What is YOUR worst Music Store story?

[texshred777]

I need to retube my Mesa's preamp, so I went down to the GC close to my house. I inquired about tube pricing and what they had in stock. She told me they could get anything and asked what they're goin in. I told her my Mesa Nomad and she went into a long rant about how I HAVE to use Mesa tubes with a Mesa, using other brands can cause problems. Otherwise I have to get a professional to bias the amp. I again said I only need preamp tubes, to which she says it doesn't matter, you have to bias Mesas for preamp tubes too.

Hmmmmm...

Not the worst I've experienced, but the most recent and fresh on my mind. It was actually amusing.

 

[TankJon666]

I remember this one too well!! Bunch of cowboys and I'm glad they have since gone out of business...

I bought a Jackson C5A some years back. It had a problem in that when you fretted the B string at the 5th fret the note would be dead. Didn't buzz or choke, it was just dead. It was a thud instead of a nice ringing bass note.
Anyway, took it back to the shop that I bought it from. The guy I spoke to was pretty helpful and he rang the Jackson rep (in front of me) and the rep said they didn't have another C5A in tobacco sunburst ..I didn't want the black or red. Basically I was I could hang on to it till another arrived then they would swap it. Fair enough I thought!
A few months went by and no phone call or anything. I went to the shop and this time another guy rang the Jackson rep ..."oh they have discontinued that line and have no more stock arriving" I was pretty pissed off but they said they would get a tech to look at it. Again, I thought fair enough. Handed over the bass, went home and waited.
Several weeks go by and no contact from the shop. Now getting annoyed!!
I paid a visit to the shop with the intention of having a good moan and they had the bass for me so I forgot about moaning. Another new guy is in the store today (a fat middle aged one to be exact) and he handed me my bass. I looked the bass over and the action on the B string was massive!! Almost 10mm high at the 12th fret. The guy tells me they sorted the buzz on the B string. What fucking buzz? There was no buzz anyway! It had a dead fret! They take it back again. Another week goes by.
Get a phone call saying its fixed. Awesome! Go to the shop. Look it over. Action is nice and low again ...hang on whats this?? Almost no fretwire left from the 5th fret to the 12th under the B string AND still the dead note. The same fat middle aged shop worked took the bass off me and then had the nerve to tell me I was imagining it and then plugged it in and started playing some wanky blues solo. I tell him to stop and fret the note at the 5th fret which he does and low and behold ..its dead. What does the guy do? He starts picking the note even harder to try and convince me its fine. Eventually I got my money back but previous to this I was a pretty regular customer but at the first sign of trouble their "customer service" was severly lacking in every regard! I never went back.

 

[TheDuatAwaits]

I was at GC playing some amps, getting a feel for one to buy. I came across one that had a blown tube. So i told the guy "Hey, this amp has a blown tube." So he looks at it and he said "I don't think it's that." I was sure that a tube was blown, so after the guy was messing around with it for a few mins, trying different cables and guitars and what not, the idiot turns to me and says, "Oh.... yeah, there is a blown tube in the head. I guess that was the problem." Did I not just say this?

I was thinking to myself, "Oh jeeze. Now you tell me after wasting 10 mins of my life."

 

[asher]

I was at GC playing some amps, getting a feel for one to buy. I came across one that had a blown tube. So i told the guy "Hey, this amp has a blown tube." So he looks at it and he said "I don't think it's that." I was sure that a tube was blown, so after the guy was messing around with it for a few mins, trying different cables and guitars and what not, the idiot turns to me and says, "Oh.... yeah, there is a blown tube in the head. I guess that was the problem." Did I not just say this?

I was thinking to myself, "Oh jeeze. Now you tell me after wasting 10 mins of my life."

To be fair to him, I think assuming that most customers in GC know jack-all about the amps they're handling is a fairly safe assumption, and there's not much harm in ruling out the other possibilities first.

 

[Tyler]

There was a Laguna guitar that sounded very nice and had a steal of a price at GC. The guy kept trying to tell me "This guitar isnt good for playing anything down tuned.. so try this Schecter" Both had 25.5 scale boards xD except the Schecter was only about $350 more.. gee I wonder why you would recommend that one instead?

Sometimes I feel like they just want to poke at us and see if we're stupid enough to fall into those kind of scams. Now I only go there for straps and picks.

 

[barfarkas]

every time i go to guitar center it seems like the worst music store experience i've ever had. those guys literally won't take my money. for as long as i'll stand there and wait they just won't ring me up and i eventually walk out empty handed. they've literally lost out on thousands of dollars of sales.

 

[steve1]

To the guys who have mentioned being ignored, I'd be interested to know how you're going about being noticed. Unless a sales guy is with a customer, I have no problem politely interrupting whatever they are doing. If they are having a very long conversation with a customer and I've got a very quick question, or just want to pay for some strings or something, I'll wait for a good moment to interject, as long as you're polite about it and don't butt in like an asshole, it's all good.

I see some people in stores trying to get help by just looking lost or trying to look really interested in something.

 

[TheDuatAwaits]

To be fair to him, I think assuming that most customers in GC know jack-all about the amps they're handling is a fairly safe assumption, and there's not much harm in ruling out the other possibilities first.

Fair enough.

 

[Jonathan20022]

To the guys who have mentioned being ignored, I'd be interested to know how you're going about being noticed. Unless a sales guy is with a customer, I have no problem politely interrupting whatever they are doing. If they are having a very long conversation with a customer and I've got a very quick question, or just want to pay for some strings or something, I'll wait for a good moment to interject, as long as you're polite about it and don't butt in like an asshole, it's all good.

I see some people in stores trying to get help by just looking lost or trying to look really interested in something.

