Complaint Review: Sweetwater Sound - Fort Wayne Indiana

I have purchased a number of products from Sweetwater as the Director of technology at a school system. We have had nothing but great experiences with the company. I even went to their store in Fort Wayne In to pick up one order and the salesman gave me a great tour of their awesome facilities. I would agree that you experienced a 'Perfect Storm' with your order. I would give them another chance.

First, hats off to RipOffReport.com for being here and doing what they do. My overnight posting was followed up immediately by a phone call from the company the next morning. I was stunned to recieve that call within just a few hours of my posting. We had a short, friendly discussion about the events and shared with me some details that I wasn't aware of. I was informed that: 1. Order processing is usually same-day, but if there are bank security issues, things could get held up while they are sorted out. They also like to sort these things out themselves, and contact the customers about these things as a last resort. a: I understand, but there needs to be a reasonable time limit on this -no more than 24 hours - and especially less than 4 days. Once I was contacted about the problem, I was able to make a phone call to the bank and authorize the purchase within minutes. A policy of reluctance towards calling the customer about financial transactions is counter productive - at least in this case. 2. The reason my item was unsealed and repacked was probably because it was tested for quality. By spot checking some products manufactured overseas early in their production run, they can potentially prevent a situation where a poorly manufactured product is sent to customers, and returned in large numbers. a: That is also understandable. However, not only is it a good idea to make the customer aware of this, it can also be a good marketing move if those items came with a slip/cert saying "tested by..., to ensure customer satisfaction". As it stands, most people would reasonably question whether it was a returned item. 3. The reason my special order was shipped to the wrong address was because of a database error. If a catalog or other mailing gets returned, then the current address is struck from the database. That being said, the address on file would then revert to the previous address, if on file from previous purchases/mailings. He told me he's seen this situation twice in approximately 10 years, and that the general computer issue has been completely solved since my order. a: Here again, it's another understandable situation. However, as a customer who is already frustrated with his experience, it's easy to assume it's negligence on their part. 4. The reason I had difficulties reaching Arend was due to his work schedule at that time, having nothing to do with my order or me personally. a: Understandable, but this was never made communicated to me at the time, and I don't recall his assistant being empowered to address any of my complaints. Since I had an issue with every part of the transaction (order processing, shipment, condition of goods), it's interesting to hear someone address each aspect of it with a plausable explanation. It sure does seem like an awful lot of things to go wrong with a single order. It becomes even more confounding when you consider the effort they make into separating themselves from their competition through good service. However, I did appreciate the phone call, and was assured that my future transactions would not include any of these "once in a blue moon" events. Any input from the readers?