For a company struggling with sales and street “cred” lately, a move like this won’t help much at all.
Motorola announced the Aura a few weeks ago, a $2,000 (yes, you read that correctly) handset with a cool, unique design. In all specs wise, there isn’t really anything too amazing about it except for its rather crazy price tag, but there is now, courtesy of a strange contract purchasers must sign.
According to reports on several sites, they received a rumor about an oddity in the contract you sign when you purchase the phone. The gist of it: the Motorola Aura can’t be sold on eBay, or anywhere else. This is done to “maintain Aura’s glow of exclusivity”. Of course it’s ridiculous; like it isn’t a plan to keep their prices inflated without the market competition that comes with something coming onto EBay.
To top it off, Motorola gives Aura owners a choice of selling the handset back to the manufacturer from which they bought it from. Yeah, and we know how much they’ll pay; you’ll be lucky to get back half of the purchase price. A real appeal to customers if I ever saw one.
What gives a tech company the right to do things like this? Yes, they designed the phone, but once I pay for it from a legitimate source, it’s mine. Meaning I do with it as I please. If they really do follow through with this, expect it to hurt sales greatly and there may even be a big backlash associated with this.
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