The wide neck guitar criminal!

mdphillips1956

funstuie said:

Hi Mark, 

Welcome to the site. I purchased a guitar from you approximately 18 months ago as I was duped by your "perfect for a beginner" and "pro setup" blurb in your auction listing. 

I paid you £140 (plus shipping - despite my offer to come and collect as you live around 10 miles from me, which you refused) for an Encore strat - on a side note there is a very similar guitar in my local charity shop for £45 - I honestly believed your spiel that you had setup this guitar as for a beginner, I believed that it would have a pro setup etc. In all honesty I was very disappointed in the guitar I received from you. For a start it was filthy, if you polished the frets and fretboard you must have used cow shite as your cleaning agent. After that it was dog to play, there was fret buzz all up the neck. When I complained to you about the dirt you claimed that there was nothing you could do after shipping. I offered to bring it back to you in person to save on shipping and packing and you never responded As someone who sells guitars for "beginners" you should offer some sort of after sales service. Just ignoring me was frankly rude. The whole process left me feeling ripped off so I went to a guitar shop in Brighton and purchased a guitar from them which had a free setup (which I was allowed to watch the tech perform and ask questions). That's the guitar I ended up learning on. The one I got from you I just left to rot in the garage. 

After all this I did some research on you and I can see your interactions with other people on your auctions (anyone who questions you is an internet troll apparently), you are not very pleasant to deal with if anyone questions you or makes any suggestion of help or advice. Your work, the guitars you are selling are disgraceful in my opinion. Since purchasing from you I have learned to setup my own guitars and I have done extensive research on improving guitars and I am shocked on the work you publicise as a "pro" but you seem to be selling guitars regularly so you have either tapped into a perverts market or a lot of people are like I was 18 months ago. 

After all that I have 2 questions: 

1. Whats with the hard on for ill fitting single coil pickups in humbucker cavities? 

2. Do you have proof that there is a subset of UK society with sausage fingers who are desperate to play guitar but have been unable to do so since you came on the scene? 

Hello,

And what a shock... and sorry etc as well, but I really cannot remember you or you contacting me about any problems with the guitar you mention.

Have I ever sold an Encore for £140? I rather doubt it.

Did you leave me bad feedback? I certainly have no memory of it.

If you were ten miles away with a guitar problem I would say bring it here and we will sort it out for free... even if it had been bought of someone else!

As far as I am aware I had always had 100% good feedback until a funny bloke bought a bass off me for £97 then made up silly stories and wanted me to take it back... it arrived back with its strings cut!

Are you sure this guitar was from me? 

Thanks,

Mark................

horse

Coincidence that @octatonic happened to choose 1st April to 'make contact'?

Antique_Guitars

Also can I just ask what you use to cut the nut slots with?

Also you can file away some material away from the top of the nut so that the strings are not buried, it is an easy fix and you shouldnt need to change the nut.

Obviously I don't have the instrument to look at so I cant comment on whether you have set the string height/ nut slot depth correctly (but I will assume you have).

Also look at all of Will Kelly's vid tutorials they are very good!

Antique_Guitars

Mark,

Your nut should look more like this one (compare it with yours)

frankus

I can't help but feel that noone would have taken Ed Roman to task about his choices in guitar set-up

jonnyburgo

horse said:

Coincidence that @octatonic happened to choose 1st April to 'make contact'?

Err.. good point....

breakstuff

Respect.
Have a pair of these and a wow.

http://i1352.photobucket.com/albums/q659/breakstuff42/cojones_zps8a5aace2.jpg

Welcome on board.

mudslide73

breakstuff said:

Respect.
Have a pair of these and a wow.

http://i1352.photobucket.com/albums/q659/breakstuff42/cojones_zps8a5aace2.jpg

Welcome on board.

Couldn't you just mod a pair of waders by widening the nut area? Change the spacing etc.

Lexie1

Welcome Mark,

I think you will find that there is a great deal of help and assistance available to you on this forum, there are some extremely good people who really know their onions when it comes to repairs, setups, wiring, refinishing etc and they are all more than happy to share their collective knowledge to any that need any form of assistance.

Enjoy your time here, it is actually a very friendly forum, believe it or not.

funstuie

mdphillips1956 said:

Hello,

And what a shock... and sorry etc as well, but I really cannot remember you or you contacting me about any problems with the guitar you mention.

