I stopped in today to browse my local GC. While looking at used amps I spotted an Epiphone Jr. 5 watt tube amp head. Class A, 12AX7 and EL84, $75, and near mint condition. Absolutely gorgeous. Well, since one can never have too many amps, I decided to try it out as all my other amps are 6V6 or 6L6 based.

A salesman saw me pick it up and ran over to help (it was after work and not many people were in the store). I grabbed a guitar and we went into the "Loud Room" where he plugged it in to a Marshall 4X10 cab ( ). He turned it on, I strummed the guitar, and ....... nothing. He jiggled the cables, changed the output (it has 4, 8, and 16 ohm outputs). Still nothing. I looked inside and saw that the tubes were dark. I also picked it up and heard something rattling around inside ... it was the fuse rolling around loose. He looked at it and said "I'll fix it" and I said "ok".

After about 15 minutes, I looked outside the room and saw him at the front desk banging away on the amp. Curious, I wandered over. I found him with a big flat blade screwdriver wedged between the vinyl covered back panel and the chassis wailing away on the screwdriver with a pair of pliers (guess he couldn't find a hammer ). I asked him what was going on and he said he couldn't get the back panel off. I noticed that he had already scraped up the back of the chassis and torn the vinyl so I said "Look, before you damage the amp any further, I'll give you $50 as is. I don't care if it works or not". He said no, that they can't sell anything for less than their cost. I thanked him and decided to leave before he brought out a sledgehammer.

I wandered around for a few more minutes and just as I was about to walk out, he yelled out that he got the back off. I went back to take a look. He pulled the chassis out (the back panel of which was now covered in scratches) and handed it to me. The inside was pristine. The fuse holder had broken in two and needed to be replaced. He taped it together and we went back and plugged the amp in. It sounded really nice through that Marshall cab. We went back up front and he started to put the amp back together. I said "Look, I'll take the amp if you give me something off on it. You've scratched the back of the chassis all up and torn the vinyl." I didn't say how much I wanted off (I was thinking 10%, though). He said "no". I asked what they would do with the amp now that it is all scratched up and the vinyl was torn (believe me, this thing was like brand new when I first saw it). He said they would ship it back to their distributer and get it repaired. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that it would cost more to ship the amp back, buy the replacement fuse holder, and pay a tech to fix it than to sell the amp for $68 and make a customer happy (I buy a LOT of stuff there). Even after fixing it and selling it for $75 I think they would lose money, plus the fact that it is off the shelf for the time it takes to get it fixed. I don't know. Makes no sense to me.

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Bill

Just a huge corporation with their huge corporation values... I bet that kid will be paying for the amp replacement with his paycheck since he ruined cosmetically a new amp...

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1965 Fender Precision Bass, 1994 Fender '54 Reissue Precision Bass, 2007 Applause Celebrity, 2011 Fender American Special Jazz Bass, 2012 Squier Vintage Modified Jazzmaster, 2013 Fender American Special Stratocaster, 2013 Gibson LPJ

Except he wasn't a kid. Late 20's close to 30. Well, compared to me he is. To top it off, two other salesmen were standing around watching as he banged away on the amp. Neither one said a word.

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Bill

Bill...this so makes me wonder about GC...as you know I just got them to deal on that BFSR I bought (my hats off to AAron and his crew in Bridgeton MO), so it is OBVIOUS that some GC's have really fine people working there and some, well are just plain idiots.

I met Aaron the night I went in to check out that BFSR and I had only been in that GC exactly one time (the day I first saw the amp). He was nice, professional, and as we haggled, he even showed my the price they paid for the amp (in their system) and they didn't make much on the sale to me. And even though they didn't make much on that sale, they did earn a new customer. I would not hesitate to go back there and purchase items in the future, whether something new or used.

It is so sad that your GC chooses to hire the idiot type...I was half laughing when you discribed the guy using the screwdriver and pliers and then felt sorry for the guy when I realized he was that stupid. Considering there are lots of musicians out there without a job, I am sure that your GC could find some better employees!

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

The GC here by me will always deal with you I never pay their price. They will always take at least 10% off.

I don't think he ever realized it. When I first walked up, he had a large piece of metal (not sure what it was) wedged between the chassis and back panel, dragging it along the joint trying to pry the panel off. When that didn't work, he pulled out the screwdriver and pliers. When I showed him the damage he had done, he just shrugged and made the comment that "it probably won't show". Maybe some other poor schlub may not notice, but I saw him do it.

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Bill

His excuse was that it was already marked down to their cost. Looks to me like their cost just went up.

Thing is, if he had gotten it apart without scratching it all up, I would have paid the $75 and replaced the fuse holder myself with something better. The amp was that nice.

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Bill

Pretty much on par with all of my GC experiences. I'm honestly shocked the place remains in business.

pretty much my every visit i end up dealing with rude, inconsiderate, or ignorant employees. My GC is very lacking in the bass department, hardly any selection and most are mounted so high on the wall you need an employee to retrieve one, and good luck finding one that's not too busy horsing around with the other employees to sell stuff (aka their job). Most of the Basses i saw were so poorly set up they were completely unplayable anyway.

