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My point here is that if anyone had purchased such a guitar mail order, with such defects, you'd simply return it - Either for a refund or replacement - No big deal and to most of us such a very 'bad example' is still an exception to the rule - If you saw it in a shop then a) you'd pass on it and b) wonder why the retailer did not return it to Gibson as/when they unpacked it upon arrival
It doesn't exonerate Gibson from doing what we expect from them and indeed for what we pay them for - But I do feel that this story is 'exaggerated' and we on FB a making a big deal about it in some form or another - I agree that something doesn't stack up about his story
I believe you can send it back directly to Gibson for US warranty issues.
It would make sense if the store you purchased from had no stock of the model you wanted. Gibson used to have the phone number on the Gibson site to do this; I haven't checked recently, though I'm guessing they will still deal directly with customers who purchased new from an authorised dealer.
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"You don't know what you've got till the whole thing's gone. The days are dark and the road is long."
According to the video the guy has bought a new Gibson Les Paul from a local authorised Gibson dealer where he witnessed the box being opened, then returned it directly to Gibson because of flaws (@stonevibe gives good reasoning as to why he may have taken this route). Gibson send out another guitar in shit less than perfect condition, who else is there to blame for QC?
This is from the transcript, about the very guitar being shown in the video. This is from 9.20:
"when this replacement guitar showed up it was obvious that this is not a brand new guitar um there's no protective plastic film on the pick guard there are some marks on the pick guard and some you know smudgies around the pickups and things in the bridge and you can tell this guitar was played somebody took that film off and played the guitar and uh you know maybe they had an issue with it maybe it went back through the return shop maybe it's a refurb maybe it was a demo guitar I don't know what this guitar was but this is not a brand new guitar uh straight from from the factory"
It would be interesting for one of our USA members to call that number and ask if Gibson will send a replacement guitar to one purchased in store. If they agree, it will satisfy one of the biggest problems with his story.
Have you seen a guitar like this though? https://imgur.com/a/uBS3KzV It looks like the paper on a lint roller after it's done a couple of passes on a jacket.
And what's happening with the headstock, it looks like someone has got white paint drops on it? https://imgur.com/a/9Uhrpwp
My first Les Paul had to go back to Gibson. It was perfect when I bought it but some months later I noticed a 'hole' in the nitro under the neck pickup, and I could peel it like a protective film. I took it back to where I bought it, they verified it wasn't anything I'd done, and they contacted Gibson. Gibson said they'd do a straight swap for another guitar, and they sent that guitar to the dealer.
Perhaps that's different for me in the UK compared to their US policy, but I had no way to go to them directly and if I'd tried to they would have sent me back to the retailer. Yet it would have been long after this 30-day cooling off period for the dealer.
It is a different criteria once the dealer has sold to you as UK law protects you anyway - Plus your rights and point of complaint is with the dealer, who intern works with Gibson
I've just re-watched the first 10 minutes and he says that he went directly to Gibson because "I'd played all the gold tops in the store." But that doesn't explain why the store wouldn't/couldn't send the guitar back and be the liaison with Gibson.
The guy returns a guitar he bought brand new (as stated at just after 4:30) and Gibson accept there are problems with it. Gibson send out a replacement guitar, the guy hasn't picked this guitar, Gibson have. That to me is Gibson's responsibility. Gibson are responsible for their quality control... or maybe not!
Apologies if I've been unclear. I'll try to clarify:
- the guitar in the video is in bad condition and shouldn't be sold as anything short of a factory second
- it is Gibson's responsibility to do adequate QC on the guitars leaving their factory
- the guitar on display in the video is, according to Linny in the video, not "new." I consider this a potentially important point because he says "I don't know what this guitar was." So my point about who gets blamed is that yes, Gibson gets blamed for QC on new guitars, but we can't necessarily blame Gibson for a guitar with a history we don't know about. We aren't to know that someone didn't keep it in poor conditions that led to fret problems, for example.
- I have my suspicions because there are a couple of things that don't make sense (at first glance). Combine that with this being a very small channel that hasn't posted in a year or so, and it being a business page not a personal one, and you can see why there's an incentive for a video that is likely to get a heap of views quickly.
As I said earlier, I am not saying he's lying. I'm saying that there are enough funky details at play for me to be sceptical.
Let's look at the video again. Do we see him take that guitar out of the box? No. Can we be certain it came out of that box? No. Do we ever see the camera go up close and show us the problems as part of the video? No, they are all done as overlaid photos. Do we know this guy? No. Could he be lying? Yes. Could he be telling the truth? Yes.
How is it that he's found a shop where every Gibson Les Paul is in horrific shape? And how is it that he's then bypassed the dealer with a guitar he bought from them and gone straight to Gibson?
It's just a remarkably different experience to my own. Ten years of playing and buying Gibsons and the only blemish I've ever found is some paint colour in the binding.
I'd look at it this way: if this video was representative of a typical Gibson, they would be out of business. Even if people kept buying them, no business can operate on the economics of sending out 5 guitars for the price of 1. Since the 2019 management change there has been very broad agreement that they've massively improved QC on a consistent basis — not to say there are never any problematic ones, but that they're consistently putting out guitars in great condition. It's still a good idea to play them in person before buying, but even then, Sweetwater and Wildwood have excellent reputations for helping customers choose the best examples and having solid return policies. Likewise, in the UK GuitarGuitar and Anderton's have excellent customer support and returns policies.
Unfortunately, negativity is popular. So lots of channels will make content with negative angles, and then it gets widely shared. Meantime, all the happy customers are too busy playing their guitars. It's the same with anything — join a Facebook group for your car brand, or your TV brand, or whatever, and you'll quickly see many people use these groups for customer support, so the perception is that things are much worse than they really are. People don't often go in these groups to say that everything is working great.
And if it helps to hear an opposing view to balance out Linny's, I'll happily be that counter-weight and tell you that I have never had an issue with Gibson guitars. Ok my very first one developed a small issue with the nitro finish, and Gibson did a quibble-free swap and upgraded the model in the process. Even the many that I have played in shops have been absolutely fine. I can't tell you how many that is. When I bought the Dove on Monday this week I must have played at least 6 Gibsons (2 Doves, a J-45, 2 Hummingbirds, a Songwriter), when I bought my R9 last year I played probably a dozen and a few acoustics for the fun of it. In 2014 when I got my first I remember playing at least 3, including a Slash signature. My first custom shop was secondhand and that was flawless. My J-15 was purchased in 2018 and I played countless that day (I actually went in for a Martin or Taylor and left with a Gibson, chosen on sound and feel without knowing what brand I was playing). At the start of 2020 I wanted to try out these new '50s and '60s models, played a bunch of both, all of which were great, and I left with a tobacco burst '50s Standard. A couple of years before that I was tasked with helping a bandmate choose a Gibson, and they were all great too.
Again, I'm not saying there aren't any flawed ones, just that it's very easy to be online and think Gibson is routinely releasing third-rate instruments that aren't worth our consideration. It's just not true, at least in my experience.
Thanks for clarifying. So what I don't understand from the video is how Linny purchased a guitar from a shop, and then bypassed that shop to send it to Gibson himself. His reasoning of "I played all the goldtops in the shop" doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer because the owner could still be the liaison between Linny and Gibson, and arrange for the replacement guitar to be sent to the store. Somehow, he's completely removed the shop and is now entirely dealing with Gibson himself.