Have I ever sold an Encore for £140? I rather doubt it.

Did you leave me bad feedback? I certainly have no memory of it.

If you were ten miles away with a guitar problem I would say bring it here and we will sort it out for free... even if it had been bought of someone else!

As far as I am aware I had always had 100% good feedback until a funny bloke bought a bass off me for £97 then made up silly stories and wanted me to take it back... it arrived back with its strings cut!

Are you sure this guitar was from me? 

Thanks,

Mark................

Yep it was from you. It would have been very late December 2012, obviously I can't link to the ebay auction from that time as it's long gone as are the communications between us but I have been able to find the paypal transaction and I have to apologise as I got the fee wrong it was £124 including postage. I offered to bring the guitar back to you, I advised where I live but you refused to give me an address or time. I asked numerous times and eventually you stopped responding to me so I stopped emailing you. 

I didn't leave bad feedback as I was trying to work it out with you before doing so but work/life got in the way and by the time I wanted to post feedback it was 4 weeks later which I figured wouldn't be worth it. I don't have time for petty squabbles with people on ebay. Luckily I could afford to write off £124 as a mistake so I moved on. 

What have I got to gain from lying about this?

blueskunk

^^^ should have left feedback dude. Thats whats its there for.

If it wernt worth the hassle back then whats the point now ?

Just asking like ......

Fazer

well, he's giving feedback now, i dont see why you are butting in.
he doesn't have to justify himself to you.
he's giving his experience of being ripped off with a shoddy guitar and the seller fobbing him off.

blueskunk

Sorry @Fazer was only asking, not butting in or trying to upset anyone.

If i bought something on ebay that was not as described id leave feedback accordingly

funstuie

I already posted my feedback in the other thread. Perhaps I should have posted feedback on ebay but I didn't. I posted my experience on this site as it's first hand experience dealing with the seller and the product I received. Take it or leave it. 

Adam_MD

Fazer;202125" said:

well, he's giving feedback now, i dont see why you are butting in.

he doesn't have to justify himself to you.

he's giving his experience of being ripped off with a shoddy guitar and the seller fobbing him off.

Blueskunk isn't asking him to justify himself. He just pointed out funstuie should have left feedback. If funstuie wasn't happy with the guitar he should have left feedback so others would know about the poor guitar and service he received.
In the interest of balance I also think he's right to raise it now in this thread. He's been very calm and reasoned about it. If Mark Phillips wishes to run a business then he needs to hear the good and the bad.

octatonic

jonnyburgo said:

horse said:

Coincidence that @octatonic happened to choose 1st April to 'make contact'?

Err.. good point....

I wish I was that clever.

I promise you this isn't a prank.

A modmin should be able to verify that via IP.

digitalscream

octatonic said:

A modmin should be able to verify that via IP.

What? We're not your lackies, man!

Actually, I think I'll pass just to keep the mystery alive...

Antique_Guitars

Octatonic is really Lord Lucan!

horse

octatonic said:

jonnyburgo said:

horse said:

Coincidence that @octatonic happened to choose 1st April to 'make contact'?

Err.. good point....

I wish I was that clever.

I promise you this isn't a prank.

A modmin should be able to verify that via IP.

Yes - that is exactly what I thought you'd say...


And what have you done with that missing plane you bastard?!

octatonic

mdphillips1956 said:

However, that nut is perfectly functional... what particularly don't you like about it?

Maybe what is going on here is you just don't know how to do the jobs you are trying to do and you are unaware of how wrong it is.

Your nut cutting is not remotely close to being right- trust us on this.

When you say it is 'fully functional', it isn't.

It isn't even close.

It really does look like you went at it with a bandsaw, or a handsaw- how did you actually perform the job?

If you are serious about learning how to do it properly then there are some fairly cheap tools that allow you to do the job right.

As Sheldon (Antique Guitars) said, you don't bury the string in the nut.

Also you should have the high point of the nut closest to the bridge, with the nut slot cut so it slopes away.

This is nut cutting 101, a very basic, rudimentary thing to know.

This isn't voodoo- setting up guitars is fairly easy with the right information and the right tools provided you practice it and are able to admit when you haven't do it right.

There is a lot of information out there and you really can't use ignorance as an excuse.

What makes people here exasperated and amused about your work (IMHO) is a combination of the weird combination of hardware, the highly atypical setup choices and your attitude.