Guitar Shop Madness

So my electric-acoustic guitar has a problem. It doesn’t work. You plug it into the amp and there’s no sound. It didn’t just happen, but developed over time. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t. So I tried to troubleshoot the problem.

It didn’t seem to be the chord. That’s usually the problem. The connection between the wire and the jack breaks down over time, and you can either try to resodder it or buy a new chord. But I ruled out it being the chord, since I could plug it into my amp and you could touch the jack and it would buzz. If the connection was bad, it wouldn’t do that. So the signal was obviously getting through. It clearly wasn’t the amp, either, since the buzz came out of the speaker. Also, I’d plugged my ipod into the amp before (using a mini-phono to phono adapter) and the amp works fine, even when plugging in my guitar didn’t work. So it had to be the guitar.

So I thought maybe the battery was dead. It shouldn’t have been, but it was possible, so I bought a new one. Nothing. So it wasn’t that. So I thought maybe it was the control panel (volume and equalizer built into the guitar). I played with the knobs and sliders to see if doing so would cause the sound to come in or out. Nothing. So maybe it was the place where you plug the jack into the bottom of the guitar. I’ve had that before. Usually, by turning or pulling in and out the jack, you’ll hear the sound, even momentarily, as the wires connect. Nothing. I shook the guitar (if the wire had a broken connection to the plug it might momentarily connect and produce sound). Nothing.

I’ve built an electric guitar before and know how they work, pretty much. But I didn’t want to start taking apart my acoustic to get to the problem, since it’s a bit of a different beast. So I took it to the guitar shop where I’d bought my amp from not too long ago (like this fall). The guy there said no problem, they’d take a look and call us to let us know the problem and the cost to fix it. It’ll probably take a couple days to take care of. I’ll call tonight, he said. That was on a Monday.

He didn’t call so Joanne called back. Oh, the guy said, I looked at it and couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Another guy is coming in tomorrow who knows more about it. Okay, just call us once he looks at it and let us know what’s up. He didn’t call the next day. So Joanne again calls back and says, what’s up, you said you were going to call on Monday and you didn’t call. You said you were going to call. Oh, the guy says, the other guy didn’t come today. He should be here tomorrow. So you didn’t think to call to let us know what’s going on? Joanne asks him. Please call us once he’s looked at it tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and goes. Again, no call. Joanne calls the store again. What’s up? This is the third day in a row you said you’d call and didn’t call. Oh, the guy says, well, the other guy came and he took it to Taoyuan (an hour from Taipei) to look at it.

Now, when Joanne communicated that to me, it made me mad. The guy said he would look at it in his shop. If he wants to change that and send it away, he should okay that with me first. I want to know where my guitar is. And if I go into the shop at any time and say, “I’m here to pick up my guitar” they should have it for me. Not send it to Taoyuan without so much even as a head’s up. The next part, though really pissed me off. We’ll let you know as soon as he looks at it, the guy says. And he’ll be back in again next week.

So every day so far the guy said he’d call to let us know what’s going on and he didn’t call. Now we find out my guitar isn’t even in the shop anymore, they’ve given it to some other guy — not the factory or anything, mind you, just some guy — who lives in Taoyuan and he only comes to Taipei once a week, so it will be another week in addition to the three days in which the guitar already should have been ready according to his initial estimate.

So the next day rolls by. No call. Joanne says we should give them one more day. One more day comes and goes. Still no call. So Joanne calls back. Hey! What the hell? You said you were going to call once the guy had looked at it. What is your major malfunction? Actually, she didn’t say it like that, but same idea. What’s going on? What’s the problem? Oh, he says, it’s more serious than we thought and it’s going to cost $2500 to fix it (like $75 US). He tried to describe the problem to Joanne, and Joanne tried to describe it to me. She said, he says someone put the strings on wrong and it messed something up. And I said, what? First of all, I string my own guitar, thank you very much, and even if I was a complete moron and didn’t know how to string it properly, that has nothing to do with the electrical system whatsoever. So whatever he’s telling you is complete bullshit, so far as I can tell. So I wasn’t going to pay the $2500 bucks when that was the best answer we could get for what the problem is. Whether the guy was BSing or didn’t know how to explain it or Joanne misunderstood, whatever, I said, we need to go into the shop so they can show me the problem so I can decide what to do.

