WARNING: Oscar Prat Basses

WARNING: Oscar Prat Basses

What started out great has now gone completely and horribly wrong. I want to post a warning about working with Oscar Prat on anything. I really, really, wanted my experience with him to go differently than lowendmafia’s, but it unfortunately it has not. I am quite sure there are more of us in the lurch and I encourage you to post publicly here so we can have a collective voice. Here’s a summary of my situation (heads up: lots of dates and details…I want an accurate representation of my experience and how it has felt being strung along):

I reached out to Oscar in Feb 2017 to inquire about a build. Oscar’s communication was stellar at the time. We talked back and forth about woods, measurements, electronics…after agreeing on a price and build time (complete and delivered by December 2017) I paid the down payment (half up front) to get the ball rolling.

After a month he had the master drawing complete and by the very end of April 2017 he secured the top wood for my bass. Then, I didn’t hear from him for 3 months (July 2017) despite emailing him regularly asking for an update. Crickets. I then tried reaching him through Facebook Messenger and had some success. He said he was remodeling his workshops and hadn’t been able to do any work. He was also waiting for new CNC machine parts. We are now into August of 2017 with no work being done at all. Then September 2017 rolls around, with no work done, and he’s still waiting for parts. At the end of September 2017 he said the parts arrived and he’d begin work.

He ignores my emails/messages for October 2017 into November 2017 when he finally resurfaces to tell me he had pneumonia. Okay, that sucks, but again…some form of communication would be professional. It feels super weird working with someone who has a big chunk of my money and doesn’t have regular and timely communication. End of November rolls around and he says he actually hadn’t done any more work because he had to order new parts for the CNC and that he had gone through some personal stuff. He offers to send me a temporary bass he has “housed in USA” whatever that means. I explained I didn’t need a bass, I wanted my custom bass which was now never going to be delivered to me on time.

Another month passes and he ignores my emails/messages. When he resurfaces at the end of December 2017 he says he moved to Madrid and began renting a workshop. He promises to get to work on my bass: “I'm giving you my honor word. If your bass is not finish in march, I will refund you everything.” As you might imagine, he did not and he has not.

February 2018 rolls around, now a full year since the process began, and after more ignoring he sends me a picture of, again, the top of my bass. Then a month of ignoring and finally he sends a pic of the neck. Then another month of ignoring he sends a pic of the neck attached to the bass. Then a month of ignoring and in May 2017 he sends a pic of the pickup cavity routed and we have some back and forth good communication about pickups and electronics again. Then more ignoring for June 2018 other than he needed to order the pickups and would finish the bass so when they arrived he could “send it ASAP”. Still no frets, no hardware, no electronics, no oil finish...

He’s been ignoring me for July 2018 and now into August 2018. I’ve asked several times for an update. I’ve been more than patient with his personal situations. And he continues to have terrible and unprofessional communication and still no estimated completion or delivery date.

At this point I just don’t even want the bass but since it’s past the 180 days PayPal allows for disputes I am completely out of luck getting my money back. The best I can hope is that someday he’ll actually fulfill his promise, send me a completed bass, and I can try to sell it and recoup my sunk cost.

This really bums me out. I wanted so badly to support an independent luthier but this behavior is just disrespectful and honestly...shameful.

Some links of interest…

Lowendmafia’s post from July 2017 with similar situation:
At what point should I just give up on a build? (Prat Basses)

Recent Thread from Jan 2018 with similar situations:
Prat Basses

SPECS (in case it comes up for sale elsewhere eventually):

• Custom Prat M-BSV 6 bolt on
• 33" scale
• Ebony Gabon fingerboard, 28 frets (side dots), flat
• Curly maple neck
• Mahogany body
• Curly redwood top
• Curly redwood ramp
• Custom Nordstrand DC pickups (2) - for 16mm string spacing, under ramp - Mike Pope Flexcore preamp
• Curly redwood knobs, matching body
• Hipshot A type (3D) bridge (16mm string spacing, black)
• Hipshot Ultralite tuners (black)
• Ebony nut
• Oil finish
• Case

/// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ///


UPDATE - Aug 22
Just tried speaking with my bank as well, hoping they might be able to get my money back. Just like PayPal, they said too many days have passed for them to issue me a refund and compel Oscar to pay. They suspect he knew what he was doing, riding out the clock, keeping just enough communication going to string me along in order to ensure I'd not be able to get my money.

UPDATE - Aug 28
Received an email from Oscar letting me know he can refund my money, in small monthly installments, beginning in 4 or 5 months from now...really?...not convinced I'll see any of this money but we'll see if he can keep his word this time.

UDPATE - Aug 31
This one is a little strange...I heard from Oscar (finally) and he asked me to send him an invoice for the 1st of 5 refund installments to a different email address than I'd been using for payment/communication. The physical address attached to the payment he sent is also different than the one I'd had on file for him. Moving around...

 

That's crazy. I've heard from others who have received their instruments with terrible fit and finish to the point they've had to either dump them or have another luthier do work to make them playable.

 

Thanks man. If he could just refund my money I'd be happy.