I don't see where that makes them jerks. You don't like it? Don't buy it. Not slamming you, I just can't stand it when I see people say that. "It's not fair" is right up there with it in my book.
Part of living in a free country means they can charge what they feel it's worth. You're free to build one and charge what you think is fair. Competition is a good thing.
That's not the only reason I called the company jerks. Charging what the market will bear or charging a premium for a premium product or service doesn't in it and of itself make you a jerk company.
I run two separate small businesses and one I am about half price of all competitors in the industry for a 50 mile radius and have the best reviews and the second highest number of reviews of all competitors.
My other business is one where I have a specialty service and I charge top dollar in the whole area for that service. People take it or leave it. If they really need it or they really want it then they will pay the premium because no one else is offering that in the area.
So I guess I'm a little bit of a jerk in one way and I really really nice guy in the other way because I leave so much money on the table with my highest volume business.
Last year they ended up being the same amount of income but I could double my price for the high volume and not lose even 5% of my customers.
My bigger beefs with escort is that they rush non perfected products out there and they accept High percentages of quality control issues and necessary repairs as okay. Other companies like Sony, Nintendo, and apple don't accept anywhere near these high of failure rates. They also don't have them in the first place.
I also have a beef with the entire Raider checked your industry. While I love them and have used them since the days of the first metal whistlers and giant escort metal boxes on your dash that only picked up X band with an sweep needle and a glowing orange light, I think there has been a poor amount of competition and it has not driven the price down weird like it should have. If you compare it to other electronic items and devices with the exception of the latest and greatest iPhone or Galaxy class because once again those get an unrealistic price premium, Electronics have plummeted in price over the years and quality has actually increased dramatically. TVs are a prime example.
I have a feeling that radar detectors by their inherent nature are delicate pieces of crap. Especially since we beat them around and throw them around and glove boxes and most people don't take care of them. I always keep mine in a padded case and I've also learned not to leave it in a vehicle for two reasons, one is theft and two is temperature extremes. I think these things get out of calibration quite easily and the cheap ones just don't bother and your range suffers. Escort in Valentine One are big on range and performance so escort has there's two pop-up error messages if you're not within specs. That's aggravating but I think it's the nature of radar detectors.
I also have another beef with them because one of the most popular forms is the Escort Radar forum is not as good as the radar detectors. Net but is a popular form and it is owned by escort and they will ban you, which they did to me, if they don't like what you say. I said nothing that wasn't factual or asking questions about actual numbers of items serviced for maintenance required and GPS errors per year. They would not answer and they pulled the typical you're being defensive or whatever come they didn't like my opinion or the questions I was asking. Several of the members and posters on the Forum work there also and they are the biggest problem.
Quite a conflict of interest to mediate a forum that has questions and answers and spots for problems and troubleshooting if you own The Forum and you're not willing to admit that your product it's not perfect.
So with that experience I vowed to never own another one of their products. Now right before I got on the form I had just bought one of their newer GPS units right before the 360 with the arrows. I didn't really need the arrows so I was good with that. I hadn't had nothing but 3 months and it had a GPS error. The forms is where I find out about all these errors. They don't really want to stand behind their product. They love to sell you an extended warranty though and when I blast them and said everyone better get the extended warranty because you're going to have problems. They didn't like that. I also had to escort 8500 back around 2000 that both had the service required light pop up on them in the first three years of ownership.
So every escort product I have owned with the exception of the very very old ones that still had metal cases and the first passport has had issues and its first three years of life that required a trip back to the manufacturer. I only live 25 minutes away from their home office but I figured it was best to cut my losses with the company otherwise one of these days it won't be a good situation and I'll end up in big trouble.
There are other options just as good Valentine One being one and I can't remember the name of the other popular one that had great High reviews at many people like better than escort I believe it's a German unit.
While radar detectors are nice to have and they will save you sometimes but I would say they're only about 30 to 40% effective at best. In Ohio, laser is used to write more tickets than anything else. And Laser detectors just don't cut it.
I have traveled this country and Ohio for several decades and sometimes at speeds above 90 miles an hour. The best ticket prevention I have ever used was a CB radio. It is still just fine as long as you're on the highway. Plenty of truckers out there and you know exactly where cops are at. Now Waze is about the same. Google also now has incorporated police into your route but it doesn't show them unless you have a route in progress. I'm not sure about ways I think it shows even if you just had the map open. But I would rather take Waze or Google and a CB radio then to risk it with a radar detector. Because in my experience often when you get the warning you're being clocked and you can't slow down fast enough prevent them from getting a reading above where they will ticket you.
