what's with the proposed Eheim boycott?

[Mark F.]

The recommendations in my YouTube account this morning included a Spanish-language video proposing a boycott of Eheim products in Spain and Latin America ... it was kind of difficult to filter out the video's substantive reasoning, as it was mostly 24 minutes of insanely foul-mouthed vitriol (a full translation would definitely violate GWAPA's policy against "offensive" language!) ... but this was the basic gist, as far as I could tell:

1) in an effort to monopolize the markets for aquarium filters in Spain and Latin America, Eheim has engaged in illegal & unethical business practices

2) Eheim puts undue pressure on interested LFS dealers in Spain and Latin America to favor their products, but is evasive of dealer inquiries

3) Eheim's filters are excessively noisy, inefficient, overpriced pieces of (expletive deleted).

Can anybody in the club substantiate any of these claims?

[halak]

I could not find anything about any Eheim boycott. As a general rule, if a supposed criticism is very low brow, i.e. excessive use of profanity, I dismiss it. Also, I know #3 is not true.

[Mark F.]

I've since done a Google search myself - using the Spanish word for boycott (boicot) with "Eheim", I actually got five relevant hits ... three hits contained links to the same video I saw, one hit was inaccessible, and the remaining hit was a response from an aquarium dealer in Madrid, which basically agreed with your advice: the guy who posted the video might have had a legitimate personal gripe with Eheim, but he clearly let his emotions get the better of him, and his venting shouldn't be construed as a cover-all indictment of Eheim.

[sukrol]

I found it, will watch it later. Sounds long winded... I'll let you know...

[JLW]

I'm all for boycotting Eheim.

People should throw all their Eheim filters away and purchase Cobalt.

Not any reason, just that I happen to be a Cobalt distributor.

[sukrol]

lol I got halfway through the video, it's just an angry guy with a YouTube channel complaining about Eheim's centralized pricing (like Apple) which he says is illegal in Spain. And he's calling for a boycott that's about it...

[Mark F.]

That guy Roberto definitely has some anger management issues ... I saw another video of his today, in which he discovered that the pH in his shrimp breeding tank was too high (despite a major CO2 set-up), and the same foul language spewed from his mouth (and was even included in the title of the video) ... I guess his mother never gave his mouth a good soaping when he was a kid ... either that, or she soaped his mouth too aggressively, and he's been rebelling ever since - LOL indeed!