Amp Stopped Working!

[Billm]

Hurrah! At last!

Boy, that repair guy sure bought himself a boatload of goodwill. You'll be sure to tell everyone about your great experience there.

[IronJoe]

Glad you got your amp back. Enjoy it!

[DrewB]

Tell everybody you know what you went through with that shop and never set foot in there again. Your friends won't either. When I was growing up, my mom and I had a couple of local stores that treated us poorly, and telling everyone we knew ended up putting both of them out of business pretty quickly because so many people refused to shop there after that.

[mikespe]

Thanks for all your support through this everyone! I will be telling everyone I know. However as I mentioned above, this place is a VERY well known guitar shop...and not just around here. I don't think I will put them out of business but they will lose a few customers!

I plan on writing an email to Fender documenting everything. I wanted to wait until I got the amp back before I did. I already filed a complaint over the phone but I want a WRITTEN record of this incident. I am sure Fender won't revoke their endorsement of this place either because of how popular it is. But if anyone here that is in my area and wants the name of this place (most likely you already figured it out!) PM me and I will tell you. I don't think Paul would want me to post it here nor should I post it here. But I think local members should be informed of my experience.

On the humorous side of this, the repairman's name is the same as a certain part of the male anatomy! No surprise!

[pchilson]

Why not say the name? You have a real life experience with this establishment.
Glad you finally got your amp back.

[DrewB]

Originally Posted by mikespe

On the humorous side of this, the repairman's name is the same as a certain part of the male anatomy!

Prostate?

[FirstBassman]

Mike and all,

A couple of thoughts after the storm.

First I am very happy you got the amp back and working. And I absolutely (as I’m sure others do too) feel your pain and have experienced extremely similar situations with so called customer service.
I take these as a challenge to find someone with real authority in order to get the issue resolved. And usually I’m pretty successful.

As far as how many authorized service centers goes, it seems to me to be a dark magical science with little logic behind it. Though I suppose there must be some reasoning behind it somewhere.

A list of authorized Fender service places in Virginia shows the following:


Interlaken Inc
Charlottesville, VA 22911

Prism Concepts
Chester, VA 23831-1853

Wooden Wizard Guitars LLC
Fairfax Station, VA 22039-2827

Hancock Electrical & Electronics Inc
Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Sam Ash Megastores LLC
Richmond, VA 23294

Music Technology Inc
Springfield, VA 22151

Jammerz Music
Staunton, VA 24401

Harmony Electronics
Stephens City, VA 22655


So, the densely populated metropolitan Northern Virginia area (population around 2 mil) has only two - only one of which I’ve heard of and the other happens to also be an authorized Gibson service place also.

The relatively thinly populated area between DC and Richmond (population around 230,00) also has two service reps. Does that make any logical sense?

I once brought a guitar to be serviced at the Gibson/Fender place. I was told a turn-around time of six to eight weeks! I contacted them after six weeks. Nothing. Contacted them after eight weeks. Nothing. Contacted them after ten weeks. They still hadn’t even looked at the guitar. I took it back.

[mikespe]

Originally Posted by FirstBassman

[color="Navy"]

I once brought a guitar to be serviced at the Gibson/Fender place. I was told a turn-around time of six to eight weeks! I contacted them after six weeks. Nothing. Contacted them after eight weeks. Nothing. Contacted them after ten weeks. They still hadn’t even looked at the guitar. I took it back.

I agree...and from on I am only dealing with Fender. I will pay the shipping to send it directly to Arizona. This place lost my business for good!

[trdlasvegas]

Not to defend the Service Center because I don't believe they treated you properly, but I would put the blame on Fender. Did you ever ask them why they allow a service center that is only open 2 days a week represent their products? It is Fender that authorizes Service Centers like that. Just because the Service Center is attached to a large guitar store is no reason for them to be properly qualified to repair their products.

Let me explain a little closer to home for me; If you do a search for Fender Authorized Service Centers in Nevada on their site you will turn up these two:

Sam Ash Megastores LLC
2747 S Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Wiser Electronics
2624 Redwood St
Las Vegas, NV 89146

So if you were to take a closer look you would find that Sam Ash has a tech that travels in from Arizona a few days a week to repair amps. And what about had you been shopping between Sam Ash & Guitar Center to buy a Fender amp and finally bought it from Guitar Center and now it broke. How foolish would you feel having to bring it into to Sam Ash to have it repaired?

