I can't speak for the US but in the UK they're transparent about the costs and thus you can compare their costs with that of buying directly from the Apple stor

I can't speak for the US but in the UK they're transparent about the costs and thus you can compare their costs with that of buying directly from the Apple store. So there isn't really any room for trickery there. Even the contract you sign has to have terms explained by the sales person because that contract can be contested if the customer claims they were duped into signing something they didn't understand. We have a lot stricter consumer laws in Europe.