Customer Dissatisfaction

There's a music shop in Ottawa that I've always despised. The first reason was its location (it's on Rideau street and hard to get to). The second reason is the service. When I first started to visit the guys wouldn't even look at me. They'd pander to the regulars and professional musicians. Fair enough. But then I got older and had some money to burn. As soon as I had money to burn they were helpful, until I had to take said thing back.

Case #1 - The Tele

I didn't return my Telecaster. I never would. But when I bought it I was told to take it in sometime in the first six months for a full tune up as the intonation and other shit I didn't know shit about would need to be adjusted. Fair enough.

So I learned about intonation and shit and one day noticed the strings rattled and didn't before. So I took it in for the free tune up. They told me it would be ready in two days and I said, "I'm out of town until next Saturday, so I'll just pick it up then." Next Saturday being a week away.

Next Saturday arrives and I show up at the store. "Sorry sir, your guitar isn't ready." OK, I'm somewhat upset, but shit happens.

"Can I have it for Thursday? That's the next jam."

"Sure."

Thursday arrives. I call at noon to make sure I can pick it up at 6. "Is she ready?"

"No, but we'll have it ready by six."

I arrive at six and they can't find it. They scurry and scrounge and I look behind the counter and say, "that's it, did you fix it?"

"Yep, sure did."

"Can I try it?" I ask, recalling the 6th string rattle.

"Sure."

"It wasn't fixed." I say.

"Hey (insert name here), did you fix the black Tele?" the guy yells to the back.

No is the response from the distance. So they fix it there while I wait, which begs the question, couldn't they have done that the first time I was there?

Case #2 - The Recorder (no, not that kind of recorder)

We record some songs we play. We have this dual input thing that plugs into a Mac (half the problem) via USB. This means that we have to play the song 3 times to get all tracks recorded. Which is fine, I think professionals even do this, but it's time consuming.

A couple of days after the holidays I'm surfing this store's website, partly because I'm a sucker for punishment, but mainly because a cute girl said she wanted a guitar. Anyway, I see this recording device similar to ours except it has 8 inputs. 8! Perfect! I call the store and they have one in stock. I ask them to hold it and they do.

Saturday arrives and I head down to the store. My machine is waiting, but I'm nervous, it's so inexpensive, like beer at a Legion. "Are you sure this will work?" I ask, "And if not, can I take it back?"

"Yes" he says.

So I cancel drinking plans with football buddies. Wait, I move my drinking plans from my football buddies to my band buddies and head to the jam space to figure it out. We can't. But we're not worried, we're smart guys, we'll figure it out.

Fast forward to next week and after finally reading the instructions, it works. Woohoo, let's go grab a drink.

Fast forward to next jam night and we can't get it to work. Fast forward to next jam night and we still can't get it to work. We then test it out direct to amplifiers and it doesn't work. So I check the receipt, it's within 30 days and I take it back.

I talk to a guy at the counter and tell him my problem and he says, "we don't have another one in stock."

"That's fine," I say, "I didn't want another one anyway, I just want my money back."

"We don't give money back." he says.

"What? Why? It's within 30 days." I say.

"Well, that'd be just like renting. Nobody gives money back like that."

"Are you serious?" I say, "Everybody gives money back."

"...."

"Everybody."

"Well, I guess we don't, but you can have store credit."

"Fine, I'm missing Lucky Ron. Gimme the credit."

So now I have store credit at a store I don't want to visit. It's about $250, exactly the price I'd pay to fill that thing full of shotgun pellets.