Fun story.
Out of picks. Stop in at GC North Houston. I bought some picks. Needed the picks. Didn't even bother to look at the price, $6 a dozen Fender heavies. Price you pay when you are in a hurry.

Well I get home and see everyone else in the known universe sales them for $2 to $3 a dozen. I print off some of the prices and head back to GC. I walk in and said "I last week I bought six dozen picks for $6 and well as you can see you are two to three times higher than everyone." The kid didn't want to do anything and was like "well after you pay shipping." I pointed out nowhere does the price match talk about shipping and all of the ads I had shown were free shipping.

At this point I'm pissed. The kid finally goes a Google shopping search and said well the bst price I can find is $3.50 a dozen on Amazon, with shipping A) it would be over $25 so free shipping B) I am a prime member so free two day shipping. He rings me up and just gives back the difference. No difference plus 10% like the policy states, just the difference.

On the way out of the store I check in on Four Square tweeting my check in with "Love how they don't want to price match." Later that day I get a tweet from Jeremy Cole. A GC employee in CA. He saw the tweet and wanted to know what happened. I take this chance to unload everything over the last year with GC. The non price match. The Westheimerroad GC stunt where all of the Eric Clapton Ernie Ball boxes of strings were opened, only to have someone from Houston win one of the trips to see EC at R.A.H.. The not wanting to give me my gig bag for my new Strat. The guys pulling friends out of line to wait on them and then leaving the counter again. Stuff like this.

After a few emails with Mr. Cole the manager from the Westheimer store called and offered some free stuff like cables and picks strings. Something small the next time I'm in. I told him that wasn't really needed. It took almost a month for the manager from the North Houston store to call me. He is going to issue a credit for my troubles. Over the last year I have bought three aoucstics (all in the $300 to $500 range) a CV strat a Fender FSR strat a Dot a Bullet strat a mini strat (as a first guitar for my neice) an LTD Viper a champ 600 a Jet City 20w combo two Dean Markely sound hole pups an LR Baggs pre amp and seven hard shell cases.

So I thought I'll give them one more chance. I sold my Dot and had regretted it. So i went to buy a new one. They priced matched on the case, pulling $50 off of that price and even gave me the 15% off for the leap year sale. I asked if all of the case candy was in there. I was told yes all of it is there. I asked even the case key? Again was told yes. So I take it to my guy to have a bone nut cut a set up and new guts dropped in only to find nothing but the guitar in the case.

Call GC. Talked to the Guitar Manager. He told me they toss all the arms wrenches and paper work save for guitars that come with OHSC or are American made. Said it was Guitar Center policy and if I wanted all of that stuff I should have ordered one. WHAT!!!111!!!ONE!!! Order one? I liked the neck on the red one I played. I wanted a burst but the neck felt off. My second choice was a black one but the neck didn't feel right and had two dead spots. The red one was perfect.

So yes I have been bitten for the last time. What sucks is the big box stores have taken away the big name brands from the mom and pop shops. I'm lucky there is a Fender/Loar dealer that is locally owned. I should have just gone and bought a semi-hollow body from him.

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

Wait your quibbling over like 4 bucks?

Anyway regardless in my opinion if you don't shop around before you buy whatever you buy then you have no right to go back after asking for money. If I was a shop owner I'd be pretty pissed at someone doing that.

I find that most stores give us bad customer service, and all of humanity has just taken it for granted. I would definently stick up for yourself, but in my opinion, you should have checked the case before you left. WHY THE HELL would GC throw out the hang tags and case candy? "Hi I would like to register my guitar for it's warranty", "Ok, use the waranty card supplied with the guitar." "Yeah you see, the store I bought it from threw it out." How do they stay in business??

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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

Regardless of your unpleasant experience, I am not a fan of the corporate chains. I really dig personal accountability that comes with a store with a face.