Of course, I couldn’t just go into the shop, because my guitar was in friggin’ Taoyuan. So the guy is like, well, he’ll be here next Wednesday. So Wednesday rolls around. Joanne and I figure we’ll just wait until Thursday since we don’t know what time he’d be there on Wednesday. Thursday rolls around and we have other stuff to do. We’re in that part of town taking care of some other business, so we call and say, hey, we’re in the area. Is the guitar there? No, they say. The guy hasn’t come yet. What? You said he would be here yesterday. Well, he didn’t come. He’ll be here today. Okay, we’re here now. What time will he be here. I don’t know. You don’t know? I don’t know. We’ll call you when he gets here.

So we finish out other business and head home. We’re almost home when the shop calls. You’re guitar is here. Joanne is like, we just called you 15 minutes ago and said we’re in the area and you said it wasn’t there. Are you telling me you didn’t know the guy was already almost in Taipei? No, we didn’t know. So are you telling me after we called and said, hey, we’re right here, can we pick up our guitar, and you didn’t know when it would get here, that you didn’t think to call the guy and ask, hey, when are you going to get here? And then he would say, oh, I’m almost there. Be there in ten. And then you could call us back and say, guess what? He’ll be here in ten minutes. Why don’t you just swing by the shop. Instead of wasting even more of our time? Honestly, is it just me, or is this not rocket science, people?

So we get there and I’m pretty much fuming. I’m pissed off they never called even after Joanne made it perfectly clear that we were unhappy they never called and after they had repeatedly said oh sorry, we’ll call you. I’m pissed off they sent my guitar to Taoyuan for a week without consulting me first. I’m pissed off we were just down in this part of town and instead of simply calling the guy and finding out he’d be here in ten, they didn’t show us the slightest consideration; after showing us not even the slightest consideration, they couldn’t do even one simple thing for our convenience to at least show that they were actually sorry for their lousy service.

So I’m just angry when we get there. I’m feeling pretty much like they’ve totally wasted my time. They bring out my guitar. I take it out of the bag. They’ve taken the strings off, but didn’t replace them (which, actually is really bad for the guitar and can warp the neck). They’re just hanging there, despite it being a simple matter of simply re tightening them. So I tell Joanne to tell him to tell me what the problem is. He explained that the electronic box where the volume and other controls are had corroded (the sulfuric air in our area does that to electronic devices, so that seemed a reasonable explanation). I notice that the wire in the guitar from that box to the jack output (where you plug in the chord) is just hanging inside; they didn’t put it back. That irks me even further. But at that point, I was just trying to contain my temper and said, okay, let’s go.

So we actually take my guitar downtown to the store where I’d bought it years ago. One, we wanted a second opinion. Two, I didn’t want to give that shop my business. So we get there and Joanne explains the guitar doesn’t work. We think it’s this. He says, no, that’s not it. Joanne says, well, we’ve already had someone look at it, and that’s the problem. Impossible, he says. We’ve never had that problem before. (Okay, that makes it impossible. Right). It’s the battery, he says, as he plugs it into an amp. I say to Joanne, tell him it’s not the battery. It’s a brand new battery. That was the first thing I checked. She does. He’s like, no it’s the battery. I say, tell him it’s a brand new battery. It’s not the battery. She does. No, it’s the battery, the guy says, as his assistant hands him a 9v battery and he puts it in. He plucks a string (after tightening it, since the other shop didn’t do so). Nothing. Oh, he says, it’s not the battery. No shit, Sherlock.

Then he’s like, well, it’s probably the jack output. That’s a common problem. I said, yes, I assumed that also after the new battery didn’t work. But the other shop looked at it and said that’s not the problem, the problem is the control panel. No, it’s here, he says. I’m getting a little frustrated now, and say to Joanne, how does he know when he hasn’t looked at it? She relays the message. He’s like, well, yes, I’ll have to send it out for an expert to look at, but this is what I think. Okay, I say, but he’s not saying “I think”. He’s trying to tell me he knows what the problem is, and he’s not listening to me about it. Joanne asks, okay, if the jack output is the problem, how much to fix it? 650, he says. So I say, okay, that’s if I need to replace the whole part. But if it’s the output, most likely the part is fine and it’s just the wire connection that needs resoddering. If I don’t need to replace the part, how much? She asks. He’s like, no, no, you’ll need to replace the part. So I asked again, IF the part is fine, how much just to resodder it. No, no, you’d need to replace the part. So I grabbed a chord off the shelf and unscrewed the cover to reveal where the wires are soddered to the plug. The jack output on the guitar is pretty much the same thing, two wires soddered to two metal arms. I showed Joanne and used my finger as a gun so both she and the guy would know what I meant; I explained if the wires just came loose, I don’t need to replace the whole part, I just need to resodder the connection (using my gun finger to demonstrate). How much would that be?

