Beware of GC and MF charges.

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Not going to bash them anymore than has already been done and well deserved, but just a bit of a heads up to the community having order issues. Please double and triple check your charges from them. And yes, before you ask I must be a masochist.

Ordered a new Gibson LP Studio for my daughter for Valentine's Day. 10 days later... "sorry we can't find this, it seems to be out of stock." (weird for an LP studio, but okay) 20 days later no refund. Call them up "hey where's my refund?" I ask. "Oh, sorry about that, here you go" -proceeds to charge my card again instead of refunding. Call back to get sorted. finally gets sorted a few weeks after that. A few weeks later it was charged again for the same charge, made no sense, called and got sorted after a few days passed.

Did the same thing to me a few weeks later just ordering some strings.

Come early summer order a used Legator "we're sorry, out of stock" -proceeds to repost for sale at a higher price, proceeds to charge my card again instead of refunding it, again. Call to get sorted -proceeds to charge me 2 more times instead of refund (4 charges at this point). Overdrafts my account. Bank freezes account and charges $350+ in fees. Takes a few weeks to get sorted. -Removes stored payment info on MF and GC.

Come mid last month order a LP Junior -proceeds to not ship, not answer phone, not respond to emails, not do anything but create a shipping label so that my bank charge goes through. Finally answers phone weeks later "YEAH, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!!!!" Says the person answering the phone. "I want my funking guitar, ahole" (in my head). I ask when my guitar will ship and they respond "It takes UPS about a week." Okay, that's not what I asked, "When do YOU plan on shipping my guitar? UPS can't deliver a package they haven't received." I say in the nicest way possible at this point. "I don't know when we get around to it." -hangs up phone on me, never answers again. -A week goes by and I call corporate, politely explain my issue. Email specific GC, again. Asking where tf is my guitar?" Tracking updates the next day to in transit. Cool, but worried that they f'd up my guitar maliciously after tattling to corpo. Finally arrives, everything is fine. Emails me yesterday, (or roughly a month later from purchase) full of gaslighting BS that "they shipped it out already, what is your problem?" basically. Literally acting as if I sent the email after I already received the gear.

So yes, I should know better than to order from either, but I buy a lot of gear and sometimes they have what I'm after. So, out comes the dice. Anyway, was recently told by a long time employee at my local GC that the bulk of their pay is commission and it is a common scam for an employee to charge you more than once, or charge you again during a refund so that it makes it appear as if they made a sale and hope the commission check comes through before someone realizes they've been charged again. So, do not under any circumstance keep your payment info saved on your account is what I was told. Sure enough it's ended that problem, and opened up a whole new issue that is so common apparently (3 of 7 orders this year, 1 of 3 orders of my husband's.), that it has to be sanctioned by corporate.

It's funny that I thought if I add a bunch of crap to my cart and close the website, I'll get the usual call from "my gear advisor" -"hey are you too stupid to figure out how to checkout and need me to do it for you?" So that way I could tell them get my order to me that I've already placed, but they never called. Which is odd considering they call me 3x or more a week anywhere between the hours of 3am and 11pm to make sure I'm not dumb enough to understand how to check out. Anyways, I'm done with the rant. Now onto ordering something else from them...

TL;DR: Yeah, I probably wouldn't have either...:sleep:
 
The stores have gotten so bad, I don't even consider them when I'm shopping anymore.

Sucks to hear their online service has gotten so badly out of hand.
 
Very odd. I’ve done many orders with GC and nothing even remotely close to this took place
Honestly thought is was a fluke the first time, and the third time when I was on the phone I specifically asked to make sure they weren't charging me again because it had already happened before twice. "Oh yeah of course not." -proceeds to charge me 3 more times. Haven't had issues prior to this year other than the usual poor descriptions vs reality.
 
OMG , no way in hell I'm ever ordering from them . That goes way way past incompetence . That's Biden level incompetence .
To be fair, at least Biden refunds people for things they didn't pay for...!!!? Wait a sec... ? Is anyone else's math off?
 
