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Official Zon Club Part 5

I agree that Joe is a great guy (never met Mark but I’m sure he is swell) and I also agree they are stellar modern basses with fairly exceptional build quality. I don’t mind a long wait as I have plenty of things to keep me busy. I just wish the customer service aspect could be improved as I said these are not cheap instruments. I’m not entitled to special treatment or expect anything out of the ordinary, all I would like is to feel like my business is appreciated enough to let me know over long stretches that there is a bass in progress. Pictures would be really cool but baby steps I suppose. I really REALLY have been a huge fan and promoter of these instruments around the northwest so this is all with due and honest respect.


Understand.

I purchased 4 other basses from them over the last few years and did receive photos from Joe on a couple of them.
 
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Historical data point: ordered early June 2017, quoted 8 months, arrived late March 2018, 9 months. I consider myself extremely lucky, given my highly customized order: headless Sonus 519 with totally different electronics than usual for that model.



Edit: very little communication from Zon compared to custom orders I've placed with Sadowsky, Nordstrand, Martin Keith, however I did get one pic of the carved-but-unfinished body, and another of the neck and painted but unassembled body.
 
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Historical data point: ordered early June 2017, quoted 8 months, arrived late March 2018, 9 months. I consider myself extremely lucky, given my highly customized order: headless Sonus 519 with totally different electronics than usual for that model.

They must've been more excited about your build haha. Glad you got yours in a timely way man.
 
To all Talkbass members, I want to give you all a WARNING and let you know that I had no choice but to file a police report for credit card fraud / theft against Zon Guitars. I paid Joe Zon $4,650 over the phone with my Visa in August 2017 and was promised the bass within 8 months. I had a little communication with Joe Zon over the months after, and then waited more than double the time he quoted me (in good faith) 17 months, with no word, no pictures, no nothing.

I really did NOT want to believe that Joe Zon would do this to me!!!

Thankfully I insured the bass (before I even received it) with my USAA valuable personal property insurance!
You only have about 3 months to dispute a Visa charge and we are way past that point, and today I received $4,650 back from my insurance company!

I will tell you this, I think Zon makes an excellent instrument, I've owned about 5 or 6 Zons in my life!

I thought Joe Zon was a total class act guy, in fact I had lunch with him and his sons a couple years ago in Redwood City.

So I am not sure what happened, but if he ever refunds my money I will have to pay back the insurance company. And if he doesn't than that's between him and the Redwood City police department now.

I now have nothing further to say to Joe Zon other than to tell him YES you have committed a felony and there is a police report in Redwood City for credit card fraud / grand theft. I am sorry I had to do this to you, but you left me no other choice!

The saddest thing I think is this guy has totally ruined his once stellar reputation, and I feel bad for the other guys on Talkbass who have waited even longer than me and do not have insurance for their loss!

Lesson learned, when buying a bass you have only a certain amount of time for a dispute if anything bad happens!

Visa and Paypal all have protection but if your new build is going to go beyond that time frame I highly recommend getting a valuable personal property insurance policy, such as the one offered by USAA.

To all in this club I say goodbye and I'll see you in other places on Talkbass.
I'm unsubscribing from the Zon club and will no longer use or play any Zon instruments again.

Farewell All and Happy Playing!
:bassist:
Wow.
 
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To all Talkbass members, I want to give you all a WARNING and let you know that I had no choice but to file a police report for credit card fraud / theft against Zon Guitars. I paid Joe Zon $4,650 over the phone with my Visa in August 2017 and was promised the bass within 8 months. I had a little communication with Joe Zon over the months after, and then waited more than double the time he quoted me (in good faith) 17 months, with no word, no pictures, no nothing.

I really did NOT want to believe that Joe Zon would do this to me!!!

Thankfully I insured the bass (before I even received it) with my USAA valuable personal property insurance!
You only have about 3 months to dispute a Visa charge and we are way past that point, and today I received $4,650 back from my insurance company!

I will tell you this, I think Zon makes an excellent instrument, I've owned about 5 or 6 Zons in my life!

I thought Joe Zon was a total class act guy, in fact I had lunch with him and his sons a couple years ago in Redwood City.

So I am not sure what happened, but if he ever refunds my money I will have to pay back the insurance company. And if he doesn't than that's between him and the Redwood City police department now.

I now have nothing further to say to Joe Zon other than to tell him YES you have committed a felony and there is a police report in Redwood City for credit card fraud / grand theft. I am sorry I had to do this to you, but you left me no other choice!

The saddest thing I think is this guy has totally ruined his once stellar reputation, and I feel bad for the other guys on Talkbass who have waited even longer than me and do not have insurance for their loss!

Lesson learned, when buying a bass you have only a certain amount of time for a dispute if anything bad happens!

Visa and Paypal all have protection but if your new build is going to go beyond that time frame I highly recommend getting a valuable personal property insurance policy, such as the one offered by USAA.

To all in this club I say goodbye and I'll see you in other places on Talkbass.
I'm unsubscribing from the Zon club and will no longer use or play any Zon instruments again.

