Fraudulent Shop Return - Identify Pickups?

ThorpyFX · August 2015

SimonRF said:

thorpy6 said:
I assume you just won't process their refund?

Correct. When this has happened in the past typically either (1) we contact them, send back their duff pickups and never hear from them again or (2) they go the route of logging a complaint with PayPal/Credit Card firm. (2) is not a good plan.

by not good you mean, you end up getting ripped off? Or you get the police involved?

BloodEagle · August 2015

People have tried similar tricks with me in the past and my experience is that if they go the route of pursuing a paypal claim they can no longer really claim it was a legitimate mistake and are actively trying to defraud you - this being the case I would step things up a notch and get the police involved.

Sassafras · August 2015

BloodEagle said:

People have tried similar tricks with me in the past and my experience is that if they go the route of pursuing a paypal claim they can no longer really claim it was a legitimate mistake and are actively trying to defraud you - this being the case I would step things up a notch and get the police involved.

Yes, if anybody knows about pickups, it's Andy Summers.

Dave_Mc · August 2015

Wow, that's crazy. I don't get how they don't think you'd notice.

impmann said:

Cheeky fecker. I've seen similar in my old job too - and even rowed with customers who think I'm more stupid than them...

Wow, surely canoeing with customers you suspect are dishonest is asking for trouble?

Clarky · August 2015

send him some fake Chinese Yaun..

like bits of paper with a drawing in crayon of what Yaun nodes kind look like

alternatively.. he has the pups.. you have the money.. which is how this 'selling stuff' prcoess seems to happen if I recall correctly..

IvisonGuitars · August 2015

Its good to see this, in that well done to @SimonRF for posting it as, there are many threads on here that complain about retailers being the bad guys when, they are often on the end of shitty dealings from customers too, as this post ably demonstrates.

stickyfiddle · August 2015

miserneil said:

Its good to see this, in that well done to @SimonRF for posting it as, there are many threads on here that complain about retailers being the bad guys when, they are often on the end of shitty dealings from customers too, as this post ably demonstrates.

Sad but true. And this is precisely why a lot of shops feel the DSRs and whatever are unfair.

peachguitarsdotcom · August 2015

We had this once where a customer returned a custom shop strat and had Abby pickups in it when it left us.....

ThorpyFX · August 2015

peachguitarsdotcom said:

We had this once where a customer returned a custom shop strat and had Abby pickups in it when it left us.....

people seriously need to find some morals.

hobbio · August 2015

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Humbucker-Double-Coil-Pickup-Black-Frames-Open-Zebra/606794104.html

Here you go. $220 for 50 sets.

lustycourtier · August 2015

peachguitarsdotcom said:

We had this once where a customer returned a custom shop strat and had Abby pickups in it when it left us.....

Ive known retailers like that too....both uter b*stards

SimonRF · August 2015

Fretwired said:
Or an Asian currency like Vietnamese Dong

Love this.

thorpy6 said:

SimonRF said:

thorpy6 said:
I assume you just won't process their refund?

Correct. When this has happened in the past typically either (1) we contact them, send back their duff pickups and never hear from them again or (2) they go the route of logging a complaint with PayPal/Credit Card firm. (2) is not a good plan.

by not good you mean, you end up getting ripped off? Or you get the police involved?

Not a good plan for the customer, as in situations such as this it's our experience that there's very little chance their claim will be successful, and they may well be stitching themselves up. The consumer protections offered by Credit Cards and PayPal are excellent, but they work both ways. Each case is considered based on the evidence available by a dedicated claims team, and in our experience they're a reasonable bunch. They also have access to this customer's history, so will be able to see if he regularly makes such claims and can then take appropriate action. We've only ever contacted the police once about a similar issue, at the time they had a dedicated online fraud reporting site.. didn't hear a thing!

miserneil said:

Its good to see this, in that well done to @SimonRF for posting it as, there are many threads on here that complain about retailers being the bad guys when, they are often on the end of shitty dealings from customers too, as this post ably demonstrates.

Thanks. I should stress, though, that in the scheme of things these are very isolated cases. Thinking back to when we did a lot through ebay, 0.5% of customers would take up 95% of our time.

SimonRF · August 2015

hobbio said:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Humbucker-Double-Coil-Pickup-Black-Frames-Open-Zebra/606794104.html

Here you go. $220 for 50 sets.

Class. Well, we've got 4, fingers crossed we don't get the next 46...

johnonguitar · August 2015

Send them back a 2015 Les Paul. That'll show them

impmann · August 2015

You think this is bad... grab some popcorn and a beverage...

We had a customer phone up VERY angry demanding to speak to a manager. So I get the call.

