Official Luthiers Forum!

I got ripped off and thought I may save some of you some problems.
Wade Vance, he sells Martin parts. He sold on Ebay under purpleshelly. His feedback was great. I bought several necks and fingerboards and bridges from him. He seemed very nice, but when I returned 3 necks and 2 fingerboards because they weren't as described. He quit contacting me--Won't return calls or emails after many attempts. I'm out about $125, guess it could be worse, but watch out for this guy.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.
I'm just wondering why you haven't posted negative feedback at eBay, since that would be the best way to keep others from having your (bad?) experience.
If he keeps on with 100% positive feedback, nothing will change.
John

Because the items I bought were not through Ebay--I just wanted to let folks know he is also selling their under "purpleshelly".

I understand now. Thanks.
John

Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the heads up.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

How long has this transaction been going on?
Just because he hasn't contacted you back doesn't mean you should give up hope yet. You don't know what may be going on in his life at the moment, and he may be unavoidably detained. Things happen.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

About 6 months--please don't think I jumped the gun,After dozens of phone calls and emails he won't even respond--the numbers and addresses are good--nothing returned. I would not post this prematurely.

Did you pay with Paypal? I had a similar problem. I reported it through Paypal and got a full refund in about a month.

Did you give him negative feedback? I had another problem that could not be resolved. I put in negative feedback and the seller said she would make everything right if I agreed to remove the feedback.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Sorry to hear about your loss, another good reason to scroll up to the top of this page and buy your stuff from that group and all will be fine.

Mike

Your are correct. Steve, thanks for the Paypal tip. I did use Paypal and went to file a complaint after reading your post, but like I told Don, I waited several months giving the fella time to resond as I understand things in life can take priority over orders. Since I waited more than Paypals 45 days, the claim is closed and they won't take any action--I did list it however, so who knows? Thanks for the tip.

Ok, you got an issue here....
So how can we help resolve this for you? Perhaps we should all send him emails "encouraging" him to do the right thing....?Don Williams39062.6811226852

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don, I wasn't looking for help nor am I encouraging anyone to do anything. You are correct, I got ripped off--period..I just thought it may be beneficial to alert members that generally buy the saem items.
Sorry if it seemed like I was compaining.

Not at all Scott, thanks for the heads up...oh and I am still scrounging

Cheers

Kim

I'm also posting this as a fresh thread- sorry for the duplication but I feel that it is important to hear another experience.

I recently bought a quantity of fingerboards from Wade Vance (purpleshelly30) on eBay. The box arrived three days ago and there were some boards (about 10%) that I felt were defective, though I will probably be able to use them some way.
I took some pictures and attached them to an email I sent to Wade. I suggested a partial refund to adjust for the defective items, rather than a return/re-ship across the Can-US border.
This morning there was an apology email and a refund (via Paypal) in my Inbox.
Mistakes in selecting and packing can happen, and there are certainly differences in what defines 'defective' from person to person. My preference is for 100% perfect items, obviously, but when a problem occurs sellers usually try to straighten things out, in my experience.
Often a refund and quick conclusion to the whole affair is the preferred way to resolve issues.
I just wanted to let people know that Wade treated me right. There is a reason for his excellent eBay feedback.

John

John,
Excellent! Perhaps you can make him aware of this thread and ask him to address the issue.
We don't want a feud here, but if you can help get the two of them together, there might at least be some middle ground they can reach.

Obviously, we don't know the whole story between WV and af_one, so this isn't the place to deal with it. But if you nudge them to work on this together, perhaps we can hear a better report on this at a later date.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Guys...

While I don't see any objection to posting about a sub par vendor, or even a bad experience, I think trying to use the OLF as a bat to beat over the head of vendors who you feel have wronged you is a serious misuse of the community.

That is a dangerous trend and we will not let this proceed. We all know there are two sides to every story and for the community to try to get involved is not wise. Let the individuals work it out.

By all means share your experiences if you care to, but understand your remarks are YOUR OWN and not those of the community and certainly not those of the OLF.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]
Guys...



That is a dangerous trend and we will not let this proceed.

[/QUOTE]
Brock-
I'm baffled- you let the 'slagging' go on for a week, but when I post a defence of the vendor, you decide it's objectionable- and delete my topic????

Your version of political correctness has me totally perplexed.
John

Your topic is still there, John.
link to thread

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

[QUOTE=Brock Poling]


By all means share your experiences if you care to, but understand your remarks are YOUR OWN and not those of the community and certainly not those of the OLF.

[/QUOTE]

Wise words for all of us to heed- I don't think anybody here has the 'authority' to speak for the 'community'.
John

John, I have PM'd you--hopefully you can give me good contact info for him.
To the rest of the OLF, if I offended anyone, I am sorry. I thought I was doing a favor by passing on this info--I did not overreact, I did not act quickly. I was not using the commubnity as a weapon to regain anything--it was mainly a way to save someone else some aggrivation. I have not seen any listings by him on Ebay in a long while--nor does he answer emails or phone calls. I too was perplexed by the whole deal. He was friendly on the phone and had good feedback. He just fell off the face of the earth. If in fact this works out, at least I was able to get in contact with him. If this proved to be an error on my part, I am big enough to apologize--we'll see.

My point was that it had been suggested that when confronted with a problem the offended person use the OLF (and the thread of bad press) as a way to resolve the situation.

This is bad for our community. This doesn't build good will with the vendors. This potentially opens YOU up to liability from libel, and in some limited way may drag us into your squabble (but again, we avow that your words are your own. We don't endorse anyone's comments but our own.)

I think temptation to use the OLF community as a threat against vendors who are delivering sub par service is perfectly understandable. But upon reflection this will not end up resolving your issues (and will probably make them worse) and it is a bad idea.

That said....

If you choose to post your experiences with a vendor by all means go for it. Just make absolute sure that the facts are correct (for your own sake). We appreciate a heads up on someone selling trash or delivering bad service.

My *** point *** was don't use the OLF as a means to threaten vendors. Telling the story after the fact is fine.


I am not offended and nobody did anything wrong. I was simply replying to the suggestion that we use the community to pressure vendors.Brock Poling39063.4583680556

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

How about we use the community to become better guitar builders and if we have a problem at Ebay, take it up with Ebay

I say this with a smile

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Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I want to clarify my words from above...

I was not suggesting that we use this forum as a wedge against a vendor, nor that the members of this forum gang up against someone. As I stated, we only know one side of this situation, and off-forum is where it should be dealt with, not here. I was merely suggesting that John try to serve to get the two parties together to resolve their differences, since they were in a position to know both parties.

I agree with Brock that getting involved in all this cannot benefit the community here as a whole.
We need to build up, not tear down.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Brock-
I understand your point of view now, and I agree with it.
I'm sorry about the 'deleted post' comment- I failed to notice that the 'Active Messages' parameter had been automatically reset, and that my post had dropped out of my 'Active' list, though not deleted. Stupid oversight on my part.
(Thanks for the headsup- Eatpaste?)

Scott (af_1) has sent me a PM and we will continue from there, though I don't want to put myself in the middle of an ongoing (6 mos) problem.

Back to the workshop!
John