I have to say that I'm not at all impressed with my first dealings witn GC either.I went on their site for Canadian customers specifically and went through the entire order process after seeing in black and white that the product I wanted was available to Canadian customers then on the very same page as the "Canadian" order form they said that they don't ship to Canada.That was days ago and they still haven't answered my email queries. I won't be bothering with that lot or any of their affiliates for sure.I can't stand companies where the term customer service is an oxymoron.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

It was six dozen picks so more than $4. No one else in my area carries celluloid picks. I needed picks right then and had gone to two other places both local shops. all they had were Tortex. Also as for going back I was in a hurry that night. That GC is 20 miles from my house and they have a price match policy that says if you find a lower price come back and they will match. It was just one of a long line of stupid stuff the North Houston store does.

Then there is the little fact they are TOSSING THE CASE CANDY. They toss the arms and wrenches and then try to sell you the after market stuff when you should have gotten them with your guitar. They also try and not give you the Fender gig bags with the MIM standards. When I got my last strats they guy rung up the gig back for $30. I had to point out it was included with the guitar. I have talked to another guy who didn't get the wrenches for his Ibanez with a FR. Ever try to buy wrenches to fit one of those?

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

Oh hahaha I totally misread that, 6 dozen is a lot, my apologies!

I don't disagree with you on the case candy either, anything that gets delivered to the shop with the product should be kept for when it's sold. 100%

I figure every branch store is different. I have no trouble with my local GC, they employ musicians as staff. They occasionally try to advise me towards a different product than I ask for, so I inform them that although I value their personal opinion, I may not follow it.

No problem. Yeah had it been on pack then no problem. I will go though about two dozen picks when I gig. I like to toss them out, people only bringing one to a gig/open mic. Just not liking how the pick feels on the strings.


The kicker is there are like five GC in a 30 mile drive of my house. I have lymphedema (if you google it do not look at the pictures) in my legs so driving more than 15-20 miles a a time really screws me up. I have been to other GC in Houston and the Westhimer road GC has guys who will check the internet to see if there is a lower price. But the North Houston shop could go away tomorrow and I don't think anyone in town would care.

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

In their defense, most places tend to do that with the case candy.

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Favorite bands:

Melvins
The Jesus Lizard
Cows
Big Business
R***man
Minutemen
Flight
Minor Threat
Big Black
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Wipers
Pixies

This is the first time I have ever heard of a place tossing the arms and wrenches because they take up too much space.

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

update from GC hollywood.

Hi Matthew,

I’m sorry. I’ll gladly get this information over to Management and we’ll get you everything that was supposed to come with your guitar. Can we ship it to you?

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

I sympathize with you, krab. And I'll confirm the anecdote about GC's careless treatment of case candy. Years ago I bought a used AmStd Tele at a GC and I insisted that the deal include a tweed G&G case. They didn't happen to have one that day so the manager gave me loan of a generic Road Runner case pending their receipt of some G&G's. The tweed case finally arrived at the store about three weeks later -- only it wasn't in a stand-alone shipment of cases. The case they gave me belonged to a Fender AVRI '57 Strat (which was hanging on the wall). Inside the case compartment were the warranty documents, strap, gray 10-foot cord, bridge-saddle wrench, chrome bridge cover, keys, the whole enchilada. I mentioned this to the manager before leaving the store and he told me to just accept it as a "bonus".

WTFO?

That's no way to run a railroad IMO.



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

More follow up

I’m sorry for the frustrating experiences, truly. I know we have a ton of incredibly employees who bend over backwards to give the most incredible customer experience possible. I’m sorry that you’re experiences point in the other direction. Drew, the Store Manager of North Houston is great and took your feedback very seriously last time. I’m sure he’ll do the same now.

We’ll dig in to this issue. I’ll make sure the VP of Training is aware of your comments as well. Thank you for taking the time to offer this feedback. We know we can only improve by listening and taking action to ensure other customers don’t have the same experience.

People are giving me crap for speaking up, but if no one speaks up how can they fix the issue?

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.-Khalil Gibran

Please don't be offended but personally, I don't think I've ever been that bored or desperate for entertainment.

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You dig?