Most Insulting Price Difference of the Day

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by OICURMT

True points...

Exchange houses take about 3% (Travelex is currently at 1.0064). I tend to use my US brokerages to shuttle money back and forth. This way I can get the interbank rates, currently at 1.035/43 and get charged a small fee (1%).

If you don't have this option, you might want to consider opening an account with a money broker. I've heard of World First, but have not used them.

As for credit cards, you'll need a US address to apply for a CC in the USA. Should be easy enough, as US CC companies trip over themselves to get you to sign up... . I've been with Citibank for over 20 years and their customer service calls me every year to see how I'm doing and if there's anything they can do to help me spend my money . Citibank is one of the card companies that charge the lowest fees for international transactions (after they lost a class action suit I was in for gouging from 2000-2004. I got over $2700 back).

The dreaded CC is part of the reason the USA is in such bad shape. The GFC has forced a lot of lending companies to write off bad debt, so I don't know if there are new checks and balances in place for people who live overseas.

BTW: Crystal ball's are the last thing you need for FOREX trading... Steel are much more appropriate...

Thanks for the tip, I will check that out.

Cheers Peter

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by Stardrifter_WA

If you look at Bintel prices now, they are cheaper than those like OPT, even without the current discounts.

Hmmm, maybe I should get a Delos?

Cheers Peter

I have been keeping an eye on that too...I still have an $AUD bank account and I think since it is going overseas that I can avoid GST too. Maybe I can start up a US grey market selling new Australian gear here...

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by wavelandscott

I have been keeping an eye on that too...I still have an $AUD bank account and I think since it is going overseas that I can avoid GST too. Maybe I can start up a US grey market selling new Australian gear here...

Yeah Scott, at these prices I ordered a 6mm Delos today. Was going to order two, but not having used one of the eyepieces I thought I'd try one first. May order another one next week. I need some decent planetary eyepieces now!

Got a new triplet, have to have some new eyepieces, hey?

Cheers Peter

[TechnoViking (James)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

Doesn't hurt to bombard their facebook page either

I couldnt agree more!! We seem to cop horrible prices in Australia, just about every product we are paying far too much for, everything from Food right through to Cars... its almost criminal!

From what i have seen while working for a computer retail shop, I saw the costs of products that they ordered in from wholesalers and saw the HUGE profit this shop was making, i watched the boss double, tripple and quadripple the retail markup.
e.g DDR2 RAM 2GB - cost $24.00 and they retailed it for $72.00!!

needless to say i left that job very quickly.

But in reality we are a small population compaired to the big countries like the U.S and G.B, and for the most part big companies such as celestron just dont care, i contacted celestron last year to make a complaint about the software that came with my scope which was smashed to pieces.. Basically i was told "call the place you bought it from" pretty discusting in my opinion! Then when i contacted the place i bought it from they told me that they would contact celestron and ship me another one, which was almost a year ago! i have contated them on more than one occation! So i contacted celestron again, and they told me to down load it from their support area on their webpage.
I know i could have done that in the first place, its not the point! when i buy something new, I expect new, especially when its marked up $1700 from U.S prices
Its not only celestrons pricing but Orion as well - almost $700 for the awesome Autoguider (with adaptors for my scope) and U.S $489 for the same thing with adaptors!

I do apologise about my rant!

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by TechnoViking

But in reality we are a small population compaired to the big countries like the U.S and G.B, and for the most part big companies such as celestron just dont care, i contacted celestron last year to make a complaint about the software that came with my scope which was smashed to pieces.. Basically i was told "call the place you bought it from" pretty discusting in my opinion! Then when i contacted the place i bought it from they told me that they would contact celestron and ship me another one, which was almost a year ago! i have contated them on more than one occation! So i contacted celestron again, and they told me to down load it from their support area on their webpage.
I know i could have done that in the first place, its not the point! when i buy something new, I expect new, especially when its marked up $1700 from U.S prices
Its not only celestrons pricing but Orion as well - almost $700 for the awesome Autoguider (with adaptors for my scope) and U.S $489 for the same thing with adaptors!

I do apologise about my rant!

Who did you buy it from?

[TechnoViking (James)]

Originally Posted by Stardrifter_WA

Who did you buy it from?

Andrews

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by TechnoViking

Andrews

Ah! Good, not one of of preferred suppliers then.

[ourkind (Carlos)]

I just bought a Celestron f/6.3 SCT Telescope Reducer Corrector Lens from ebay imported from USA

ebay price total AU$173.94

Other aussie retailers $359 and they claim it's been reduced from $559

[TechnoViking (James)]

Well I asked the question, on the Celestron Facebook page.
I will be very intrested to see the reply, im sure they will just delete it. lol

see attached

[rolls05 (Roland)]

Jeez,you guys think you've got it bad,try buying a setup here in newzealand. I'm after a eq goto ed80 setup and ,well at least you fellas can buy stuff in Oz. The closest thing I can buy to that is a skywatcher 80 pro ota for 1500bucks and god knows where I'd get a mount for it, or I can get a Saxon ed80 on a AZ3 mount , standard hand controls for 1500 bucks. And that about covers the 2 main shops. Forget about decent filters and suchlike. In fact the third and last scope online store I found dont even have refractors.So my only option is to buy from Oz (if theres one that ships overseas) and still get it landed here for way cheaper.

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by TechnoViking

Well I asked the question, on the Celestron Facebook page.
I will be very intrested to see the reply, im sure they will just delete it. lol

see attached

Good luck with that James. If may more people complained directly to Celestron, maybe they would then listen. But Australia simply isn't a large market for them.

I am a prolific write and have written many letters to Celestron and in the end, they neither gave a satisfactory explanation, or the explanation assumed I am gullible and would accept such an unsubstantiated and indifferent answer, or simply they didn't answer my emails. Perhaps they thought that ignoring me I might go away. Well, I did!

I simply do not buy any more Celestron gear. I love my current Celestron, which I have had for 8 years (and paid much more than todays prices), and was thinking of upgrading to a larger size, but decided, because of their pricing practices, to go in a different direction.

I doubt you will see prices within a couple of grand of the US, as there are factors other than price gouging that affect "all" prices in Australia and the primary reason is the high wages paid in Australia (which was shown recently in an ABC News article as being the major factor affecting business...see earlier thread), which employers have to recover somehow.

I know I am well paid, for a part-time job, and I certainly wouldn't want my pay to drop to the level of those in the US for the exact same job . We are an expensive place to do business.

I wouldn't want to be in retail these days, its tough.