nothing to do with anything with PTG back
then. We WERE NOT investigated by the FTC. And we were not going to be. Read
on.
Because of another incident involving a technician back east, we contacted
the FTC a couple years ago and had a search done. No record of PTG was found.
Further, they went so far as to state that to the best of their knowledge,
PTG was never even talked about by them, in any of their offices, let alone
"investigated", as we were told at the time.
But it has been told over, and over, and over, so many times that it has been
believed. Who was it that said "the only difference between the truth and a
lie is you have to repeat the lie more times to get people to believe it"?
At any rate, I had a long discussion with an FTC investigator, on several
occasions during that time period, and asked why was it the Teamsters and
AFL/CIO could not only discuss, but set, prices - but we were forbidden to
even discuss them?
Then I was on the hot seat, because she wanted to know why I thought we could
not? She said that there is no reason at all we could not discuss prices,
even at our meetings - provided the purpose of the meeting was not to set
prices, and provided nobody told anybody else they *had* to charge a certain
price, or specific hourly rate. Unions could demand a certain, set price, but
associations and guilds could only discuss them, not set them. That is the
difference, she said.
And yet, whenever anyone mentions the $ word, somebody who has been told
rumors for so many years jumps up and starts to scream "watch out or we will
all go to jail" language.
I was recently teaching at a Twin Cities meeting, and the subject of charging
came up, and they did have some valid concerns. Several years ago they had a
run-in with the state attorney general over what was purported to be a
price-fixing situation at the time. That was resolved, at a price of
attorney's fees, and because of this they still have some concerns. I can
understand it there, because they went through some real grief - all because
someone who did NOT know what was happened was flapping they jaws like the
DID know. Further, they signed a statement against discussing prices that,
according to the FTC, goes way, way, way beyond the restriction of the law.
It was, in essence, an over-reaction to a near-innocent incident that got
blown all out of proportion. Non-the-less, it cost them dearly, and they are
going to protect themselves.
But the Twin Cities thing was not the FTC, and is not what the PTG FTC scare
of the mid-80's was about.
Even so, it was refreshing to hear someone else also acknowledge that there
was, in fact, NO FTC investigation of PTG, and all the stuff we have heard
about it was rumors and heresay. Now, maybe, this fact will come out into the
open and, maybe, eventually, the rumors will die out and we can leave that
scare behind us.
So thanks!

Randy Potter, R.P.T.