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?
Comments
But could be different for a retail/business seller.
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 )
"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"
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.
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.
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.
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
Yes, the prices are mad. A brief Google shows you can get a new AmPro from GAK for significantly less than £1600.