Basscenter.com - A warning to shoppers

jdiddleymspot

jdiddleymspot

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Hi, I mentioned back in November that I would tell you of how it went from ordering wit the Basscenter in London, Uk.

Anyways, here is the chaos that has been the last 3 and a half months.

I placed the order with them on 3rd November for a Warwick Corvette Bubinga 5 and a Hiscox case. The bass arrived fine and in perfect condition, well wrapped and protected after 3 weeks. So, no real problems there, except that it says nothing about it taking so long on their website. You find that out after you place the order in an email that they sent when I asked them of the status of the order a week after the money parted from my account.

Anyways, that isn't the real problem. Here it is....

The Hiscox case did not arrive and the little in stock marker on their website never turned green on this item and I checked it almost every day. In the end, I phoned them up 2 weeks before Christmas (6 weeks after I had initially placed the order) to ask what was going on with the order. They informed me that the cases where due in any day now and that I would have it before Christmas. I was flying out shortly after Christmas and wouldn't return home for months, so it was important that the order was completed for then.

The cases didn't come, despite their promises and I had to change the order to a Warwick hard case to ensure I had something to fly my instrument in. This was a week before Christmas but they promised it would arrive before the 24th. Which it did! BUT, it was the wrong case and instead of them sending me a nice hard case, they sent me a flimsy ABS shell case with little inner padding, I could literally squeeze the case together with my hands and there was no way I was flying my new Warwick in that. I phoned them up and informed them of yet another one of their errors and said I would have to try and get a new case in town the next day, which was 24th December btw. And they I would expect them to pick up the case without charge and refund my money. Which they promised to do. I also asked them to please send my free Elites strings which you get with all orders over £350, which they had failed to send. They promised me they would after Christmas.

Anyways, New Year comes and they pick up the case quite quickly, no sign of the strings. I gave them three weeks to refund my money, but nothing came and I contact them again to ask what was happening. They didn't respond to my email. I contacted them again, and they said there had been an error and that they would send it straight to the account dept. Nothing came of it and I still had no strings. I then conctacted them again and informed them that if they did not refund it within a week, I would take it up with my VISA card company and have them sort it out. They promised to refund, but they still havent. I eventually got my strings after much hassle, but no refund and I'm still waiting on it now. Though, I have filled in a request for refund for from my bank.

Seriously, I've never had such shocking customer service from a company that claims to have 25 years of service experience. Save yourself the hassle and don't bother with them.

:roll:
 
Ps. I managed to get a case and my dad very kindly drove me all the way to Liverpool to pick up a Hiscox from Dawsons. Bless Him.
 
They're very poor with customer support since not being a physical shop anymore. I called them before I bought my first Warwick to see if I could try one out before buying from them. The guy on the phone was just rude and thoroughly unwilling to help.
 
I had an issue when ordering my PJB combo, i did have some issues ordering it, when i rang up though they were very helpful though, sorted it out. That said i didn't get my amp for 2 weeks as they had to try and find me one.

After this i've always rang and had someone who was very helpful about everything - this was just after they shut the shop so things might have changed. I got a thumb heavily discounted as they were shifting old inventory. I think now especially with warwicks they only order in them when orders are placed - 2 weeks is almost the minimum for a bass to be built + shipped.

Sorry to hear you have had such a bad experience with them though.

That said i've had very mixed service from the gallery as well but i think they just took offence at my age in that case...still..when you have suck bad service makes you think twice about shopping there.
 
That sounds pretty bad, its a nasty little trick that shops seem to do, taking cash without actually having the item in stock. I ordered from GAK.co.uk once and they took the money and told me they would send out a hardcase the next day, and then the next day, and then the next day, until finally it had got to a point where I couldn't cancel the order. They then told me that they didn't have it in stock, and it would take about 8 weeks to arrive!! I emailed them to complain, and all credit to them they did refund my money, but even so its a dirty little trick.

Its not just online shops though. I ordered a Marshall bass head from a local shop and the guy was like 'yeah, we havn't got it in stock but they'll deliver one to us tomorrow' as he happily took £285 from my credit card....that was over a week ago lol
 
Sorry to hear this. Has anyone dealt with the bass shop on Denmark st? I was thinking of ordering a bass from them. I found the bass gallery unhelpful for sales but great for repairs and I've heard their custom shop is awesome!
 
