Complaint Review: VML CUSTOM CASES (Tony H. Banares)

I purchased (paid for in full before the build) a custom 10 space guitar case from, Tony H. Banares, the owner of VML Custom Cases on Feb. 24th 2016. This case was to be used on a tour beginning on March 23rd.

Tony promised me that the case would be delivered on March 15th so I would have time to get it ready for my tour. On the 15th Tony claimed that his delivery truck broke donwn and I couldn't get my case; he then said I would receive it the following Monday. When Monday came along, Tony informed me that the case in fact wasn't sent to me in the first place because it had not been built to the appropriate size and would not fit the guitars.

Tony's solution was to rebuild the case right away and ship it to me on the road. Two and a half weeks went by and I received a shipping notification from Tony saying that my case would be delivered April 6th. On the 6th, the case did not arrive and I was left without a guitar case for the duration of the tour.

Tony's solution for not getting me the case on the tour was to refund me the entire cost of the case plus give me a replacement case for free for my troubles; he refunded half the cost of the case to me and eventually delivered a case to me. However, the case did not match the photo in the shipping notice that he sent and also was not built to the correct size and my guitars did not fit inside. This lead me to believe that Tony didn't even rebuild the case and just sent me the original case that had not been built correctly.

Tony then pushed me off on his business partner in order to have the case altered to actually fit my guitars. The alteration made it so I had to lose half of the storage compartments in the case in order to make the guitars fit.

The alteration took another two weeks and they said they would have the case to me on Thursday, May 12th. On Thursday Tony's partner told me he could not deliver the case because he had been involved in an auto accident.

I finally received my case on May 16th, three months after I ordered it. The case fit the guitars but only had half of the storage space that I originally ordered and they left out the elastic bands that hold the guitars in place. The Velcro that had been installed to hold the work bay in place during transit was also faulty. I had to purchase new Velcro and other materials in order to fix the case myself.

It is now May 20th and I still have not received the other half of my refund and Tony. H. Banares has blocked my phone number and emails so I can no longer contact him. I will be filing in small claims court for the remainder of what Tony owes me.

This whole process was a nightmare for me and I would not recommend anyone using VML Custom Cases for their road cases.