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GC experience and question about Preciscion necks

#21
I would call the store RIGHT NOW and let them know what happened and they you're brining it back tonight for a refund. The longer you wIt the harder it will become to get your money back.
Also. Why did the employee have to "find the case"? Why wasn't it in the case and protected, from the time that you put it on layaway?

I hate Guitar Center. While waiting for a movie one night I went there to kill some time. Ended up making a really good deal w the manager for a used bass, but as I didn't want to carry it into the movie theater, I left a deposit and arranged to pick it up two days later. When I went back, the assistant manager tried to double the price, telling me there was no way the manager would sell it for what was on the receipt. Waited over an hour until they could reach the manager, who was on vacation.
Got it for my price but was pretty slimy on their part.
 
#22
Ash Jazz said:
I also appreciate the suggestions on the P bass. If they just hand me another bass I will adjust to it. If I get a refund I will look into that Lakland or the Mark Hoppus. To be perfectly honest the thing that tipped the scale towards the P was I had played a jazz for so long I thought a change would be nice.
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The Hoppus has a 1.625" nut, same as the American Standard P. The Nate Mendel is 1.615". The Blacktop Jazz has 2 P pickups; aerodyne has PJ. Both have a 1.5" nut
 
#24
ronin614 said:
I would call the store RIGHT NOW and let them know what happened and they you're brining it back tonight for a refund. The longer you wIt the harder it will become to get your money back.
Also. Why did the employee have to "find the case"? Why wasn't it in the case and protected, from the time that you put it on layaway?

I hate Guitar Center. While waiting for a movie one night I went there to kill some time. Ended up making a really good deal w the manager for a used bass, but as I didn't want to carry it into the movie theater, I left a deposit and arranged to pick it up two days later. When I went back, the assistant manager tried to double the price, telling me there was no way the manager would sell it for what was on the receipt. Waited over an hour until they could reach the manager, who was on vacation.
Got it for my price but was pretty slimy on their part.
Click to expand...

WOW, that was definitely not a good experience. I have no reason to think I will get royally shafted...yet. They may even step up and take care of it. I'll find out on my way home from work today.
 
#25
GC wasting customer's time on checkout and on locating stuff they stored for the customer is SOP for them. Bothers me no end. They once had me wait pretty long as they tried to figured out how to do a split credit between two of the salespeople because I made the mistake to honestly answer that two people "helped" me (aka talk to the back of my head while I tried to locate any decent bass to test a combo amp).

You can of course return it. Complaining probably gets you nowhere with that company. They seem to have no control over the customer experience.
 
#27
StuartV said:
True. But why would I? After having a really good '66 P and the SB-2 at the same time, I have found that I prefer the sound of the SB-2. I added a Tone control, so it will faithfully reproduce every sound the '66 P could make, plus many more options.

I posted a poll with sound clips a while back and more people picked the SB-2 clip as being the "real P bass" than picked the '66!

Oh, and I personally have never had any trouble with any neck staying in tune or twisting up. I'm definitely not worried about that happening with a G&L. Or even a MIA Peavey. MIA G&Ls and Peaveys are super high quality basses, period. I've had numerous MIA Fenders (and one MIJ) and they have gone, while the G&Ls, EBMMs, and Peaveys have stayed.
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I guess. My point was that selling an otherwise great bass over such a minor and easily fixed string spacing issue is totally unnecessary. Now if the neck itself is not comfortable, That's different. I honestly can't feel a difference between a Jazz and P-Bass neck and my hands are pretty small. I guess some people are way more sensitive to this stuff than others. To me the best of both worlds would be a Jazz Body with a P-Bass neck. I'm sure they made/make them.
 
#29
So here is an interesting twist to the story...

I sent an email to corporate. It was very detailed, spelling out the good and bad.

I went to a different Guitar Center on the other side of town. They are closer to where I work. The other one is closer to where I live. I had called first and they said they could take care of me.

While I was there a guy comes up and says; "I'd like to talk to you in private for a minute." Huh? Okay. Turns out he was the regional manager and had read my email. He wanted to use it for training material. WOW! That blew my mind. I wanted to come up with some intelligent things to say to the guy but honestly I was taken by surprise and hadn't really organized my thoughts on the subject and probably came off like a drooling idiot.

We spoke for a while. He was very concerned and wanted to make some changes to the corporate culture to make sure that "we" the customer would have a better buying experience.

Of course they bent over backwards for me. I have a new bass. It's in perfect condition and plays like a dream.

It turns out it is a matter of doing business to adjust a customers instrument before they take it home. They consider that to be good customer service and one of the reasons you would buy from them instead of an online company.
 
#30
Ash Jazz said:
So here is an interesting twist to the story...

I sent an email to corporate. It was very detailed, spelling out the good and bad.

I went to a different Guitar Center on the other side of town. They are closer to where I work. The other one is closer to where I live. I had called first and they said they could take care of me.

While I was there a guy comes up and says; "I'd like to talk to you in private for a minute." Huh? Okay. Turns out he was the regional manager and had read my email. He wanted to use it for training material. WOW! That blew my mind. I wanted to come up with some intelligent things to say to the guy but honestly I was taken by surprise and hadn't really organized my thoughts on the subject and probably came off like a drooling idiot.

We spoke for a while. He was very concerned and wanted to make some changes to the corporate culture to make sure that "we" the customer would have a better buying experience.

Of course they bent over backwards for me. I have a new bass. It's in perfect condition and plays like a dream.