Just to offer a counter-opinion, I ordered a Streamer LX5 from basscentre.com last month. They'd quoted me around 4 weeks from order to delivery, and it arrived after just 2 weeks.

On top of that it was at a really great price. So 100% positive experience from me.
 
The last bass I bought from there was in '93. I went into the shop in person, they were really friendly and helpful and took a lot of time to help me pick exactly the right bass for me. But when I contacted them 2 years ago about buying a new Warwick they didn't even bother replying.
 
It's good to hear that some folks have had positive experiences with. As with my order, no complaints with bass itself or the way they handled it, just to messing around with the case and the subsequent ringing around like a madman trying to get an emergency case, as well as trying to get my refund which leaves me dissapointed with their service.
 
I can understand the issues with the basscentre.

But to be honest, when it came to ordering my NT Corvette $$ (with Turquoise colouring) although the order took a while I had nothing but a good experience. Because of the following:

I sent lots of emails to numerous retailers for prices etc (before ordering) all of which stated that because the bass was being hand-made in Germany there would be a wait. Some retailers were quoting 4 weeks for delivery, some were quoting up to 12 because of how many orders they currently had with Warwick. I took this into consideration when I ordered and was happy considering I didn't have a deadline myself.

I got the prices for a Streamer $$ and Corvette $$ because I was undecided on which model I wanted. Now: the second thing I did was this: I found a shop that stocked both models and went and tried them out.

Basscentre offered the best price (and actually had the friendliest staff on telephone) But I did find that with Basscentre it was best to call them directly rather than email. Atleast until I had an order with them. Although I didn't get any emails regarding the wherabouts of my bass I called every other week and they gave me accurate details of where it was throughout.
Also: they were moving warehouse at this time so I gave them benefit of doubt etc.
The bass took about 12 weeks to arrive, but did so on the day they quoted. everything was in pristine condition and they even chucked in an extra set of EMP strings.

This was in 2008.

I have since ordered cables and bits here and there and they've all arrived quickly. Although I recieved no email confirmations.

All this aside: I have recently emailed them asking for a price for a Rockbass Alien and have recieved no reply.

My assumption is that they just don't like email. Or that they are a little unprofessional in that case.

On a personal note (and I don't mean this as a dig at the thread starter) but I wouldn't order a Warwick if I needed it by a particular date purely for the fact that they are hand-made and you can never guarantee that you'll recieve it on time. Purely for the case of "what if's" and issues that may arise when in construction...
Instead I would find a shop that had what I wanted and pay a little extra to know I have it in my hands.

:d
 
I asked them for a quote over email the other day and they replied to call them. They might get tons of email but people who call them are more serious although it doesn't seem a great deal of effort to answer an email.
 
To be fair... I don't think the Rockbass Aliens are available in the UK yet, or they simply didn't know about them so that could be why they didn't reply.
 
John, thanks for sharing your experience.
I am with you on that disorder, but if I were in you the next time I would avoid to place orders before Christmas.
God bless the daddies!
 
Personally, i think they are helpful blokes. I oredered my $$ NT in January, and they said it would be about 6 weeks. Arrived to me on the day of 6 weeks of when i ordered!

They somtimes replied to me when i emailed, but they were always very helpful when i called.

Im sorry for your unfortunate experience
 
Question for those guys that emailed the Bass Centre...which email address did you use?

I do some work for the Bass Centre and it's possible that there's an issue with the email address. They are usually very good at replying to emails.

Sadly the musical instrument industry is in bad shape - you only need to look at the very quick demise of Soundcontrol to see that even an apparently large and successful business can actually be struggling behind the scenes. The margins are woeful, distributors can be unhelpful and if just imagine how much stock you'd need to cover all of the models and colour options available (just on Fenders for instance).

There are only a handful of guitar/bass online stores that physically hold stock - most of them sell 'speculatively'. The upside of this is that they can generally charge less as they don't have to tie up cash in stock....of course the downside is that you don't get the goods for days/weeks/months. It's sneaky but you have to ask yourself if you're happy to accept the lower prices.

I'll say this now as a little prediction...unless things change, there will be 2 or 3 players in the market and everybody else will pretty much be squeezed out, give up or go bust.
 
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