1. What do we mean by the "gray market"?

By the gray market we mean the disguising of counterfeit products. Often these are low quality imitations. This can lead to serious compatibility problems, poor performance or costly downtime.

2. Invalid warranty claims

This means that purchased goods from unauthorised sources are not covered by the official supplier's warranty. Fortunately, invalid warranty claims can easily be identified by means of the serial number. The same applies to our warranty service: invalid warranty is automatically detected and rejected.

3. Criminal trafficking

Often, grey trade can be linked to other fraudulent practices such as: trade in stolen goods, sale of used products as new and fraudulent tax constructions. These illegal actions can entail considerable risks that you should not get involved in. In addition, software on uncontrolled devices can be compromised with malware or keyloggers.

4. Invalid software licenses

The software licenses of grey market products may be invalid. In this situation, as an illegal software user, you can expect legal action when the BSA (Business Software Alliance) investigates your company.

5. The grey market is illegal in several countries

Legislation varies from country to country, but despite these differences, grey marketing remains illegal, particularly in the European Economic Area (EEA). In these countries, IP legislation can be imposed to prevent the import, sale and/or advertising of grey market products.

Conclusion: this kind of product can have various side effects for you as a customer. But also for us as distributor, for example of HP products. We experience reputation damage when we can't help you further because of defective warranties or licenses on your hardware, but also sales opportunities and margins are affected by unfair competition. That is why VanRoey.be and HP are taking action against grey marketing to protect both resellers and potential buyers.

So we can only recommend that you Purchase HP products by legal, reliable sources like HP Channel PartnersIn this way you avoid responding to good-to-full-good offers with potentially harmful consequences.

Do you think you have seen or bought a "gray market product" from HP somewhere? Then contact our experts.