I reserve the right to discontinue selling to buyers who repeatedly buy with the intention to immediately resell on Ebay or the various Gadget, Gear and Knife forums for a profit. I dislike scalpers and there are those who wish to make a business out of buying my tools with the sole purpose of reselling. If I see a pattern of these types of sales I will stop selling to those individuals.

Reseller Policy

OK, here’s how I’m looking at it. For stuff that I sell you this week and next week it shows up on Ebay or the forums at an inflated price…

First Time: You buy a tool and decide it’s not for you and so you put it on Ebay or on the forums. OK, no problem, I understand, you’re moving on to some other Atwood product or something else entirely. I don’t have a big problem with this and I appreciate you checking my stuff out.

Second Time: This is not looking good but hey, shit happens. If I can identify the seller (and I usually can pretty easily) I will try to send a polite warning that they are being watched. That’s if I have time of course, I am very busy and frankly have no time for stupid games.

Third Time: OK, it’s pretty clear what you’re all about. You’re obviously more interested in trying to make a quick buck off my stuff and could care less about collectors who often are unable to get to my site in time to pick up something at a reasonable price for their collections. Part of the reason they couldn’t get the piece was because YOU were there cherry picking for your own selfish ends. Well, you’re now cut off from further purchases. Purchases will be refunded if you try to buy during a sale. And I will be saving names on a do not sell list for circulation to my dealers too.

So far I have barred about 5 or 6 people because of this kind of behavior. I hated to do it, I really did, but this is about fairness and I felt I owed it to my fans to try to rein in this kind of thing. And I should mention I’m not real crazy about the related practice of scanning the B/S/T sections on the forums with the sole intent of turning things around on Ebay or other reselling venues.

So please folks, have a heart and think about this. I’m really not trying to be a hard ass, I’m just trying to stand firm and do what’s right. It would be a shame if I started to have to spend all my time babysitting a bunch of jerks rather than making the next batch of cool stuff.

Let me be clear here: This is NOT about the guy who has been buying from me for a long time and wants to unload a few pieces. This is NOT about someone who buys and then decides they aren't interested in my stuff. And this is NOT about someone who wants to get top dollar on the secondary market. Of course people should be able to get however much they can OR sell for as reasonable a price as they wish. That is the free market in action. No problem there and honestly a strong secondary market helps drive sales which is a good thing for me.

This IS about the couple of folks who always buy 2 or 3 items only to immediately turn them around on the resellers venues. This IS about the people who do not own a single Atwood tool because EVERY single one they have ever bought has been resold in order to make a profit. This IS about scalpers. And maybe it's a fine line to determine who is actually doing scalping. But it's like that famous quote about pornography, "I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it."