GUITAR CENTER Scheme's

[Blix666]

...
<~~~~~ me reading this thread...

 

[kerrycares]

GC here in Southfield,Mi is amazing.
They offer top prices for purchasing vintage gear.
They keep a steady flow of quality gear both new and used.
They broker deals across the state and cross country.
They even refer out to non GC stores in town.

My guess is part of the problem is unfortunately market size while here in the greater Detroit and Michigan market our scene is pretty vibrant.
You can always connect with Scott @GC Southfield (248) 354-8075

 

[Alkali Ike]

The responders who said “60% of what we can sell it for” are right.

 

[FenderP]

I think the key word is "accountability". OP is still essentially blaming GC when all he had to do was take 10 minutes and figure out the used market value of the item.

When I sold my big amp to GC recently, they tested every channel, knob, etc. I not only expected that, I welcomed it. Once you basically sign it over to GC, they're responsible for it so they're going to ensure it works. If they said to me "Not interested", while it would have sucked, I wouldn't complain about it.

The other thing about condition is that what if it looked great but smelled of cat urine and they promised you $X? Or it was in OK condition but only farted when notes were played? All possibilities. I'm sure that wasn't the case but you get the idea. That's why they're not going to give you numbers on lots of things they do not know. Pictures don't tell the whole story and they don't know you from Adam or Eve.

They gave you a fair offer. You just thought it was worth more than it is and it's clear you still do.

I wouldn't bother escalating at GC - locally or nationally. You're not going to get the answer you're hoping for.

 

[James Collins]

I am under the impression doing phone/email appraisals appraisals would be a huge waste of time and money. You would have to pay a team of people to appraise a bunch of stuff people weren't really serious about bringing in and then piss off a bunch of other people that want to gripe about 15% price difference and think an appraisal is a negotiation.

 

[skycruiser]

This thread is a gold mine. Another TB classic.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

If someone calls Guitar Center with questions and you get a answer that you believe there sale reps are experienced and knowledgable in there department. I am not one to complain but after my trip to GC and experience, I am no longer a customer of Guitar Center. (Little Rock, AR). I called Guitar Center in Little Rock. I asked a rep about appraising my equipment. I was told they will pay cash to the seller at 60% of the price of new equipment, providing the equipment is in good to excellent, good condition.
I asked if I could take good quality pictures to send to GC for a close quote as to what I could expect for a quote.
He told me no, that I would have to bring it in. I explained I had a
2 hr:45 min trip to Little Rock with my Mesa Boggie Power House Desiel 2-15 EV road ready (anvil high quality) bass cab, and other equipment to sell. My in tensions were to purchase a 800W Mark Bass combo. $999.99/$1200.99 while I was there. Well I get there, we unloaded my cab. Two sales men right away made comments " wow this is the road read bad boy! They seem very interested. "First Scheme"
One sale rep said we need to test it!. So we headed to the bass section of the store. He placed a Ampeg SVT porta Bass 500 on top, plugged it in. I let him know this cab was in perfect working order and was a bad ass rig. He grabbed a bass but he seem to look for a certain one. He plugged it in and turned up the master full and the gain at 3. Right away it was distorting, I looked at all his knobs and adjusted to all straight up. It was still sounding distorted. Right away, he tells me me speakers were blown! .I told him no way. I asked him if it was a active bass. He said yep. I told him to use a passive bass to try because I told him it sounded like the battery was dead. He grabbed another to plug in, I seen he grabbed another active bass. I said dude, just try a passive bass so we know the battery is not dead. He picked out a passive bass, he plugged it in and it sounded totally awesome. At that point I had second thoughts about trading it in. I told him he should always use a passive to test. But I believe he was trying to use a bass he knew the battery was dead that would cause the speakers to sound blown.
Once he put it through the paces my cabs passed hands down. He rolled it back to the main room to get a price. Those cabs sold for $1800 + for the anvil road ready Desiel Power house model.
Can be biamped or full range. The sales man came to me and said he could only give me $250.00 for my Mesa Boggie hand made in the USA made of aircraft construction techniques. I was like man, you got to be kidding me!
He said he would sell it for $300/$400. He told me that they need to make a profit margin. I told him Guitar Center's profit margins has already took a lost, knowing it took 1 hr 30 minutes for both of them to do everything possible to cut my quote.
I explain to one of the reps that I seen other used equipment that was Chinese cheap built junk for more money compared to my American made Mesa Boggie 2-15 power house. He decided he would not even go up $50 to $300.00
I then replaced the front panel anvil case , locked it down and started to roll it back to my van. He said to me, " I thought you wanted to buy a bass rig?". I said yes, I was very interested in a $999.99 Mark Bass but that $50 you could not come up cost you a big time sale. I could see the look on his face.
I told him I'm done with Guitar Center.
Years ago, I once went to another music store that I had to drive 3 hours. The manager gave me a $30 cut on the price knowing I had to travel that far. Customers always look for deals knowing most of us are just weekend warriors and won't get rich.
Sweet Water has a customer satisfication policy. Guitar Center has a customer screw over policy. And finally my rant is over.
Has any one had a similar experience?