Very true, no one's going to spoon feed you anything at a guitar shop. I always go up to someone and ask them for whatever I need, it's what they're being paid to do haha. The guys at the GC and Sam Ash are pretty awesome now, barre that asshole I posted about a couple pages back. But thankfully that rotten apple didn't ruin the bunch.

 

[datalore]

I haven't set foot in a music store in 5 years. There are some great ones out there, but not in my neck of the woods. Things are probably even worse now that most people are buying stuff online.

 

[Joshua]

I guess I got lucky with the people at my local GC. They've never bothered me or pushed me to buy anything I didn't want. And the guitar tech there is probably one of the nicest dudes I've ever met. Sometimes when I need small stuff done, he just does it for free

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

I guess I got lucky with the people at my local GC. They've never bothered me or pushed me to buy anything I didn't want. And the guitar tech there is probably one of the nicest dudes I've ever met. Sometimes when I need small stuff done, he just does it for free

I've never tried the tech at my local gc (so I can't say if they are any good or not), since I've always done all my own setups and never bothered with any kind of trem.

 

[Rap Hat]

I've been on the other side and seen coworkers treat customers like shit/scam them. I think I've told some of these stories before, but they still ring true (all take place at a certain store once owned by a now-deceased short red-haired blowhard):

Our shop used to sell lots of high-end guitars, and we would often get collectors pieces to unload. This changed when the bosses+purchasing manager decided that a $15,000 PRS with a nice margin wasn't worth it because it would take one month to sell. Instead, we'd now buy a dozen $100 starter guitars (which would take 3 weeks to sell because they're crap) and make jack shit.
Now, we used to have a ton of rich regulars who'd come from all over to spend 20 grand a pop. With the change our most valuable guitar was something like an Ibanez RG with shark tooth inlays (not even a Pestige). When the customers would come in and ask where the PRS or Gibson CSs were, we were instructed to tell them "Oh, we juuuust sold our last one yesterday, we should have more next week!" Never mind that we wouldn't. I asked my boss what I should do if they wanted to order one - "Just tell them we'll have more next week." you can imagine how our longtime customers felt about this practice...

We would still buy used gear, and this is where the real unscrupulous practices came in. I remember a guy coming in with some Koa Taylor, one that went for something like $3500-4000 new. The guitar was in very good condition too, and something we could easily sell. Well, my coworker told the guy it had a warped neck and was unrepairable, so he'd offer (iirc) $700 for it. The guy trusted us (because we would never lie about that!) and took the deal. My coworker got congrats from the boss when the guy left, and they considered it an epic score.

There are many more stories, but those two really show how shitty we treated our customers. I refused to take part in that and quit as a result. I still feel awful for all the customers we burned.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I go to school an hour and a bit up the road, and there is a semi-infamous music store one town over that deals exclusively in used merchandise save for a few miscellaneous accessories like strings and picks. The store is staffed by a bunch of employees who generally just don't give a fuck, in that once you walk in you can flip a coin to see if you'll get any service at all, then flip another to determine whether the experience will be positive. I once purchased an Alesis expression pedal there only to find out that the pot needed a swap and the cable a resolder. I then made the mistake of purchasing a mid-80s Kramer Focus with a non-fine-tuner OFR on it for around $70 all said and done only to find out that the truss rod adjustment was stripped. Thankfully the bridge itself is worth more than the guitar so I won. Half the time when I walk in to buy strings the guys behind the counter are more interested in BSing with their friends then helping out paying customers, and they make prices up apparently on the spot to the point that they charged me $7 for a pack of EXL110s and my friend in line right behind me $6 for the same.

I ended up selling some rack gear I'd never have gotten rid of otherwise to them, and the guy at the counter was like "These work, right? I don't need to test them?" I now see why I'd been shafted every time I'd purchased from there.

On the flip side, however, I did score an excellent deal on a rare Yamaha bass amp from there that has yet to fail me. Only truly positive experience to speak of though... I wish every employee in that store was as savvy the dude that helped me with that purchase .

I've been on the other side and seen coworkers treat customers like shit/scam them. I think I've told some of these stories before, but they still ring true (all take place at a certain store once owned by a now-deceased short red-haired blowhard):

Our shop used to sell lots of high-end guitars, and we would often get collectors pieces to unload. This changed when the bosses+purchasing manager decided that a $15,000 PRS with a nice margin wasn't worth it because it would take one month to sell. Instead, we'd now buy a dozen $100 starter guitars (which would take 3 weeks to sell because they're crap) and make jack shit.
Now, we used to have a ton of rich regulars who'd come from all over to spend 20 grand a pop. With the change our most valuable guitar was something like an Ibanez RG with shark tooth inlays (not even a Pestige). When the customers would come in and ask where the PRS or Gibson CSs were, we were instructed to tell them "Oh, we juuuust sold our last one yesterday, we should have more next week!" Never mind that we wouldn't. I asked my boss what I should do if they wanted to order one - "Just tell them we'll have more next week." you can imagine how our longtime customers felt about this practice...

We would still buy used gear, and this is where the real unscrupulous practices came in. I remember a guy coming in with some Koa Taylor, one that went for something like $3500-4000 new. The guitar was in very good condition too, and something we could easily sell. Well, my coworker told the guy it had a warped neck and was unrepairable, so he'd offer (iirc) $700 for it. The guy trusted us (because we would never lie about that!) and took the deal. My coworker got congrats from the boss when the guy left, and they considered it an epic score.

There are many more stories, but those two really show how shitty we treated our customers. I refused to take part in that and quit as a result. I still feel awful for all the customers we burned.

Did this owner's name rhyhme with Shed Bowman?