That's nuts. I canceled a order with Sweetwater because the back order was taking to long. I did it over the phone and just ordered a guitar they had in stock. I thought ok I'm all done. 10 months later we come home from vacation and there's a big box. I'm thinking a must have won a guitar or something. It was the guitar that was on back order. I checked my bank account and yes my card was charged $1500. I called SW they had the guitar picked up that day and I was refunded the next - the 3 day wait for the money to post back to my account. I all most just kept the thing. I was upset ,but they made up for it next time.
 
Honestly thought is was a fluke the first time, and the third time when I was on the phone I specifically asked to make sure they weren't charging me again because it had already happened before twice. "Oh yeah of course not." -proceeds to charge me 3 more times. Haven't had issues prior to this year other than the usual poor descriptions vs reality.
I’d get a lawyer and go after guitar center if they pulled that reverse commission theft bullshit on my card. Theft is theft whether it’s a person stealing from a store or a store stealing from a person. It’s a case they wouldn’t win and I’d retire early and happy.
 
I’d get a lawyer and go after guitar center if they pulled that reverse commission theft bullshit on my card. Theft is theft whether it’s a person stealing from a store or a store stealing from a person. It’s a case they wouldn’t win and I’d retire early and happy.
I'm sort of on board, except my lawyer plays PRS, so I'm fresh outta lawyers...

Outside of that, I haven't seen a whole lot of other people have similar issues and was starting to wonder if it was my "gear advisor" doing this because I outright ignore them anymore, but make orders often enough. Since I removed my payment info from being saved, it hasn't happened again. So, it's the dude(s) online that I'm thinking are responsible, not so much the ones working in stores which I should have clarified in my original post.

I had been subject to a refund and recharge in the past which was rare, but I do also believe that was someone stealing someone else's commission. When it happened to me one of the times I had used their store CC and it had removed the promo period of like 36 or 48 months down to your $3k balance is accruing interest daily, so I closed that account immediately since no one wanted to take responsibility. But still gave GC/MF another 100 chances.

Like I said; masochist...
 
"Oh chick who plays guitar, let me pour on my most offensive cologne."
Come on now, Drakkar Noir ain't all that bad.


:p


(*wears Tom Ford Grey Vetiver and Lalique Encre Noir FWIW...not that offensive IMO. Classy. :cool: )

But yeah, I can imagine it must suck to always be on some level of alert.
 
CL people seem to think I'm meeting up for a date half the time. "Oh chick who plays guitar, let me pour on my most offensive cologne."

*proceeds to send my 6'3" husband for meetup.

Needs more Axe body spray...

But, to your point, it's intentionally been a long time since I've used MF/GC. I have once or twice risked it, once on GC used no less, and not been punished for my insolence, but I feel like you're rolling the dice.

Honestly my best luck has been through TGP/RT or back in the day, Ebay, but there have even been strays there as well. No sure things is my takeaway. I mean, it's a culture that's populated by musicians, who tend to be a little flakey by nature, right?
 
Not going to bash them anymore than has already been done and well deserved, but just a bit of a heads up to the community having order issues. Please double and triple check your charges from them. And yes, before you ask I must be a masochist.

Ordered a new Gibson LP Studio for my daughter for Valentine's Day. 10 days later... "sorry we can't find this, it seems to be out of stock." (weird for an LP studio, but okay) 20 days later no refund. Call them up "hey where's my refund?" I ask. "Oh, sorry about that, here you go" -proceeds to charge my card again instead of refunding. Call back to get sorted. finally gets sorted a few weeks after that. A few weeks later it was charged again for the same charge, made no sense, called and got sorted after a few days passed.

Did the same thing to me a few weeks later just ordering some strings.

Come early summer order a used Legator "we're sorry, out of stock" -proceeds to repost for sale at a higher price, proceeds to charge my card again instead of refunding it, again. Call to get sorted -proceeds to charge me 2 more times instead of refund (4 charges at this point). Overdrafts my account. Bank freezes account and charges $350+ in fees. Takes a few weeks to get sorted. -Removes stored payment info on MF and GC.

