Service is a real issue if things go wrong. We bought a really big, heavy TV from crutchfield.com. They are terrific. their prices are competitive, but not the lowest, and they have people on the phone who really know the products and can answer complicated questions.

For you , it depends on AJ madison's customer service department. That's the key. Perhaps you should post another query with AJ madison in the subject, so people who know them will see that and respond.

Good luck.

Service is provided by the manufacturer not the retailer. If there's a delivery issue you have to deal with the retailer, but once the item arrives intact, warranty service is provided by the manufacturer.

Just one word of warning... Technically, in most states you are required to report interstate purchases that did not get taxed at time of purchase on your state tax return. The $20 bobble head doll off of eBay probably won't trigger any alarms but there was talk at one point of requiring larger retailers to either collect the appropriate tax for the state it's being sent to or keeping records of all sales by state and make them available to the state. I don't believe these are in place in all states or in any for that matter but remember that sales tax is actually tax the purchaser owes *not* the seller. The seller collecting the tax is simply acting as an agent of the state and holding that money in escrow for the state. For instance, I'm pretty sure businesses are forbidden from spending the money collected as sales tax and then just making it up later before their quarterly tax day. At any point, the state can audit a business' books to ensure that they are able to pay all sales taxes collected thus far.

I've heard that some states are cracking down on people who put a big fat zero in the state return where it asks about out of state purchases. In these cases, it'll be hard to explain a credit card transaction (which is something the state tax board can get pretty easily) for several thousand dollars to an out-of-state online appliance retailer.

amcook - I believe internet purchases are still exempt from local state sales taxes as long as the merchant isn't considered to have a brick and mortar store in the state the item is shipped to. I know states aren't happy about this but I believe federal law trumps state law in this case.

But I'm not an expert on these tax matters nor do I play one on this board.

Besides the point of supporting local businesses that pay taxes to help provide services to your community, I'd be very careful about assuming yo won't have to pay sales tax. I'm not sure on personal purchases but I know that businesses in NC are responsible for paying sales tax on any purchases they make. If the vendor doesn't charge the sales tax, we have to declare it and pay it anyway. I know businesses that have gotten audited and hit with back taxes and penalties for buying large equipment items from out of state vendors and not paying sales tax.

With the economy in the toilet and most governments with severe budget shortfalls, I wouldn't be surprised if they stepped up enforcement on this.

I did a little searching and I was wrong. Under federal law, internet merchants are not required to collect state sales tax for states in which they don't have a brick and mortar presence but purchasers are required to pay a "use" tax if their state has a sales tax. There's a move afoot to change the federal law to require all merchants to collect the sales tax but it would be a nightmare to keep track of (some parts of some states have higher sales taxes than others). Some states are banding together to come up with a uniform sales tax to make life easier for merchants should the law change. Stay tuned...

mdod is right. The added interest and penalties that the state would charge on top of the unreported internet or out of state purchase, if discovered could be huge. Someone else's audit in the transaction chain could trigger your being audited. Or it could all slip through the cracks....

Yeah, in FL where I live one is technically supposed to pay state sales tax on internet purchases, but the state (like most states except for CA) doesn't really have any mechanism to make this easy or even possible to do.

But that hasn't prevented people who've gotten brought to their attention by audits or whatever from having to pay both the tax and a penalty for not having paid it in the first place.

It's always interesting to see how these threads can take a turn. I didn't mean to start a debate on paying sales tax or not! And, of course you are all correct - I do my own taxes, and I remember the question of whether I owe taxes on purchases made out of state. I live fairly close to the NH border, so I do shop in NH a bit - it would be hard to keep track and quantify it, but certainly with a large purchase like this refrigerator, I should probably fess up and pay my taxes on it. And I should probably do it before the sales tax rate goes up!

Ok, now can we get back to on-line retailers? Now that I have to factor in another $100-200, I'm thinking I won't get the high-end Electrolux (it would be about $1k over what I had originally budgeted), so the one I was looking at is a great deal on-line. (a Kitchen-Aid FD CD for $1945). Just nervous about doing it.

i used usappliance.com and had no problems.

Sorry.. didn't mean to sidetrack your thread. :) My point was that there is a risk for not reporting the interstate/internet purchase and if you do report it, the $200 price difference goes away pretty fast. It makes local purchase more attractive in that case. Also, although most local dealers won't match online prices, they may well match the the free shipping/delivery. When I bought my cooktop, the local dealer had free delivery and installation so it made it hard to turn down. Call around locally to see if any such deals can be found.

That said, I buy things online all the time so I don't have anything bad to say about doing that. As usual just make sure the seller is reputable and it's not a bait and switch scam.