The BRJ Black Friday Thread (Only for updates for/by customers.)[Ad Free]

[SpaceDock]

Well, is anyone got a lawyer friend or someone who can champion this? I'd be willing to sign up for a refund.

 

[axxessdenied]

Pretty ridiculous. Some people get in over their heads. It's not the customers fault. if you can't deliver, than don't take people's money.

 

[JPMike]

What concerns me, for people who live outside the US, how can we handle this? (legal wise) In any case I will call my bank to see what can happen.

 

[HRC51]

That was me.

I've also contacted the State Attorney General and FTC. I've been promised a refund multiple times. The most recent of which was a month ago when Bernie said I would have it within 2 weeks. That was the last I heard from him (and I suspect the last anyone has). I followed up with him 2 weeks to the day, but never heard back.

I'm starting to think it's class action time. Let me know if anyone is interested.

I'm interested in joining.

I have been considering small claims court, but I live out east. This would be tough to arrange and cost me more money. I've also read that even if you win, it can still be hard to collect. First, I'd like my money back. Second choice would be to give me the unfinished guitar with all the parts. I'll finish it myself.

 

[ovation22]

I'm going to talk to some lawyer friends tomorrow to see what our options are. I'll ask about international options as well. If there are others interested, please feel free to reply here or send a PM privately.

 

[JPMike]

I'm going to talk to some lawyer friends tomorrow to see what our options are. I'll ask about international options as well. If there are others interested, please feel free to reply here or send a PM privately.

Let me know, cause I am close talking to my lawyer about it too.

 

[killertone]

I am in on any legal action we can take. My brother in law is an attorney and I have spoken to him about it as well. He is doing some research to figure out my best course of action and then it is go time.

 

[SpaceDock]

I think he needs to give everyone a refund and he can sell the guitars as he finishes them to new customers.

 

[WickedSymphony]

I think he needs to give everyone a refund and he can sell the guitars as he finishes them to new customers.

You'd think that'd be the easier choice and he'd probably get more money for an outright sale on all of the BFR guitars, but he clearly doesn't want to go down the refund route.

If people are going to organize something that will get us our money back or our guitars (though unlikely and with risk of issues) then count me in I guess. It's such a shame that it's come down to this and not at all what I wanted to happen, but I don't know what he expects when people have paid him thousands of dollars and this is how he runs his business...

 

[JPMike]

You'd think that'd be the easier choice and he'd probably get more money for an outright sale on all of the BFR guitars, but he clearly doesn't want to go down the refund route.

If people are going to organize something that will get us our money back or our guitars (though unlikely and with risk of issues) then count me in I guess. It's such a shame that it's come down to this and not at all what I wanted to happen, but I don't know what he expects when people have paid him thousands of dollars and this is how he runs his business...

Honestly, I don't really want to go down that route, it saddens me and I don't want to cause extra trouble to a sick man, cause I really know how it is.

But, when I've spend quite an mount of money and I get no answers to my emails, no communication, what he expects us to do. Wait for him all of our lives until he decides to start building/sending our guitars?? I know it sounds cruel, but money don't grow on trees these days. We want something out of our earnings.

If he had sent a message, saying how bad he feels for all this, for not being able to work due to his sickness and actually apologised, in my case it would be totally different but he didn't. His Ego is too high, and fucking annoys me the fact he used some random guy to email us. Do it by yourself, I am sure you can. Just type "I apologise for the situation, delaying your orders, etc but I am really bad health wise. Bla bla bla..." or something and just mass send it to your contacts, you will just have to do a bit of clicking. How hard is that??

Good job ruining a family name with such a great history.

In any case, I hope he becomes well soon, for the sake of his family. It will be sad for those people to lose a husband and a father. Cause, I was near losing my father twice due to the illness.

