My experience with InstrumentPro was the worst experience I've ever had in buying music equipment, and I buy an awful lot of music equipment on line, from large and small retailers alike. I have filed a complaint against Instrumentpro with the Better Business Bureau, and I will also be filling a complaint with the California State Attorney General. Yes, InstrumentPro's customer service is really so bad that I am going to take the time to file a complaint with California's Attorney General. No one should have to suffer through their nonsense.incidentally, InstrumentPro received a grade of "F" from the Better Business Bureau.
InstrumentPro's website will not tell you if the product you are ordering is out of stock. My impression is that they don't actually stock much. They won't let you cancel an order by phone or e-mail, though. You have to use their web form, which doesn't seem to work when you try to submit your information. Whether the form works or not, no-one replies to your request. They also say that they need three days to respond to a cancelation request, so if the product ships from the manufacturer to InstrumentPro in the meantime, you are out of luck, because they won't let you cancel the purchase once the item is on its way to THEM (not on the way to you). Despite the fact that it takes several days for them to send the product from their warehouse after it gets to them, InstrumentPro claims that they can't stop the package, because it is awaiting shipment.
It is incredibly difficult to get in touch with InstrumentPro's customer support people. They often fail to answer the phone during their business hours, and they do not return telephone messages. They will only let one employee in the entire company can work with your order... No one else will give you the time of day. It's great when that one employee is never available, and doesn't return your messages.instrumentPro does not respond to e-mails. I sent e-mails multiple times, to multiple e-mail addresses, but InstrumentPro almost never responded. They don't respond to requests sent via their web forms, either. Good stuff, I tell you. It took me numerous e-mails and telephone calls just to get an return authorization number. Actually, it took me numerous e-mails and telephone calls just to get a PROMISE that an RA number would arrive shortly. It didn't arrive shortly. It then took several more e-mails and phone calls to ACTUALLY get an RA number.
InstrumentPro's policies state that you will have to cover the original shipping cost if you return something that originally shipped for free. This is perfectly understandable. What they don't tell you is that they will charge you more for the outbound shipping than it cost them to ship the items — I checked with FedEx. I estimate that they shortchanged me by about $20-30 between my two packages.
(Actually, InstrumentPro doesn't even explicitly state that you will have to pay the outbound shipping if you return something that shipped for free. Their refund policy states that "both outbound and return shipping are your responsibility for any item purchased." If outbound shipping is free, though, then one's responsibility for it is zero, no? Some small music retailers I've purchased from do indeed deduct outbound shipping from the refund amount if an item was shipped for free, but they have these retailers also explicitly state this in their terms and conditions, unlike InstrumentPro. Retailers that sell a range of gear similar to what InstrumnentPro sells — businesses like Musician's Friend and ZZounds — don't typically charge you for outbound shipping when you return an item that shipped for free.)
InstrumentPro's refund policy states that you will receive a refund within two weeks of your merchandise arriving back at their warehouse. It took me six weeks and numerous phone calls and e-mails to get an initial refund, and they still didn't get it right. At one point, I finally got in touch with someone and told them that it had been well over two weeks since my items arrived back at their warehouse, and they couldn't even find a record of it (thankfully I had a record of it!). After another call or two (or three) and some more e-mails — I can't even remember how many e-mails I sent by that point — I finally got in touch with someone again, and they said that, yes, they had indeed received my items, but they wouldn't issue the refunds until the items arrived back at the MANUFACTURURE. Strange that they didn't mention THAT in their refund policy, no?
In any case, six weeks after my items had arrived back at their warehouse, InstrumentPro finally issues my refunds... Sort of. I had returned two items, one of which I had paid for with PayPal.instrumentPro sent me a PayPal payment instead of a PayPal refund for this item. Sending my a PayPal refund would have resulted in me getting the full and proper amount back — less the shipping they ripped me off on, of course. Because they sent me a PayPal payment rather that issuing me a PayPal refund, however, I was charged a $25 PayPal fee. When I asked InstrumentPro about it, they said that you can only issue PayPal refunds for two months after the purchase date. They said I hadn't contacted them about the refund until after that. That was a bald-faced lie, of course, seeing as I had the tracking information from FedEx stating that they received the merchandise WELL before the two month limit was up (not to mention that much of the two months was eaten up by the fact the items didn't ship until a couple of weeks after I ordered them).
In any case, while the customer service rep refused to acknowledge that InstrumentPro was shortchanging me, I finally convinced them to mail me a refund check once I refunded their PayPal payment. Great, right? Wrong. The rep had told me that it might be two weeks before I got the check, and I said that was fine. Two weeks went by. Then three. Somewhere around the forth week, I sent a number of additional e-mails and left at least one additional telephone message. I didn't receive any replies. After several attempts, I finally got the rep on the phone and told him I hadn't received the check. He told me that I should have. I told him that I knew I should have. He said he would have to check with his supervisor, and that his supervisor was not there. He said he would talk to him the first thing the next morning. Amazingly, he actually did. I called to verify that he had spoken to his supervisor about it, and he had. He said that the check had not been sent out for some reason but that it was in the process of being sent out. It arrived one week later (I guess they didn't want to put it in the mail TOO soon, huh?)
My returns arrived back at InstrumentPro on April 20th. I got the refund check for the second item on July 17th. So much for two weeks. Thanks, InstrumentPro!
I estimate that throughout this entire process, I sent messages via regular e-mail and InstrumentPro's web forms two dozen times. I believe I received replies to two of these messages. I'm guessing that I made at least two dozen phone calls to InstrumentPro, as well. I must have left at least a half-dozen telephone messages, NONE of which ever resulted in anyone from InstrumentPro calling me back. I'm guessing that I was actually able to talk to the only person that they would allow me to talk to about my refunds four times out of the two dozen calls.
Good luck if you try to buy anything from these guys. I suppose you might get lucky if they happen to have what you need in stock. They should really be shut down by the state of California, if you ask me.
0 comments