After a lot of effing and jeffing from said customer, I ask what the actual fault is with his guitar... and what happened next is I SWEAR the truth...

The guy had gone on holiday to New York and had bought a brand new guitar there as it was cheaper, along with a cheap hard case to ship it back in. When he collected the guitar from the airport carousel, he noticed some damage to the case, so opened it and found the guitar broken (fixed neck, neck joint broken). His beef was that the guitar was "not strong enough and therefore he wanted his money back."

Errrr.... so after I very politely suggested that he should take up a baggage claim with the airline, he erupted on the phone. Effing this, jeffing that... He wouldn't get anything out of the airline, he'd already tried - the case wasn't ATA approved, so the insurance was null. Apparently this was my company's fault, in his eyes as the guitar should come with an ATA approved hard case and that it should be stronger...

I then pointed out to him that if he bought it in the U.S., he hadn't actually bought it from the company I worked for, so I couldn't give him his money back... as he hadn't given us any in the first place. The warranty on the guitar was for manufacturing defects, not accidental damage and therefore, sorry but it's unfortunate, but I couldn't do anything for him.

He went nuts at this point. I actually put the phone in my desk while he ranted, I walked into my director's office to alert him and we could hear him effing and jeffing from 40ft away.

I reiterated our position and drew the call to a close politely, suggesting he go back to the airline but perhaps try to remain more polite, this time.

The arsehole then phones the CEO of our company (in California ) and rants and rants and rants at him. To cut a long story short, because of the amount of time/money he caused he DID get given a replacement guitar just to get rid of him. That frankly sucked, and morally wasn't right - especially in view of his appalling phone manner and language. However people higher up the company didn't like/want to be shouted at so he got his own way.

THIS is where the whole thing has gone wrong with Customer Service - some wankers think they can just shout and swear to get their own way, and will do until they are either told to piss off (which I suspect the Airline did) or the other party caves in.

Frankly I hope that dickhead chokes... it's people like him that ruin it for everyone else and didn't help to keep my old company from folding and me being out of work.

IvisonGuitars · August 2015

lustycourtier said:

peachguitarsdotcom said:

We had this once where a customer returned a custom shop strat and had Abby pickups in it when it left us.....

Ive known retailers like that too....both uter b*stards

True. I bought a guitar that used to belong to one of my heroes from a reputed 'guitar broker to the stars' a few years ago. When I got there the volume pot was broken and there was no written provenance (the plastics had also been changed but this was disclosed and I saw it as an upgrade). I was familiar with the guitar so I knew it was genuine and we agreed the volume pot and provenance would be sent on the following week. 4 years later I had still received nothing so I managed to contact the original owner of the guitar through mutual friends and he verified it and signed it for me too.

thorpy6 said:

peachguitarsdotcom said:

We had this once where a customer returned a custom shop strat and had Abby pickups in it when it left us.....

people seriously need to find some morals.

A friend of my aunt used to have a scam going when the Littlewoods/Kays catalogues were all the rage. If one of her children broke a toy, she would order a new one from the catalogue and when it arrived, send the broken one back in the new box and say it had arrived broken or missing parts. Did it on a number of occasions and, as far as I'm aware, it was never ever questioned!

Drew_TNBD · August 2015

What the fuck is effing and jeffing?

hobbio · August 2015

I wonder if the tool that's trying it on will read this thread? He's obviously into guitars and modding.

ThorpyFX · August 2015

Drew_fx said:

What the fuck is effing and jeffing?

same as effing and blinding

ICBM · August 2015

impmann said:
THIS is where the whole thing has gone wrong with Customer Service - some wankers think they can just shout and swear to get their own way, and will do until they are either told to piss off (which I suspect the Airline did) or the other party caves in.

Frankly I hope that dickhead chokes... it's people like him that ruin it for everyone else and didn't help to keep my old company from folding and me being out of work.

I once fell out with the owner of a shop I worked for and resigned - although I was later asked back - over caving in to customer demands.

Although it wasn't the one that was the final straw, one that I remember was that a customer brought back a classical guitar which the bridge had come off, and demanded a replacement. At this point it had no strings on it. I took one look at it and told the owner to refuse because the guy had put steel strings on it, and that's why the bridge had come off. The customer went ballistic and denied ever putting different strings on it, and the shop owner eventually caved in and gave him a new guitar.

Pointing out that *you could see the marks caused by the plain steel strings and the wound G on the machinehead rollers, and the indentations caused by the ball ends on the back of the bridge*, and that I would have been quite happy to give evidence to that effect in court, seemed to cut no ice.

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Fraudulent Shop Return - Identify Pickups?

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