Complaint Review: The Parlor Knoxville - Knoxville Tennessee

On 01/31/12 I bought a 1983 Guild D50 acoustic guitar from The Parlor. I found the guitar on Gbase, a website for musical instrument dealers.

Here is a link to the page where the guitar was advertised: http://www.gbase.com/gear/byid?item=2832282

I also took a screenshot just in case the page is no longer there or something has changed. 

As you can see if you went to the page the guitar was advertised on Gbase to be in "very good condition." More importantly it was advertised as having "no issues." The pictures posted on Gbase showed the guitar to be in nice shape. There were no pictures of any sort of issues.

Before buying the guitar I spoke to the owner of the store Josh on the phone to talk about payment information, and I asked him how the guitar played etc... I was told the instrument played well. I was excited to be getting a nice guitar.

I paid $1,100.00 for the guitar. The price that it was advertised as. Also, I paid $70 shipping. The guitar was being shipped by UPS from Knoxville, Tennessee to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The guitar was shipped out on 01/31/12. I received the guitar on 02/01/12. As soon as I received the package on that day I got the guitar out to inspect it.

Immediately I noticed the guitar had issues I was not informed about. The finish on the back of the guitar's neck was in bad shape. There were a couple spots about the size of a quarter in which the finish was completely gone. In other places it was hazy, almost as if some sort of solvent or liquid had been exposed to it. The finish on the side of the fretboard was in bad shape as well. Also, I noticed the guitar's bridge had been at least repaired/reglued. This can really affect the tone of an acoustic guitar. Especially if not done properly. It looked like it had been glued back in a sloppy manner. It was easy to notice.

Also I could see that a pickup system had at one time been installed on the guitar and since removed. I know this because there was a hole cut out of the body where the end pin is where the pickup's jack was located. It had been plugged, and not very well. It was a sloppy job. Also, on the inside of the guitar there were small pieces of double sided tape, and some sticky residue where parts of the pickup had been adhered to the inner body of the guitar. There was also glue dripped on the outside of the bridge of the guitar. I wondered if there could have been possibly something else going on with that.

As soon as I noticed this I wrote The Parlor's owner, Josh, an email. He replied saying he would refund me the $1,100.00 I paid for the guitar, but I would have to cover shipping back, and pay a 3% restocking fee. Through several emails we went back and forth. I told him that he had misrepresented the guitar and it wasn't fair for me to pay the shipping or the restocking fee. I also told him I was going to report him to the BBB if he didn't make things right.

Through email Josh was rude, and didn't seem too concerned that I felt he had misled me about the guitar. When I mentioned the specific issues, and reminded him he told me there were no issues he admitted there were issues, but he said they were "minor" so he didn't figure they were worth mention. In my opinion, and the opinion of my local specialty guitar shop owner, they were not minor issues and greatly devalued the instrument.

On 02/02/12 I shipped the guitar back to The Parlor via UPS. I full insured the guitar and it only cost me $32.22. Not $70 like I was charged. One could argue the extra price was for the box and packing material, but they were definitely 2nd hand recycled material... and did not cost $37.78.

On 02/03/12 The Parlor received the guitar and refunded me for $1,100.00. The price I paid for the guitar not including shipping. When I spoke to Josh, I told him I felt I should be reimbursed for shipping because it was his responsibility to give an accurate description of his products. As of now he still has not paid me the $102.22 of shipping fees. I would like to be paid for that. I feel he either purposely didn't describe the guitar correctly, and did not picture the issues in an attempt to pass the guitar for something is was not, or either he was totally incompetent or negligent of knowing the guitar had issues. Either way he is responsible.