And as for Wiser Electronics, anyone who lives in Vegas will tell you that David Wiser is a keyboard specialist. How comfortable would you feel bringing your brand new all tube amp to a keyboard service center?

Now my Service Center (in Vegas also) with 3 full time techs, open 9-6PM M-F is authorized for: Ampeg, Ashdown, B-52, Crate, G-K, Line 6, Marshall, Mesa-Boogie, Hartke, Park, and Vox. And every time I have approached Fender to do their Authorized Service, I was told "we already have enough Service Centers here in Vegas."

So you tell me who's really at fault that it took so long to put a new tube in your amp?

-Tony

[mikespe]

Originally Posted by trdlasvegas

Not to defend the Service Center because I don't believe they treated you properly, but I would put the blame on Fender. Did you ever ask them why they allow a service center that is only open 2 days a week represent their products? It is Fender that authorizes Service Centers like that. Just because the Service Center is attached to a large guitar store is no reason for them to be properly qualified to repair their products.

-Tony

Tony,

I asked the Fender rep that VERY question and at first the guy danced around the answer. He even said that they are at the mercy of these repair shops. But I kept pushing. I said that if this is the type of place Fender wants representing them in my area, then as much as I like Fender products I may be very reluctant in purchasing more from them. In a roundabout way the guy told me that this place being as popular as it is and the history this place has is the reason. I know of 2 other luthiers (not sure about amp repair places?) in my area that our outstanding but their store fronts are small which in turn makes for less sales. The place I went to has been around since the early 1970's or earlier I think. They are well know to musicians around the country and have had MANY famous musicians come to them from all over. Basically their reputation is better than the actual service. I feel that now the place is more of a museum than a store. You walk in and it's dark and dreary in there, guitars covered with dust...none of them are in tune...amps stacked very sloppy. But the place is a show place and I can appreciate that. I know a lot of people that tolerate all this because they can say they bought their guitar there...it has a "romantic" feel to it. The store itself has some very polite people that work there...I have no beef with the store itself...but the repair shop is attached to them. They give preference to people who buy from them and the guy even said that if Fender didn't tell him he HAD to work on my amp he would have turned me away.

I am sure if you ask others on this board that live in my area about this place you'll get mixed answers. I know people who swear by them...and others who won't set foot in the place. I have been there 3 times in my 7 years living in this area. It was more of a novelty to me to look around. As much as I may complain about Guitar Center, at least I can walk in there and take a guitar off the wall and play it and the service isn't that bad. When the nut in my Artcore cracked 1 week after I bought it from GC they were very happy to repair it for me while I waited...however, they didn't have the correct nut in stock at the time so I had to wait 3 days but I think that's fair.

Anyway, sorry for the long reply...

[trdlasvegas]

Mike,
Since I was born, raised and grew up in Niagara Falls, NY, I also made yearly treks out to Rochester just to look at the guitars and amps at HOG in Rochester, so I know what you are talking about. But believe me Fender is lieing to you when they tell you they have no control over these shops. I know and every other Mesa Boogie Servicer on this board will tell you that if I tried that on a Mesa customer I'd be dropped quicker than I can say Boogie.

Fender has just gotten a little too big and maybe it's time they clean shop in their Customer Service Dept.

After I wrote that post last night I went back and checked on Fender Service Centers in Arizona. And get this... even though the Fender Factory is there, their are 9 additional Service Centers there. You tell me what's with that? 2 Service Centers in Vegas and 9 plus the Factory Service Centers in Arizona.
I guess we don't have as much entertainment or musicians as Arizona. (I mean no offence to you guys who live in Arizona, I'm stricly illustrating a point)

If I was buying an brand new amp based on after-market service, you could rest assured Fender would not even be in the running. It's a good thing for Fender that the majority of customers looking for an amp DO NOT look at after-market service untill after the sale when they need it.

-Tony