The shitstorm, WB pickups, Hal and GOTM.

[El Caco]

I am creating this thread to briefly outline the situation involving GOTM, WB pickups and Halsinden. The purpose of this thread is to give a fair unbiased representation of events and then to offer my point of view.

I believe that in order to avoid this situation being misrepresented and to avoid further drama that it is best at this time to flex my Moderator arm. I will not allow Halsinden or WB pickups to post about this matter any more on this forum. If you believe anything in this post is erroneous or if you believe that I have left anything important out you may contact me and I will edit this post accordingly.

I have my own family issues that will not allow me a lot of time to spend on this matter or on sevenstring.org from this point so I will not be going through the extensive history to proofread this post, this will be brief if I get something wrong or leave something out PM me and I will fix it. This post will remain until this situation is resolved.

• This situation began almost 1 year ago when Alex (our administrator) sent me a PM requesting that I inform the members here that WB pickups will be giving a free set of custom pickups to each months GOTM winner.
• Alex stuffed up the deal with WB pickups and failed to notify me or the forum that WB pickups would not be given to any winner , none of the winners were given anything they were promised and no one on this board knew what was going on.
• After a number of months WB was contacted and agreed to give the first three winners the pickups component of their prize and would continue to give each months winner the same prize thereafter should certain conditions be met by our administrator Alex, those conditions were never met
• One of the three winners Halsinden had a guitar that he and a friend purchased together posted by the seller to WB pickups for installation of his free pickups. WB claimed informed Hal that the guitar arrived with a damaged neck. WB and Halsinden came to an agreement that either a replacement neck that WB had in stock would be fitted to the guitar or that the broken neck would be replaced and that Hal would pay a sum of $150 for either and $50 postage to have the entire guitar shipped to him. When WB gave Hal this price it was given under the false assumption that Hal was located in the US. The email in the second post shows that this is incorrect.
• The only payment method WB pickups would accept was cheque, due to Hals location this was difficult and expensive for Hal to arrange and due to shipping and clearing of the cheque resulted in unnecessary delays that could have easily been avoided with alternative payment methods.
• WB pickups have admitted to mistakes on their part in their account of events.
• WB pickups claim to have sent two guitars to Halsinden by regular mail, they also claim that Hal should have recieved those guitars by the 25th of last month. Due to the method that WB claim to have sent the guitars it may take considerably longer then WB anticipated (if they actually sent anything) and there is no way to track the package. :stupid:
• Hal is once again having difficulty communicating with WB with emails receiving no response.
• Hal has refused to provide his phone number or any further personal details or monies to WB pickups.
• To my knowledge no other winner of GOTM has received a set of pickups from WB, however I am also not sure if any of them have contacted WB pickups using the method as instructed to arrange their prize.

I think that about covers it. Here are my thoughts.

I can appreciate that WB pickups have been put into a difficult situation and I am aware of other factors regarding their business which have caused them unforseen financial difficulties (you can enquire about their account of these events on their own forum). However they did agree to three set of pickups, none of which have been delivered, they had Hals guitar in their possession and their treatment of Hal as a customer and their communication have been unprofessional. A lot of this could have been avoided if they adopted more professional communication practices.

Hal is understandably inflexible at this point and unable to see the current situation objectively.

I too am sceptical that Hal will ever receive anything but WB have claimed to have sent Hal his property (at additional expense to themselves) and because of the postage method they claim to have used in my mind I do not think we can say for certain they did not send anything for another month.

However it is my recommendation that should Hals guitar/s turn up in satisfactory condition including the set of pickups he was promised, Hal should investigate how much WB was out of pocket in shipping expenses and work out a fair amount for shipping according to what they had agreed to be sent and compensate WB the difference (I would be compelled to do so if it was me). In working out that amount I would recommend that Hal take in consideration the value of anything else he received despite not agreeing to it because I doubt very much that he would pass it on for free or dispose of it if it can be used.

