Eastman SB59 issues, advice appreciated!

gregm

I wasn't aware of any of his history with customer service before I ordered my guitar, it doesn't matter what the customer wants or demands they are still the customer. The publicly available information on how he has treated his past customers I would assume influences others, or did for me anyway influence my handling of this when it got silly. As an example I would not have returned the guitar to him directly because of available information on past issues, I would have preferred to keep it with the fault and forget about it so as to put all of this to an end than have to go to court over follow up Youtube videos and posts on Facebook!

On at least 5 emails I was thanked for my patience and my helpful approach, he was kind enough originally to offer to ask the director of Eastman Europe to send a photo of a guitar available that had the type of flame I wanted, I then asked that he send me a photo of some guitars available as a replacement so I could choose one that was similar to the one I had bought as a swap. Is that un-reasonable?

The photos never arrived, then he stated that this bridge was part of the design and he would have to take the side of Eastman on this which led me to this forum. Did he offer to sort the problem with a replacement, yes many times over a month but the replacement photos were never sent. Did things change when i posted on this forum, initially for the worse yes. If I am at fault in this and in every dispute both parties have some blame, it is that I just didn't make demands from the start, I got caught up in doubting if there was a problem that warranted a return and offered to pay for all postage etc to make sure he wasn't at a loss. But this came from nothing but good intentions. The first time I asked for a refund he said no and insisted I would have the best guitar available when I come back in a month sent to me. As this was paid for on the 6th Feb I didn't find this acceptable and hence the offer of a partial refund and then the name calling. At that point I could only be guided by previous customers experience with him but thankfully Eastman got involved.

I was asked by Richard after the refund to leave this thread online after I offered to request to have it closed for some odd reason that I can only guess at, he did have a rant about how dare I make it look like Eastman were the reason this got refunded etc.

 

I have lost the guts of £800 on this paying for legal advice and reports trying to protect myself due to his previous treatment of customers with complaints, it has been a stressful experience and I still had to send a really nice guitar back at the end of it all.

gringopig

Well @gregm, that's a hard lesson learned. Never deal with these kind of people in business or around money. I can put up with them purely on social terms but when it comes to serious issues I walk away as soon as I realise the 'scent'.

You can sense it even on a brief interaction and when I do, my wallet goes into my underpants, I smile and slowly move away.

I also wouldn't go anywhere near an Eastman. Low mid-price Chinese crap. The market is saturated with these guitars around the £700 to £1300 price range. They aren't too keen on stating the country of origin of these are they? lol

soma1975

How the fuck is a 'free' £100 setup suddenly chargeable? 

guitartango

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgEZhlLLNuA

DB1

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation are, making and airing this video doesn't help. He can't seem to be able to let it go. It's as if it was made just to have a 'dig'. It's so unnecessary and unprofessional - daft behaviour really. 

gringopig

The guy is just a massive flake in my personal non legally binding unsubstantiated opinion. UGH



The best thing he could do for his business is just shut up and be professional and objective and courteous. He should STOP posting about 'emotions' and 'feelings' and his 'passion'. It's just NOT doing his business any favours at all. It's not even this thread; as soon as I saw one of his YouTube videos my antennae were tingling and I knew to stay away.

EDIT upon legal advice: The dog and bar of confectionery are in no way related to the discussion in hand and are merely for  unrelated entertainment purposes and because the dog looks cute and I like chocolate.

Deadman

I'd bet you a thousand quid that if we all ended up in a room together and had a few beers and a good old chat everything would be cool. It's the internet that does this. So Richard's passionate, so am I. So are most people. 

I wanna like the bloke. I don't grind axes with anyone. He's grinding something with this place that exists in his head though that just doesn't exist. I really wish he'd give it up and take heed of all of the above.

Roland

This thread has moved on from the original question about gregm’s Eastman guitar, and is now discussing Richard’s business model. I’m going to close the thread pending a moderator discussion about whether it has run its course.

digitalscream

gregm said:

I was asked by Richard after the refund to leave this thread online after I offered to request to have it closed for some odd reason that I can only guess at...

I'm only here briefly - got major problems in the real world - but I want to address this: I suggested to Richard that a complaint thread with a good resolution (or at least one which didn't leave both parties looking like crap) would be a better idea than a deleted one. I'll be talking to him next week and we're going to work out something which actually helps, because this pseudo-war carrying on helps nobody.