Ableton Forum

I thought it would be a good idea to list companies that you have had bad experiences buying your gear from. Also, which companies do you feel have the worst customer service. I do a lot of gear price comparison's and so far have run into companies who I have a bad impressions of:
1. Florida Musicco (will give you the run around about an order for days)
2. Scit Scat Music
3. Same Day Music (customer service was rude, when I called)
4. Ableton Live (good software, but made it hell for me to get their academic software. Tech support wasn't very unhelpful either)
5. ZZounds.com (fast shipping, but customer service sucks)

My favorite:
Roguemusic.com (best customer service ever. They will take care of you.)
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Don't order guitar/basses from musicians friend unless you don't mind having to send your order back and wait for the replacement. No hassle, but still, the neck of your guitar should not arrive broken the first time

Only real bad experience I had was with Sciscat, won't buy from them again.

My favorite:

Sweetwater - they get 100% of my new purchase business.

musiciansfriend.com is the sister company of Guitar Center, or maybe I should say the inbred cousin of Guitar Center. Enough said.

nagal wrote:Only real bad experience I had was with Sciscat, won't buy from them again.

My favorite:

Sweetwater - they get 100% of my new purchase business.

Agree on Sweetwater. They are not the cheapest but customer services is awesome. The sales people will actually tell you not to buy something if you wont need it.

Also, they include candy in the box when they ship you stuff. It's all about the sugar.

I've had a really good experiance with American Music Supply. No bullshit from these guys.

tempus3r wrote:

nagal wrote:Only real bad experience I had was with Sciscat, won't buy from them again.

My favorite:

Sweetwater - they get 100% of my new purchase business.

Agree on Sweetwater. They are not the cheapest but customer services is awesome. The sales people will actually tell you not to buy something if you wont need it.

Also, they include candy in the box when they ship you stuff. It's all about the sugar.

Word. Just got a box today. Included:
2 Laffy Taffy
2 Bit-O-Honey
1 Tootsie Roll
1 roll of Smarties
1 Atomic Fireball
1 Orange hard candy.

tempus3r wrote:Agree on Sweetwater. They are not the cheapest but customer services is awesome. The sales people will actually tell you not to buy something if you wont need it.

Also, they include candy in the box when they ship you stuff. It's all about the sugar.

I have been dealing with Sweetwater for awhile now and I have found that if I straight up ask my sale rep to drop the price he will do it. I dont abuse this as I believe their support more than makes up for the some times higher cost. Plus the candy just rules!

Another +1 for sweetwater. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but their customer service is top notch. I have a representative (Art Hill, anyone?) who drops me personal e-mails every now and then to see how my projects are coming along. I find musicians friend ok to deal with, no problems so far. Zzounds has really fast shipping and good prices too, no problems with them.

The only site I stay away from now is music123. I ordered a Novation LE61 from them, NEW, and it came used. The box came poorly taped back together, the keys were dirty and felt flimsy, and the usb cable came in a frickin' ziplock bag for christs' sake. Their customer service is the crappiest too, they wouldn't accept the keyboard back without charging ME a restocking fee either, so I kept it and have been trying to scalp it on craigslist ever since. Geez I'm never going back to that site.

Sweetwater has been great for years, although I don't get as many tasty tootsie rolls as I used to, they've been putting in higher ratio of sweetarts and hard candy, maybe
to prevent summer melting issues

Lately I've gotten some stuff from audiomidi.com, how have been terrific at some more offbeat stuff that the other folks don't carry. I hit some nice specials there also.

Sweetwater and AudioMidi are both great. I'll use Musician's Friend in a pinch, sometimes they have things the others don't.

8th street music - I ordered something in 2004 and it still never came !! They never respond to emails or phone calls except to argue with me that a year was an acceptable time to wait for something on back order and because it wasn't their fault that they would not cancel the order. Then nothing since then, luckily I cancelled the credit card I placed the order with, but I look forward to seeing them contact me about the bouncing payment more than 3 years after I ordered the software !!

And they've still been spamming with me with their mailing list too, even though I asked them twice to stop

Another nod to Sweetwater...

And the worst, American Musical Supply. The absolute worst, most misinformed staff. You simply ask them if they have something in stock and they are like, "A what was it called?" I did end up buying my macbook from them but they kept telling me it was over $2,500...

MACBOOK... not MACBOOK PRO!!!

Would have been great if they screwed up and sent me a Macbook Pro though...

Another for sweetwater...
I used to use zzounds but then just recently I wanted to get an FA-66 which they didn't have, so I went with sweetwater because my friend gave them praises...I got a call from a rep who asked me who my friend was. When I told him, he said, "Oh...ok...his rep is Sean so I'm going to put you in his group." So basically, he just passed up being my rep in order to keep us grouped together. The customer service is top notch. Also, having a personal rep is a big reassurance in that you know you will be able to deal with someone familiar with you which is rare in this day of faceless online commerce. Oh yeah, and the bag o' candy is a nice touch...I will definitely be using them as my preferred choice from now on...

Hmm...sorry, I guess I didn't really stick to the topic which was Worst experiences...oh well...

It seems that all stores mentioned are American only. (ie, wont service outside of the states)
The best international store I've come across is SFB Electronics. They will send stock anywhere in the world. Australian stores charge us the earth for electronic/music gear compared to you guys.
I have saved HEAPS from buying stuff from these guys. They don't stock everything, but have a good choice of outboard gear, mics and soundcards, rme, etc.
With the aussie dollar so strong atm, do yourself a favour!