It turns out it is a matter of doing business to adjust a customers instrument before they take it home. They consider that to be good customer service and one of the reasons you would buy from them instead of an online company.
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LOL, Some random goofball doing a last minute crank of the truss rod?:rollno: That's not in the business model I assure you. :scowl:Especially after a 1/2 hour wait. At least you finally got a bass you are happy with. I'll stick to unopened Boxes and set them up myself.:)
 
#33
Glad to hear everything was straightened out. Great news. :bassist:

It would be really a smart move for the big guys to step in and make drastic changes to a large number of stores and the way they operate.

Long ago I walked away from spending a dime at GC due to some really shady business at the Detroit store, after i had spent a good amount of dough over the years. That was it for me.

10 Years later (last year) I gave them another chance. It didn't take long to get to that point of 'never again', I'm done with GC.

Other instances occurred prior to this at the Det and Southfield stores, but The Final Straw was:

I bought a bass but didn't have enough on me, paid with what I did have to put a cash hold on it for 3 days. I go back to pick it up and pay the difference. Guy comes back 20 min later and says to meet him at the register to cash out... I said I'd like to see the bass first.

This and my past experiences are why I always re-inspect anything on holds or layaway... Low-and-behold it's not the same bass I put on hold, and an inferior copy at that. I tell this to the guy and say this is not the same bass, what's the deal? Then basically he insinuated I am nuts and one of "those guys"...

My response.... pull out my phone and play the video I shot. Little did they know I not only captured the serial number, I took my mini sharpie and initialed inside the battery box. and it's all on video.... "No I'm one of those guys" ;)

If I had ever seen someone poop themselves in front of me, it happened then.

That was it and I will never give one cent to a GC ever again. :rollno:

Sucks to as the Madison WI store, some of the best service, coolest people ever anywhere. A great example to model how all stores should be. (at least when I use to shop there)

Thank god for Motor City Guitar.

Sorry for the rant.. Hearing these experiences, damaged layaway items, switching copies and lousy service just gets my goat lol
 
#34
<sigh>

It saddens me when people have such a lousy experience at a GC store, especially in light of how awesome the guys at the Wilmington, DE store have been to me. That's counting it's managers, CSR's and their guitar tech. All of them have been very cool, friendly and at times, patient with me. (What can I say? I'm constantly afraid of being a pest.)

That being said, I can definitely understand the "never again" position some people take when they've had bad experiences time and again. Hopefully these stores will get their acts together and find people who are good at their job AND give a damn about the customer and their experiences.

Ash, I'm glad to hear your story had a happy, if not well-fought for, ending. I hope you love the hell outta that bass.
 
#35
Adjust a bass on the way out of the store as a policy? What kind of BS is he talking about? I got a used bass shipped in a month ago and its missing knobs, the condition was misrepresented grossly, and the guy figured I wouldn't even open the box until I got home. He acted all surprised when I said I wanted to open it. LOL, got my refund immediately.
 
#36
Malak the Mad said:
<sigh>

It saddens me when people have such a lousy experience at a GC store, especially in light of how awesome the guys at the Wilmington, DE store have been to me. That's counting it's managers, CSR's and their guitar tech. All of them have been very cool, friendly and at times, patient with me. (What can I say? I'm constantly afraid of being a pest.)

That being said, I can definitely understand the "never again" position some people take when they've had bad experiences time and again. Hopefully these stores will get their acts together and find people who are good at their job AND give a damn about the customer and their experiences.

Ash, I'm glad to hear your story had a happy, if not well-fought for, ending. I hope you love the hell outta that bass.
Click to expand...

Right on. On the upside it's good to hear another store treats customers right. That's how it was @ the Madison WI store I mentioned. From the SM to the floor guys everyone was cool, helpful and bent over backwards for you, even on the lowest price possible.

Madison would still do (most stores don't) what was the additional 10% off demo models. If they didn't have one boxed in back to pick from, or the one on display was more than a day old and that's the copy you had to have, it would be considered a "demo model" there. Last Ibanez I bought was floor dated the day before and gave me that additional 10% off because in their minds it's a demo and handled 100 times. Back here in Detroit, they wouldn't even budge on the SR805 price that was dated on the floor for 9 months, and was far from new condition it has so much swirl and scuffs :/ Crazy how different one store can be from another.

At least Ash's incident was corrected without any runaround or the typical BS that can occur, coming out with that new bass.
 
#37
Yah, alls well that ends well.

I can't speak regarding the GC corprorate culture in general but the regional manager, I can't believe one day later I can't remember his name, cared.

One of the things we discussed was the competing salespeople. It's not like they are throwing down in front of you but we humans are perceptive and easily pick up on that kind of thing.

His biggest concern was how to compete against the online business. Low overhead is the advantage to online sales. Being able to touch and play the instruments is the advantage of having a retail outlet. It will suck the day retail music stores go the way of the dinosaur. He was all about value added. You know many people just trudge along in their jobs. This guy has a passion for the job and thats pretty cool.

I am loving the bass. I haven't been able to put it down. The American Standard really is a very good instrument. I am already getting used to the string spacing. I have to put more energy into playing but that doesn't really bother me.

I had borrowed a friends American Standard Jazz for a few days. Really just to see how it differs form my Marcus Miller. The Marcus Miller seems heaver and it doesn't really resonate. It's like a totally inert platform for the string. The American Jazz resonated quite a bit. I could feel the vibration of the body and it was just louder acoustically. This preciscion has that same quality. You could argue which is better but personally I'm liking it. I like playing it acoustically almost as much as through an amp.
 

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