Quote Originally Posted by Bill Kiene View Post
Real cool scam is to price really cheap stuff at high prices then offer the public 50% off as a base price. That has been fooling the fly fishing public for years now.

There is a company WAY WORSE than Albright. There was a company in Northern california that were MASTER ROD BUILDERS. When a River runs through it this company was asked to provide graphite rods that looked like bamboo so Brad Pit could be able to cast these rods.

This company was a first class, super high quality rod company. The company? Powell Rod Company out of CHico. Whether Charles Schwab gained the company legitimitely or not, you can read the Chico News and Review and Powell and decide for yourself.

But my point is Powell rods were made by the Powell master rod builders in their shop in Chico California. They sold the company to Charles Schwab (and the whole Powell family VEHEMENTLY says he scammed them).

NEW Powell (no longer owned by the Powell's) did two things
1) they explicitly and very energeticly advertised that they would be selling these $600 (or whatever Powell USA sold them at retail) and would sell direct at about half price (the price they would be selling them to fly shops.

Sounds good for the customer, right? Well the accidentally forgot to mention that the rods would no longer be made in the US, specifically Northern California, they would be made in CHINA

So customers think they are buying a $600 US MADE rod for $300, but in actuality they are paying $300 for a $250 Chinese made rod (look at Tfo, South Korea, and Echo, China)

Furthermore, they continued the warranty price of a US made rod. It costs approximately $70. TFO, from south korea which is more expensive that China, is only $25. Plus, High end US MADE rods, such as Sage, are only about $50. So they continue to act like the rods are made by master builders in the US (as they were under the powells), including warranty, and instead of having a warranty cost of that around rods built in China, they cost MORE than high end rods (Sage) made in the US!!

Plus, people with Powell rods that are a couple of years old and have been discontinued, when they send in their rod with a broken tip, Powell doesnt have the materials to fix them so they offer to send a new current rod at over $100.



Press Powell and EC Powell