I won't say the place is 100% bad, one visit was so bad that i complained via their website, and received a phone call from their manager who was very nice, and she offered me a 30% off coupon. My most recent visit, although nearly as bad as my worst visit, there was one employee that was very attentive while also busy doing other stuff (i think he was probably an assistant manager).

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89-90 Squier P, '00 MIM P w/fretless J neck
Wishlist: Kingman Bass

The thing is, the guy wasn't really rude or inconsiderate.

Clueless, yes. You don't use a big screwdriver to pry something apart that you are trying to sell, particularly in front of the customer. When I walked up, if he had said "Sorry, I can't get the back off", I would have understood. I would still have offered $50 as is, not knowing if the amp worked or not, and he still would have turned me down. That's fine. His call. But refusing to take even a few dollars off something that is now all scratched up even after saying I would take it just baffles me. That's just drone behavior in my mind.

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Bill

my brother got a used gdec from gc, and purchased the extended warranty. about 3 months in, thae amp gave him fits. he called the local g.c, and they said "we'll refund the money, and just keep the amp"

they must have known it would cost more to fix than it was worth. i don't know whether that speaks good about guitar center, or bad about issues with this amp from fender. either way, they took care of him.

I think we're always going to have similar issues at GC (or any other chain/retailer), not because GC is evil or anything, but rather because corporations generally attract a certain range of excellent, good, fair and poor employees.

Think about this: we are all passionate about guitars. Therefore, we keep (in our minds) a particular standard about how a customer should be treated or how merchandise should be handled that we wouldn't hold at a different type of retailer.

If you were to walk into a shoe store and had the same experience (a clueless guy trying to remove a lump off the heel of a otherwise perfect shoe), would you go to a shoe forum and tell us about the idiot at DSW?

Everytime I go to Wal-Mart I have to deal with basically the same thing--rude customers acting in an annoying fashion; clueless, lazy employees who either can't or won't help me find what I need; arrogant managers who basically say, "Where else are you gonna go to got cranberry juice that cheap?"

Do the shoe store and Wal-Mart irritate me? Sure, I hate going into either one.
But does it get under my skin the way similar treatment at Guitar Center does? No, because I'm not as passionate about the products they sell at Wal-Mart or DSW as I am the products at GC.

Good customer service is rare nowadays, and the employee's ability to hide within corporate structure is what makes it worse.

I'm the manager of my department of the hospital I work at. That means I can--and do--expect my guys to act in a certain way toward other employees and patients (although we don't have much to do with direct patient care, so our contact is far less often).

Unfortunately, I have no control over how other departments treat the patients or their fellow employees, outside of reporting them to their managers. I see how there is room for improvement but can't do anything because of how the corporate structure is set up. But if the manager chooses not to do anything after I tell him/her, my hands are tied.

Likewise at GC--the other employees have no control over how an individual Doofus treats customers, product or one another. The manager does have a certain amount of control, but.only if he takes the time to do so.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I'm not so sure about that. Think about a lot of the "musicians" you see when you walk into GC and ask yourself how many of them could find their you-know-what with both hands and another "musician" holding a flashlight.

Our GC used to wheel and deal, but in the last year they have adopted a strict policy - you want a discount, bring in your coupon, which always has a mile-long list of exemptions, of course. Even the salesman (good musician) I've been dealing with there since they opened in 2007 just shakes his head now and says he can't do it - manger's rule.

Guitar Center Corp recently did a deal with Jay Turser Guitars and bought a boatload of Factory Second Turser Strat-style guitars - colored trans finishes, Floyd Rose bridges, humbuckers, locking nut - which were distributed to GCs all over the country. The guitars were NEW Factory Seconds with a price tag of $299. But here's the rub: They put all of those NEW guitars into the Used racks, thereby exempting them from any discounting since USED guitars are always a no-go with any GC coupons. They even left the protective film over the humbuckers and the back cover plates.

I griped to my guy about the deception regarding these Turser guitars and he said, yeah, I was right and they were new, but that's where they had to go and he could not deal on them.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

There seems to be some kind of mental, "short-circuiting" among the personnel there. Evidently, they unilaterally prefer to make no commission at all rather than several at a few dollars less than anticipated for even just some sales. There is a parallel here to an ilk we all know: Players who feel they are worth 'X' amount of money to play a gig, won't play for less and would rather sit home making no money and not having a good time because of some 'principle' of their's. In sarcastic defense of GC personnel though, at least they'll show up for the gig and then refuse payment. Either way, this makes a whole lot of sense, right?

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

Good way to describe it.

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Bill

Simple policy. When you examine this particular case, it doesn't make sense to lose money on an item that is already broken when you can get it out the door and cut your loss. On a store wide/ corporate level, you cant give some dude behind the counter discretionary power to unload used equipment at less than purchase price. These morons would give away the farm if they had that kind of flexibility. In the long run, this policy undoubtedly saves them money, while it may not in this particular instance.