I dunno, I’ve done ok buying used equipment at GC over the years. Actually landed some really good gear cheap. I’ve also done OK trading in gear in the past.

I feel bad for your experience, especially about the misinformation that you used to justify a lengthy trip. That should never happen. In my situation, I have a GC about 1 mile and a half as the crow flies from where I live. There is another one that’s 2 miles from where I work that is Nextdoor to a Sam Ash (talk about a scary predicament with those two stores that close by with an hour to kill for lunch).

Trading gear is always a challenge, mainly because value of what ever you are selling is based on the buyers willingness to pay. And as one of my local GC manager explained to me, there is a difference between selling to an end user, and a reseller.

You almost always do better dealing with an end user, than somebody trying to make a buck selling what you are trying to unload. An end user is buying what he can get out of gear that he doesn’t have. A reseller’s only interest is how much he can make selling it to someone else.

 

[bluepeep]

Traded my Carvin 5 for a Martin D15....
Guy was able to look up the Carvin Serial # and find out it was sold years ago Used thru GC...

Great deal tho.... Came up on what he offered me PLUS gave me a discount on the Martin making it an even swap.

Both great instruments - I'd bet the Carvin 5 is still worth near what I got and the Martin has actually appreciated seeing them on Reverb for 800+ when my swap was around $650 value

I think I caught that Martin at a great price back then guessing 2003 or so...

My Old Heavy Bass cab - I told my little cousin to come by and lift this hunk of crap out of here and get what you can for it ; )

 

[Gibson Victory]

Pure Gold here for sure! So let me keep things going with something like “Oh yeah GC, take that!” Don’t mess around with “them boy’s round here”. We showed them that we can “trash” with the best of them, bar none. If I can find that stick that I had laying around here, I’ll draw the line in the sand for everyone. You can laugh now. You know...If any of those folks are members, or just happen to read this stuff, they are probably going to need a couple of “Double Latte’s” just to get out of bed and go to work tomorrow. Think I’ll go crank up the SVT to “11”, and run through “Breakin’ The Law” one more time for good measure.

 

[Tazziedevil]

Is there a "TB" Hall Of Fame thread? This surely gets a nomination!

 

[Gibson Victory]

Is there a "TB" Hall Of Fame thread? This surely gets a nomination!

Amen!

 

[cbassman55]

I dunno, I’ve done ok buying used equipment at GC over the years. Actually landed some really good gear cheap. I’ve also done OK trading in gear in the past.

I feel bad for your experience, especially about the misinformation that you used to justify a lengthy trip. That should never happen. In my situation, I have a GC about 1 mile and a half as the crow flies from where I live. There is another one that’s 2 miles from where I work that is Nextdoor to a Sam Ash (talk about a scary predicament with those two stores that close by with an hour to kill for lunch).

Trading gear is always a challenge, mainly because value of what ever you are selling is based on the buyers willingness to pay. And as one of my local GC manager explained to me, there is a difference between selling to an end user, and a reseller.

You almost always do better dealing with an end user, than somebody trying to make a buck selling what you are trying to unload. An end user is buying what he can get out of gear that he doesn’t have. A reseller’s only interest is how much he can make selling it to someone else.

LOL I'm sure it is very tempting to go browse every so often, living and working so close.
Yea, I'm sure I burned a bridge ranting on TB about GC but I hope they see my point of view.

