I purchased a guitar on March 27, 2025 at the Lansing, Michigan Guitar Center…read more
Guitar: Cordoba C12 CD
Today's date: April 23, 2025
The sales associate who entered the sale was apparently a trainee, since she had a trainer/manager talking her through the POS procedure. The guitar was in need of setup. Action was too high and the body was covered with greasy handprints. I never even took the guitar home. It hadn't left the store, yet. The trainer told me that they only had two part-time repair techs and it would probably be two weeks before my guitar was ready. I called Wednesday, April 9 around 5:00 PM to find out the status. It seems that, when I called, they were down to only one part-time tech. Also, after two weeks there were still 8 guitars in the queue ahead of mine, and the part-time tech had no sure idea when he would get to mine. "Monday or Wednesday of next week?" I gathered those are the two days he works.
On Wednesday, April 16, the tech called me to tell me that the setup was done, but...
Oh, no.
Apparently, a new employee, now ex-employee, carelessly placed something heavy on the shelf above the workbench where my guitar was being set up. It fell on the guitar and damaged the top. He said he would fix it for free. I said that I wasn't happy with that, since my NEW guitar had never left the store and it was now a "damaged" new guitar that I paid full price for. To Fish's credit, when he realized that, he spoke to the manager about getting me a new guitar. She agreed, but it had to be ordered because they didn't have another one in the store. Fish said three to five days for it to come in, and he would set it up as soon as it did.
Buying a guitar should not be this hard. I paid over $2000 for a guitar I haven't been able to take home and play, yet. I am not happy.
I can't be upset with the tech, since he can only do so much in the time he has available. The fact that this store is working with only one part-time tech IS upsetting, given that they continue to sell guitars that they can't service.
As of April 23, nearly four weeks since I first purchased the new guitar that was later damaged at the store, the replacement still hasn't been ordered. I have had enough and will travel to the two hours to the store to get a refund.
No stars for Lansing Guitar Store 324.