I ordered, payed with Swell pedal company, and never received anything!!!

[dharmashawn]

Originally Posted by andrew

Has anyone inquired to current Swell dealers about Myco pedals?

That is pretty crazy - Close up one shop (wipe debt) and re-open under a new name. I use to work for a screenprinter and he did this like 4 or 5 times. Our name was always changing

[caeman]

It is downright suspicious, is what it is.

[dharmashawn]

Sure is, In my hand I have a very nicely written certificate:

SWELL PEDAL CO
LIMITED TEN (10) YEAR WARRANTY

We are a small American company dedicated to designing and building products of the highest quality that offer superior performance and lasting value........................

To that end SWELL Pedal Company (and hopefully Myco) warrants our products to be free of defects in materials and workmanship to the original purchaser for a period of ten (10) years from the original Date of purchase...................

I wish I still smoked grass, cause I would roll the fattest stinkiest J-bird out of this thing

[MSUsousaphone]

Lol. Let's take a lesson from the first portion of this thread and give time for some info to come out before going too far out there on this one. Always raise questions....but let's hold the tar and feathers. He just took my B-Peg in and updated it for free. Yeah, if the company closes up shop, no one is obligated to fix the pedal, but Mike is the type of guy that would still do it. And no one else has come forward saying there's outstanding orders so it looks as though everything has been fulfilled.

[iggy]

Keep drinking the koolaid guys. Order up another round and change the name on your tab. Great idea.

[dharmashawn]

Originally Posted by iggy

Keep drinking the koolaid guys.

Never get tired of reading that one-liner

[My name is Mudd]

Myco Pedals site is live now...sort of...you'll see...

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by iggy

Keep drinking the koolaid guys. Order up another round and change the name on your tab. Great idea.

+1, even if the guy is basically decent and not out to rip anyone off, I think cheering for him is a bit much.

[Vlad5]

Well hey, the main page does say the pedals are 'aged'... maybe in reference to the year(s) it'll take to actually get your order!

Not to nitpick, but that's probably the most uninformative commercial site I've ever seen... 4 pedals, all identical in description and layout, save numbering and color?

Um... what?

Dude needs some marketing assistance as well as production/customer service assistance.

Coolaid is all yours bros...

[MSUsousaphone]

No one has confirmed that's him and not a person he sold the rights to the company to. And that looks like a site/company that's still getting things together.

But by all means, begin the lynch mob. Jumped the gun once and got shown to be premature....might as well repeat it.

[caeman]

Mike O.
Myco.

Both in Nashville, TN. Yup, no connection.

[MSUsousaphone]

Well duh there's a connection. It's the same layout, verbage, enclosures, colors, and everything.

But check this out, "Mike says "**** it, I'm done with this business", closes up shop, fulfills all orders (which it looks like he did do), younger guy he has working with him in the shop says "I like these pedals (since they are better than what you guys are using ;P ), let me do something with this". Mike says ok. Kid names it after him.

Is it possible? Yes. Likely? He could be avoiding debts. Could go either way. The prudent (and Christian ) thing to do would be to wait and see what happens of this. It's pretty obvious that site is incomplete. Not only are the pedals only numbered.....but there's nothing telling the difference between Bass Pedal 3 and Bass Pedal 4. That can't be finished. And if it IS finished, that can't be Mike.

So, like you guys should have done with the rabble rabble rabble when you thought customers were doomed and would never see their pedals (lone voice of reason and the one who happened to be right being this guy, gloat gloat gloat), it might be time to chill a bit and see where this goes before getting out the pitchforks.

[scotch]

MSU, man, do you have a horse in this race somehow? Either way, the snarkiness seems uncalled for.

The facts are that at least a couple of guys had to wait unreasonably long times for paid-for product & communication from the manufacturer was an epic fail. Of course, we're still holding out that all purchases are fullfilled!

Without any communication from Mike from Swell, all we can do is conjecture... The seemingly identical products with a similar name coming out of the same town certainly point towards either a business sale, restructuring or similar venture.

I hope this all works out for everybody (Mike from Swell included)! But, Swell definitely failed on the customer service front- there's no hypothetical scenario that excuses that!

[MSUsousaphone]

Awesome. I'm glad our points agree....even though you wrote that like we disagreed......

[DeltaPhoenix]

I thought about ordering a Swell so I am pissed! I missed out on having something to bitch at. Just think of all the mean stuff I could have said.

Groupthink is a personal favorite of mine.

[Flux Jetson]

I can say I know of a situation with another small builder that went a little wonky (but in his defense he had medical issues which he posted nearly daily about on his website, and even so people continued to prepay for orders). He even tried to discourage orders by telling people their deposits were non-refundable. Yet they still came in (and again, his health issues were on the first page of his website, which was updated nearly daily).