Farewell All and Happy Playing!
:bassist:


Okay I don't know what is going on here but I put my order in this last I think it was October sometime for my 2nd Legacy Elite 6, I freaking hope this is not going to be a situation like Oscar Pratt or Darrin Huff!!!! Seriously now I'm worried.
 
To all Talkbass members, I want to give you all a WARNING and let you know that I had no choice but to file a police report for credit card fraud / theft against Zon Guitars. I paid Joe Zon $4,650 over the phone with my Visa in August 2017 and was promised the bass within 8 months. I had a little communication with Joe Zon over the months after, and then waited more than double the time he quoted me (in good faith) 17 months, with no word, no pictures, no nothing.

I really did NOT want to believe that Joe Zon would do this to me!!!

Thankfully I insured the bass (before I even received it) with my USAA valuable personal property insurance!
You only have about 3 months to dispute a Visa charge and we are way past that point, and today I received $4,650 back from my insurance company!

I will tell you this, I think Zon makes an excellent instrument, I've owned about 5 or 6 Zons in my life!

I thought Joe Zon was a total class act guy, in fact I had lunch with him and his sons a couple years ago in Redwood City.

So I am not sure what happened, but if he ever refunds my money I will have to pay back the insurance company. And if he doesn't than that's between him and the Redwood City police department now.

I now have nothing further to say to Joe Zon other than to tell him YES you have committed a felony and there is a police report in Redwood City for credit card fraud / grand theft. I am sorry I had to do this to you, but you left me no other choice!

The saddest thing I think is this guy has totally ruined his once stellar reputation, and I feel bad for the other guys on Talkbass who have waited even longer than me and do not have insurance for their loss!

Lesson learned, when buying a bass you have only a certain amount of time for a dispute if anything bad happens!

Visa and Paypal all have protection but if your new build is going to go beyond that time frame I highly recommend getting a valuable personal property insurance policy, such as the one offered by USAA.

To all in this club I say goodbye and I'll see you in other places on Talkbass.
I'm unsubscribing from the Zon club and will no longer use or play any Zon instruments again.

Farewell All and Happy Playing!
:bassist:
This a real bummer to read. Like I said before I have always had a tremendous respect for Zon and it really saddens me to see this stuff is going on besides my own issue. I hope Joe can set stuff right, he owes it to his legacy as a respectable instrument maker and businessman
 
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What I know... Moving shop is incredibly disruptive, Joe and crew have never been terribly communicative. That's a far cry from "ripping people off".
There are, as always, 2 sides to every story. MaidenBass I'm sorry to hear that you haven't gotten your bass yet. I suspect, however (at least for the rest of us) that this is no time to panic. We're seeing plenty of folks here get their basses.
 
Dave you were very smart to insure your bass. I’m pretty sure I’m out my 2K deposit. For those of you who have gotten your basses congratulations for those of you who have put down deposits I wish you the best of luck. I have no idea how I should proceed but after being lied to for three years by Joe Zon I hope to get the word out about his duplicitous business practices.
 
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Here is my build sheet he charged my card on 7/30/16. He has stopped responding to my emails and phone calls. Here is my side of the story I would like to get Joe Zon to explain his.
 
To all Talkbass members, I want to give you all a WARNING and let you know that I had no choice but to file a police report for credit card fraud / theft against Zon Guitars.

To all in this club I say goodbye and I'll see you in other places on Talkbass.
I'm unsubscribing from the Zon club and will no longer use or play any Zon instruments again.

When you started asking for everyone to post their current build/wait time, I had a feeling that this was the underlying reason that you were going to post later. Typically, you need to get >5 people to put in your report when you file with BBB in order to get them to act.

I've been through this with another company in the past- and never got my money back, and it was a guy who later screwed tons of other people- so I know the process and the feelings.

I will say that I think you are way premature doing this at 17 months. Way, way premature. Their CS is crap, no doubt, so I understand the frustration and I have no problem with you protecting yourself, so do as you need. But calling out felony/filing a police report is pretty intense. Crappy communication does necessarily mean they are nefarious felons or are out to hurt people. Just disorganized and short staffed. They are well known to have way long wait times that are basically always longer than their optimistic estimates.

And I say this knowing that I am currently on a longer wait with a higher deposit than any of you by long, long way.

For whatever it's worth, I'm not defending Zon or customer shaming- I've been through this myself with another builder about 10 years ago- just trying to point out the intense amplification of rhetoric in the setting of seeing instruments coming out. No doubt this situation exists for a reason, and they are their own worst demons in terms of customer service and wait times. I would never deny that.
 
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USAA determined this was indeed Credit Card Fraud

Legally, they can't do that. They can just pursue that based on what you told them. They're being a very good company, though, so that's good.

I'm not being critical of your decision to protect your money. It is good that people here know what's going on. Just wanting to be specific about the legal language used here.
 
Yeah their communication has always left a lot to be desired but it is a small shop and if they constantly stopped to answer phones and emails no basses would probably ever leave the shop. I understand the frustration but it's hard for me to imagine Joe ripping someone off. I had a custom build take around 18 months and this was back in the early 2000s. Not saying you're wrong to protect yourself, but I can't imagine Zon ending up like some of these other stories out there...