Come mid last month order a LP Junior -proceeds to not ship, not answer phone, not respond to emails, not do anything but create a shipping label so that my bank charge goes through. Finally answers phone weeks later "YEAH, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!!!!" Says the person answering the phone. "I want my funking guitar, ahole" (in my head). I ask when my guitar will ship and they respond "It takes UPS about a week." Okay, that's not what I asked, "When do YOU plan on shipping my guitar? UPS can't deliver a package they haven't received." I say in the nicest way possible at this point. "I don't know when we get around to it." -hangs up phone on me, never answers again. -A week goes by and I call corporate, politely explain my issue. Email specific GC, again. Asking where tf is my guitar?" Tracking updates the next day to in transit. Cool, but worried that they f'd up my guitar maliciously after tattling to corpo. Finally arrives, everything is fine. Emails me yesterday, (or roughly a month later from purchase) full of gaslighting BS that "they shipped it out already, what is your problem?" basically. Literally acting as if I sent the email after I already received the gear.

So yes, I should know better than to order from either, but I buy a lot of gear and sometimes they have what I'm after. So, out comes the dice. Anyway, was recently told by a long time employee at my local GC that the bulk of their pay is commission and it is a common scam for an employee to charge you more than once, or charge you again during a refund so that it makes it appear as if they made a sale and hope the commission check comes through before someone realizes they've been charged again. So, do not under any circumstance keep your payment info saved on your account is what I was told. Sure enough it's ended that problem, and opened up a whole new issue that is so common apparently (3 of 7 orders this year, 1 of 3 orders of my husband's.), that it has to be sanctioned by corporate.

It's funny that I thought if I add a bunch of crap to my cart and close the website, I'll get the usual call from "my gear advisor" -"hey are you too stupid to figure out how to checkout and need me to do it for you?" So that way I could tell them get my order to me that I've already placed, but they never called. Which is odd considering they call me 3x or more a week anywhere between the hours of 3am and 11pm to make sure I'm not dumb enough to understand how to check out. Anyways, I'm done with the rant. Now onto ordering something else from them...

TL;DR: Yeah, I probably wouldn't have either...:sleep:
Some of the very glaring reasons I don't buy from either. Damned shame about Musicians Friend. As recently as 2018 I did not experience that. In December of that year, I bought a brand new Friedman SB50 Combo. In 2020 after a very long wait, I snagged a Kemper Powered Rack from them.

That was it.

After that almost everything they used to have in quantity ready to ship dried up to a trickle. And then they started listing all this used crap. WTF? And then the horror stories like yours.

No thanks.

And in the last couple of months I start getting voice mails from MF trying to scare up sales. I hate that annoying shit. Could never stand Sweetwaters "Sales Engineers" doing the same thing.

MF, GC, Sweetwater, get off my fucking lawn.

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I'm sort of on board, except my lawyer plays PRS, so I'm fresh outta lawyers...

Outside of that, I haven't seen a whole lot of other people have similar issues and was starting to wonder if it was my "gear advisor" doing this because I outright ignore them anymore, but make orders often enough. Since I removed my payment info from being saved, it hasn't happened again. So, it's the dude(s) online that I'm thinking are responsible, not so much the ones working in stores which I should have clarified in my original post.

I had been subject to a refund and recharge in the past which was rare, but I do also believe that was someone stealing someone else's commission. When it happened to me one of the times I had used their store CC and it had removed the promo period of like 36 or 48 months down to your $3k balance is accruing interest daily, so I closed that account immediately since no one wanted to take responsibility. But still gave GC/MF another 100 chances.

Like I said; masochist...
Lesson #1. NEVER store your credit card info on their website.

I use PayPal buying gear, always.
 
Very odd. I’ve done many orders with GC and nothing even remotely close to this took place
Same....but, I order as a 'guest' every time(been doing it this way for 12 years now lol) so no info is left for them; nor do I have an account. They've called and left messages trying to assign a 'gear specialist' who can 'help me' lol....but I ignore it. I always look for specific things and just order as a guest.
The only issue I've had is, if you order from any Florida GC you are at 50% on if it will be packed/shipped properly. Any other state/store I've never had an issue.
OP, one thing you can do is go to your bank or CC company and do a charge back if they rip you off...just tell them it's an 'unauthorized transaction' and they should take care of it. I've had to do this 2x; once on an attempted eBay scam and once on the same scam on Reverb. Got my money back that same day. Another is to report this to your state Commerce dept ......GC should take care of it in a hurry once the state gives them a call.
 
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