 

[cbassman55]

I'll bet there are a lot of those old beasts still shaking walls out there. Since it really doesn't have a lot of monetary value (which is sad to me) good idea to keep it and rock the house with it. A good Mesa head or a GK RB1001 tube head would really sound heavenly through those speakers.

Totally agree! Great sounding cab! Muscle car compared to bug! LOL. A hand truck makes things a lot easier. I also have a 8-10 cab and it really isn't all that bad to move around as long as I have wheels and a ramp. All good!

 

[jthisdell]

This thread would be better if it had say 100 pics of the cab in question and more of unrelated cabs or objects in general.

Yep, totally agree...

 

[cbassman55]

If you don't like what they offered you, feel free to sell it yourself. That is all. It is what it is.

Sure enough but the fact is he could have saved me the hassle of loading my cab and unloading it 4 times with a simple quote over the pH. Pictures are worth a thousand words like they say. It is what it is but
lesson learned by someone else's ignorance.

 

[Paladin54]

Well, that's 6 pages worth of lecturing the OP in how wrong he was. Is that good enough or do we need more?

This is page 11 so it looks like only about half done. But that percentage could change with time.

 

[cbassman55]

This thread would be better if it had say 100 pics of the cab in question and more of unrelated cabs or objects in general.

Yep, totally agree...

More like "I kept my cool" Loading and unloading 4 times waisting 8 hours of my life etc......

 

[cbassman55]

No employee of a retail establishment that deals with used/traded in products is going to give you a quote over the phone. That’s inviting all sorts of grief along “but you told me when I called” lines. This is related to the policy here of no “how much is this worth?” inquiries. Sending photos(and who would you be sending them to, the manager?)is futile, because there’s so many ways anyone could misrepresent an item in a cel phone pic. They have to have the actual item in front of them to make a judgement call. Did you bother to go to the GC website to see if they had that cab for sale used in any of their stores? While there can be variations in pricing due to location, it would still give you a ballpark idea of the relative value, at least as far as they’re concerned. Have you ever traded any music gear in before, anywhere?

Everyone has there opinion but I know now that I'm pretty sure they knew the top dollar they would offer. That's why a ball park quote could give a person an idea if it's worth all the hassle and expense to spend 8 hours going there and back. I buy items all the time on eBay based on photos. GC also use eBay as a place to look at pics and get an idea of a ball park price. I know it's there job to to make money not lose money. $50 was the difference of him not making a dam good sale. He didn't even give a counter offer from $250 to $300.00.
He said he would sell it for $400. They would not of lost money. But sitting and waiting for an 1-1/2 hrs, I'm sure they lost there profit margin between two employers waisting my time.I'm on this site because I like reading topics and experience of other enthusiastic musicians. I accept when I'm wrong but hold my ground when my wisdom kicks in. I wasn't born yesterday. My grammer is far from perfect but I try!

 

[Balog]

Sure enough but the fact is he could have saved me the hassle of loading my cab and unloading it 4 times with a simple quote over the pH. Pictures are worth a thousand words like they say. It is what it is but
lesson learned by someone else's ignorance.

There certainly is a great deal of ignorance on display in your post.

 

[gln1955]

Everyone has there opinion but I know now that I'm pretty sure they knew the top dollar they would offer. That's why a ball park quote could give a person an idea if it's worth all the hassle and expense to spend 8 hours going there and back. I buy items all the time on eBay based on photos. GC also use eBay as a place to look at pics and get an idea of a ball park price. I know it's there job to to make money not lose money. $50 was the difference of him not making a dam good sale. He didn't even give a counter offer from $250 to $300.00.
He said he would sell it for $400. They would not of lost money. But sitting and waiting for an 1-1/2 hrs, I'm sure they lost there profit margin between two employers waisting my time.I'm on this site because I like reading topics and experience of other enthusiastic musicians. I accept when I'm wrong but hold my ground when my wisdom kicks in. I wasn't born yesterday. My grammer is far from perfect but I try!

So, what do you do now? Selling it on eBay or reverb where shipping will cost more than the cab is worth is a non-starter, IMO. Selling locally on CL or FB, you'll have to waste more time with flakey buyers than you did with GC and maybe get a few bucks more. Maybe. It might have been better for you to suck up the $50 just to be rid of your outdated gear.