 

[Stealthdjentstic]

I swear i saw a picture of him recently (in the last 4 months) and he did look noticably lighter, like he had lost a ton of weight and not in a good way either. I might have seen it on his fb

 

[spawnsc]

Let me know more on the lawsuit action I would be willing to join in

 

[Guitarist1976]

Count me in too

 

[killertone]

I swear i saw a picture of him recently (in the last 4 months) and he did look noticably lighter, like he had lost a ton of weight and not in a good way either. I might have seen it on his fb

The problem is that there is ZERO info about wether or not he is extremely sick or in Aruba kicking it on a beach. I'm not trying to be ruthless here, but when someone has a few thousand dollars of my hard earned cash for well over a year with no communication in months, it is unacceptable. And to be quite honest, it completely feels like he has cut and run. Any of you thinking you will get a refund are out of your minds. That money was gone the minute we paid.

The crazy fucked thing about it is that it all could be handled with a simple communication from Bernie to us about what is going on. Even if there are major issues in his personal life there is not one single excuse for there not to be a statement about it to his customers.

I would never wish ill will towards him as far his health and family go. I'm also not going to call him names or assassinate his character here. I will, however, fight for what is mine until I get it.

 

[rifftrauma]

Personally don't want any of this legal shit, I'd rather sit down and have a beer with him and ask him why the communications blackout. I'm pretty sure all any of us want is to just know what the fuck is going on...

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

Look guys. As hardened and terrible as this sounds, none of us should be concerning ourselves with whether or not Bernie is sick, or sippin' margaritas on a white sandy beach somewhere tropical. We need to look at the facts of how Bernie has acted (as a business man) over the last 2 years and go from there.

How many times have there been MASSIVE communication breaks? How many times have people had guitar spec'ed wrong by him? How many times has he had to rebuild in the last 2 years because a guitar was ridiculously unplayable? How many times has he taken people's money for a final payment and not delivered or spoken to said person for a long period afterward?

The shit-show is huge, and it's not just about Bernie being sick. If you are waiting for him to surface and tell you everything is going to get better, you should slap some sense into yourself. Even if he does, these issues are not going to stop. Be prepared to be waiting for a long time or never receive your instrument.

 

[Necromagnon]

Sorry, I had to...

 

[Jexey]

Asset search -> Private investigator -> Legal preceedings -> Paycheck.

First two can be done in tandem. Mother fucker this sucks. I'm not enjoying my poptart right now because this put me in such a sour ass mood.

POTENTIALLY GOOD POPTART. BAD MOOD. BAD POPTART.

Anyone have luck with getting deposit back through paypal? They might want a police report.

 

[WickedSymphony]

Honestly, I don't really want to go down that route, it saddens me and I don't want to cause extra trouble to a sick man, cause I really know how it is.

I don't think anyone wanted to go down this route. I mean, we're all gear whores in here and would rather have an awesome new guitar than deal with this legal stuff, but as Spec said above this, we have to look at how the whole process has been, and sick or not we've all been pretty much getting shafted this whole time.

Of course I feel bad that he's sick and that it's going this direction, but he's got a few thousand dollars or more from many of us and that is simply not okay with the way things have been going. I can barely play my own guitars anymore because every time I have one out my family or friends ask me what the fuck is going on with this and giving me a hard time about it when there hasn't been fuck all I could really do to get things moving. That shit is stressful to hear over and over again.

I really do wish that he gets better like you said, but that is separate from our business with each other, and it's not right to be left entirely out of the loop with what's going on. When I was on the phone with him several months ago and he talked about how people on here hate on him, I explained to him very clearly that all it would take is better communication. The vast majority of issues we have in here stem from that, and I don't think we'd be discussing this course of action if we had a simple idea of when things would get moving again.

At this point, my options are to gamble with when or if I'd ever receive my guitar (and apparently gamble on the quality judging from a few recent builds), or try this and get my money back from him. I think it's obvious which is the more sound choice, which is a damn shame considering how close it looked to being done in December.

 

[Rap Hat]

I'm attempting to see what my card company can do, hoping they'll at least refund my final payment (paid in 2011...). Last email I got from Bernie was 26 days short of 1 year ago, and I had 1 phone conversation a month? after that with him asking me for a final payment - when I pointed out I'd paid, all contact stopped and he wouldn't respond anymore.

Should've moved on this sooner, but I honestly didn't think it would get this bad.