Experience of LIFE GUITARS CO in Exeter

RevMatt

Anyone else have any experience of dealing with Life Guitars Co in Exeter? The company is only about 3 years old and now resides in the former Manson's building.

They have a good and interesting used stock which appears to be fairly priced, BUT...

Here's my experience - I bought a guitar from them (via eBay), bought and paid for a week last Tuesday and delivered last Thursday - so far so good.

On unpacking,the guitar was in worse condition than described, missing the trem arm, with tarnishing and wear to the frets and a lacquer crack in the neck pocket/ treble cutaway. Now I totally get that used guitars are used, I also get that condition can be subjective, but none of these things were mentioned in the description and as fairly tangible things, I would expect to know about them.

Anyway, these things happen, so I contacted Life Guitars who replied the same day and provided a return shipping label, again so far so good.

The returned guitar arrived back with them on Tuesday lunchtime and having no contact from them I messaged yesterday (Wednesday) to query the refund process. They apologized for the delay which was due to being short staffed and assured me they'd deal with it today. Again, after another email from me, they replied today saying they're still understaffed and would prioritise this tomorrow.

I get that staffing pressures can be difficult, but here's my frustration... they've had the guitar for 2 days and they've relisted the guitar for sale on their website and on eBay, so they've accepted the return and had time to relist it for sale, but they haven't had time to click one button which issues the refund...

Anybody else had similar issues with them?

Penn

No but I think I’d feel annoyed to. 

Dumodal

That's strange when I had a return request on eBay and I approved the return eBay automatically took the funds from my account and put it on hold and released when the guitar came back to me.

But could be different for a retail/business seller.

RevMatt

The status on eBay says that it's awaiting the sellers inspection

Teyeplayer

I’d be contacting eBay and flagging it in exactly the way you have here -if it’s good enough for the shop to relist, then it is good enough to refund.

Dave_Mc

I've never dealt with them but I'd be annoyed too. I agree with you- yes, it's second-hand, but some things are facts and not just opinions and those things should be pointed out.

Some people act like, "Oh, it's second-hand, what do you expect?"

I expect it to be as described. Not being 100% mint isn't necessarily a problem- but it is if it's been described as 100% mint!

Just out of interest, have they mentioned those things in the new listing? (You don't have to answer this if you don't want )

Dumodal

Teyeplayer said:

I’d be contacting eBay and flagging it in exactly the way you have here -if it’s good enough for the shop to relist, then it is good enough to refund.

Yeah, agree with this, you should contact eBay so they can pressure the seller.

RevMatt

@Davemc - relisted with exactly the same description as before 

Offset

Any chance you can tell us what the guitar is?

RevMatt

@Offset - Framus Diablo   The description simply describes the condition as:

"This guitar is in fantastic used condition. It has only a few signs of wear or use, none of which impact on the health, playability or tone of the instrument"

Offset

Hmmm.  That's a bit crap I must say.  Leaving aside the fret wear and the lacquer crack, the missing trem arm seriously pisses me off.  I really would expect a retail vendor to source a replacement.  And having not done so, failing to mention the fact in the description is just lazy.  In fact exactly the same bland, uninformative blurb is used for all their pre-owned guitars.  Really lazy.  If they can't be bothered to properly document their stock I'm left wondering what else they don't bother to do.  Bit of a shame as it looks like a really nice guitar.

I really don't blame you for being pissed off, especially given the wait for a refund.  A tiny bit of effort on their part could have prevented poor feedback.  That's an expensive mistake in the current economic climate.

barnstorm

-

sev112

To make things better in the future have you / could you give them exactky this feedback, they might take it on board 

barnstorm

All you have to do to prevent disappointment (assuming you can't be bothered to write a proper description on the website) is say 'Call for details of wear" or something similar, like Rich Tone does. Retailers make life harder for themselves in so many baffling ways.

RevMatt

Update - they have now approved the refund, although will take 3-5 days to clear via ebay

RobG3294

Offset said:

Hmmm.  That's a bit crap I must say.  Leaving aside the fret wear and the lacquer crack, the missing trem arm seriously pisses me off.  I really would expect a retail vendor to source a replacement.  And having not done so, failing to mention the fact in the description is just lazy.  In fact exactly the same bland, uninformative blurb is used for all their pre-owned guitars.  Really lazy.  If they can't be bothered to properly document their stock I'm left wondering what else they don't bother to do.  Bit of a shame as it looks like a really nice guitar.

I really don't blame you for being pissed off, especially given the wait for a refund.  A tiny bit of effort on their part could have prevented poor feedback.  That's an expensive mistake in the current economic climate.

I was in the process of writing a comment about laziness of descriptions and that being a bearer on their overall attention to detail in other areas of the sale. I've seen a number of their items for sale in terms of the bits of their stock that I understand the market value of and they do want plenty of money for what they have.

Their feedback rating is particularly poor for a Instrument store of relatively small size. 95.7% is concerning given most people's expectations buying used Guitars means you either have to run in to a Grade A "Karen", or really screw up and be unhelpful in order to wind up receiving negative feedback.

They also have this listed as New:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394647529921?hash=item5be2d369c1:g:MKgAAOSwnRFkcgmo

Given the fact they are not a Gibson/Epiphone dealer, it is not new. It should be listed as used but yet in mint condition. Another example of the dishonesty and stretching the boundaries of giving them the benefit of the doubt - that seems to be a theme throughout their negative feedbacks.

JezWynd

Their feedback rating is particularly poor for a Instrument store of relatively small size. 95.7% is concerning...


Feedback is dropping by the hour...



IME any eBay seller with a rating less than 99% is to be avoided. Exceptions can be made but as a rule of thumb it usually works.

fretfinder

Used American Pro II Tele, £1600 plus £40 shipping. Jog on!

Dave_Mc

RevMatt said:

@Davemc - relisted with exactly the same description as before 

Wow, that's not great.

Glad they've approved your refund, though. Sucks about the guitar, Diablos are really nice (at least judging by mine, the cheaper Pro version)- the one they had looked killer in the pics 

Greatape

Always struck me as a place that existed only because of COVID-era guitar availability madness. Cannot see how they can possibly continue to thrive. 

Yes, the prices are mad. A brief Google shows you can get a new AmPro from GAK for significantly less than £1600.

Sassafras

I notice their guitars are "electrically cleaned", whatever that means.