The guy was apparently impressed by that. He smiled and told Joanne, oh, he knows what he’s talking about. Joanne said, yes, he knows about guitars. He built a guitar before. He said, that’s neat. I don’t think I ever got the answer to that question, though. But I’d given up on that one and moved on. Anyways, I don’t think this is the problem. The other shop had horrible service, but I don’t think they were lying. I think the problem is the control panel. I think it’s fried and needs replacing. I explained I wanted him to send it to the fix-it shop and have them look at it, and then call us to let us know a) what the problem is and b) how much it will cost to fix it.

So that’s where that stands currently. One more thing, as he was playing with my guitar, I noticed that the volume knob was actually missing. I looked again in my bag to see if it had fallen off in there. It wasn’t there. That meant the guys at the other shop must have just not replaced it. That was the last straw. We stopped by again on the way home and I stormed in. Joanne said the knob was missing. The guy said, oh, I’ll call the other guy (Taoyuan guy) and ask him to check. Joanne relayed, and I replied, I’m not waiting another week to get my knob. I walked towards their acoustic electrics and pointed to one of the knobs on one of them. I’m taking one of these. The guy obviously — not being totally stupid — knew I was angry. Joanne said, just a minute, he’s thinking. I said, loudly, for everyone in the store to hear, well, he’d better think pretty fucking quickly. So he’s like, give me 5 minutes and I’ll get it for you. And he takes off out of the store, says he’s going home, real close. I yelled, fine. 5 minutes. And I’m counting. I think he understood that.

But at the same time I’m like, what? Where’s he going? Why is my knob at his house? Sure enough, though, he brings back my knob. Not just any knob, MY knob, to my guitar. And I’m like, why the hell was my knob at his house. And he explained to Joanne that he tried to look at it before Taoyuan guy did and had forgot to replace it. I’m not convinced that was actually the real story, but didn’t really care at that point, either. Joanne actually sat the guy down and explained how unsatisfied we were with his service (she’d got the owner’s number from the girl at the desk while he was gone home to get my knob). And she informed him we’d be calling the owner. And he tried to apologize and explain himself, and I was just like, you know what, he’s wasted enough of our time, you’ve said what you need to say, we don’t need to hear what he has to say. I’m taking my guitar someplace else to get it fixed. And I’m never coming back here again. Let’s go. So we left. (I made sure to speak loudly and clearly so the other customers could hear me, just in case they understood English. Even if they didn’t the message was clear enough).

Joanne called the owner later on, and the owner actually couldn’t believe what Joanne told her had happened. He seemed genuinely sorry and even offered to come to our house to get the guitar to take care of it personally. Joanne said that wasn’t the point, we just expect more respect and consideration and just some minimally decent service.

Which is pretty darned hard to get here in Taiwan, let me tell ya. This particular incident got me particularly riled up. But Joanne and I both observed afterwords that it wasn’t really all that unique an experience. In fact, pretty much every time we go out, something like that happens. Not to that extent, but something.

Customer service really, really is a foreign concept in Taiwan. I do not exaggerate. And Joanne will back me up on that.

UPDATE: March 29, 2009

So the guy at the shop where I bought my guitar called back the next day and said it was ready and would cost $300 bucks.

Compare the two weeks and $2500 of the first shop to the less-than-24 hours and $300 of the second shop. See, I told you I wasn’t exaggerating. Not only were they incompetent, they also lied and tried to scam us.

I picked the guitar up and brought it home. But then I noticed that the strap was missing. It was on the guitar when I dropped it off at the first shop. I couldn’t be sure, though, whether it was on or not when I dropped it off at the second. I was pretty sure the first shop had it. Joanne called the second shop and they said they didn’t have it. So she called the owner of the first shop again. Just one more thing, she said. You didn’t return the strap to us. Just a minute, he said. Oh yes, it’s here.

To be fair, the owner seemed a decent enough fellow, but Joanne made it clear to him that he had an ass of an employee, and the guy they contracted to do service (Taoyuan guy) was a liar and a scammer. After having complained so much and having had so many problems with his shop and their service, the guy was very apologetic. He actually personally delivered the strap to our home. When I opened the door, he kept bowing and apologizing.

But it’s not as though I’ll ever go to his shop again after that experience. Returning my strap hardly got him any bonus points with me.

Happily, I now know that I should just do business with the guy who I bought the guitar from in the first place. I wish it wasn’t so far, downtown, but it seems to be the best music store in town, and the guy is at least honest, so it’ll have to do.