When he got his health issues squared away it took him a while to get caught up, he even gave each customer the option of waiting for their order or receiving a full refund which he made good on.

However, he has since completely changed his business model to what he calls a no-prepay/waiting list system that includes a return policy, that protects his customers in every way possible. He's also one of the best communicators I know of. But the fallout from the pitchfork and torch crowd has done severe damage to his professional rep (and yet he marches forward, regardless of the naysayers).

Having owned and operated a brick and mortar technical based business myself for decades, I know for a fact that there are many ~tinkerers~ and "techs" that see $$$$ on the invoices for the shops they work for, and think that they too can actually go into business for themselves. Many times they may be excellent tech-heads, and are so bad at management that they can hardly keep their own lives straight let alone run a business. It has little or nothing to do with honesty or ill-will or unleashed greed, it has everything to do with simply being naive.

So while there are some idiots out there, and there are some good builders with lousy business models, there are also some one/two person outfits that have some business savvy and some integrity. I say pick and choose your pedal companies carefully. Not all one/two person shops are to be suspicious of.

I gotta say that if a small builder cannot operate without taking full deposits up front (to pay for parts and such) they really shouldn't be doing business on the web. When the ultimately screw it up, it gives other small shops that use good business models a bad smell that they don't deserve.

And keep in mind that these forums and their members wield a certain amount of power. Crap spewn from pieholes can project severely harsh images, and can have a lot of control over the ultimate success or failure of any given small shop. We have to remain responsible for this power and keep in mind the control we have over future incoming business for these small shops before we use words like "criminal" or "crook".

Live by two rules:

1.) Treat others as you would have others treat you.

2.) Leave this place, this life, this planet, in a little better shape than it was when you got here.

Yea, Mike made some mistakes, and he could be a better communicator. But I don't think he is a criminal. He would do well adopting a better business model. But in the end, we are the ones that elect to participate in such business dealings. I understand (and agree with) the necessity for a deposit on super-special-ultra-custom projects, even if it's just a partial non-refundable deposit (or is weighted with a restocking fee). But if we, as consumers, simply demand no-prepay/waiting list business models on stocking devices (non-custom) the bad eggs and ones that cannot operate on their own cash flow are eliminated through Darwinism.

These full-prepay/non-refundable shops exist because we encourage them to. The ball is 100% in our control, we simply elect to hand the ball to the full-deposit shops.

Uh ... who's at fault again?

[MSUsousaphone]

That. Well written. And if you DO opt for the spending lots of money on a non custom preorder thing....DON'T USE PAYPAL!!!

[Darknut]

Lack of communication is biggest issue most of these small builders suffer from ... most of the builder I've dealt with anyway.

Most people will forgive delays if there is good communication.

Communication is simple business 101 .... but there are lot of "dumb" smart people building pedals.

My best experience by far was from BadgerEffects.com .... All emails were answered promptly & He didn't charge my Paypal until my Schism shipped.

[DeltaPhoenix]

I agree good communication helps me deal with delays. I had one bad experience with a builder, I was emailing him monthly (it was a mod job, not too hard of one either), and I got short responses. Then the guy got short and became a jerk. I found out that a few other people were having issues with him and we all outed him on another forum. Eventually I got the pedal back and it was modded. I hated it, not because the sound but because he was a douchecanoe and I sold it right away.
I have had other small builders get behind but keep me in the loop, no problems there.

In Mike's defense, I have no clue what really was going on but people did get their pedals. Obviously the situation was less than optimal. Hopefully he has learned something about how to better run a business from Swell.

AND Swell pedals sound AWESOME.

[Lester Grey]

Hi all, I am new to the forum but have been keeping an eye on this thread. I ordered a B Drive from the Swell website on 10/5. On 11/5 I sent an email requesting an update and received no reply. Shortly thereafter I learned of the long wait times so I wasn't that concerned. When I saw this post I contacted PayPal. After explaining the situation to them they initiated a claim on my behalf. I was told by their rep that it could take 7-10 days to hear anything. However, I recevied an email in less than an hour saying the claim was denied and the case had been closed. When I called back to ask why I was told that they had heard from Swell, that my order was a custom order and it would be shipping out by the end of January. They then told me to contact them again if I do not receive the pedal.

Do I think I will receive my B Drive? As of today I am 50/50 on that. The fact that the OP received an email stating his is on the way gives me some hope. Seeing MSU state that he received his pedal was also good news. Myself, I will reserve judgement for a few more days...