 

[El Caco]

An update an amendment.

First off I wish to point out that this is not the official opinion of the forum or site, I think what I said about Alex makes that obvious. The opinions expressed are my own, others may agree with them but I am not making that claim. Is it fair that I offer my opinion and not give anyone opportunity to rebut it I do not care. Anyone who saw the other thread knows we do not need that to be repeated, this is the only way that this matter can stay up until it is resolved.

This way each party can present their side and as little bullshit as possible will get through, with the amount of information on this matter that I have at my disposal if either party tries to bullshit me I will post both their claim and the evidence against that claim. With that threat in place both parties are free to contact me and one has.

Here is my first mistake, in the first post I said that WB was unaware that Hal was in the UK, this information was not provided to me by WB it was provided by a moderator I believe was acting in WB's defense.

This is the evidence that what I said is incorrect

The next email presents some details that alter some of my statements

First the words I used in the first post have been interpreted by some as inferring doubt upon WB's claim that the neck was broken, I could not post it as fact and could only report it as claimed as I did not have the evidence before me to prove his claims as fact, there it is, that email is evidence that it is fact.

I believe Hal would like me to point out that Hal never requested a second body or guitar be sent to him and that this was offered freely by Will in the above email. I thought I had inferred that earlier but there it is.

If I missed anything please let me know.

I think above that my opinions are easily identifiable as separate to the account of events. Once again they are my opinions, each individual will draw their own conclusions and I am not claiming that mine are more correct or better then any other.

Hal has expressed concern over my opinion that he is unable to see the situation objectively, what he has said to me has not changed my opinion on this. I hope that when this is all over that we are able to discuss this further and he will be able to understand why I believe this. I am not claiming that he is trying to misrepresent anything all I am saying is that due to the position he is in and the frustration he feels it is understandably hard to step back and put himself in WB's position and see the overall picture that an observer such as myself is able to see.

 

[El Caco]

I am opening this thread up, hopefully WB will address the situation since another month has passed and Hal still does not have his guitar. WB better address this soon because this thread is the first result when I search them in Google and if another month passes I will be left no option other then to change the thread title to something that idicates scam, stolen guitar and money. It's sure looking that way now, I can only hope that it is not true, that this latest delay turns out to be a result of a poor decision of delivery method and the guitar turns up soon.

 

[halsinden]

just worth me saying that i really appreciate the input & administrative support that has come from s7eve and many of the team on this. i have since emailed WB again and sent a message to their myspace account.

H

 

[halsinden]

it's now been 6 weeks to the day since the date that WB pickups said i'd have the guitar by.

it's not arrived.

i'm starting to realise this isn't going to happen and am trying to work out how i can account for the financial loss. any advice would really help.

H

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

I still don't understand why you or WB were paying for a replacement neck. If you buy something and it arrives damaged, you send it back, and either get another one if it's new, or if it's used, open up a claim with the shipper and get your money that it's insured for back. If it wasn't insured, I'd be going after the seller.

I asked in the last thread but the reply might have gotten lost/deleted in the subsequent shit storm.

 

[halsinden]

I still don't understand why you or WB were paying for a replacement neck. If you buy something and it arrives damaged, you send it back, and either get another one if it's new, or if it's used, open up a claim with the shipper and get your money that it's insured for back. If it wasn't insured, I'd be going after the seller.

I asked in the last thread but the reply might have gotten lost/deleted in the subsequent shit storm.

the guitar apparently arrived at WB's place with a broken neck. my friend & i approached the ebay seller of the guitar and they refunded an portion of the cost which then went to WB's pocket for repair. the outcome is that we're still out of pocket, and have no guitar or pickups to show for it.

H

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

Okay, that makes sense now.

 

[rick13]

did this ever get resolved? Been a bunch of stuff going on with this guy on MLP
Rick

 

[DDDorian]

No, it didn't. WB fed Hal and I a bunch of shit about the status of his guitar and eventually just stopped replying altogether.