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Good to hear. Hoping he does come through. I don’t expect to be high on the totem pole since I wasn’t commissioning a full custom model and I am stuck in a rough season and not a revenue generating conversation for him. But I think I am fair to expect a response after trying all these avenues. Thanks for listening and commenting. As stated before I will update in fairness to the perception of his business if he resolves this for me
I mentioned it in a private message but I’ll mention it here as well (as others have said): I had good luck calling him and getting a response that way. I used WhatsApp for the call and usually tried to time it so it was about mid-afternoon for him. I don’t think there is anything nefarious going on here. I did perceive that sometimes if there wasn’t news to share he kind of avoided contact, but I doubt very seriously that he is sitting on your refund money and just not sending it.
planning on ordering something from him and will comment back here if all goes smoothly.
Just a note...I'm not trying to make a living doing this by a long shot, but if you are doing this to eat and pay rent, it's tough af. It's really not reasonable to hire someone to do all the communications for you, there's not enough money to pay someone. You're really stuck doing every single thing on your own. That is, design the guitars, build the guitars, promote the guitars, taxes, business, billing, etc, etc. Unless you can up it to a team of like 5 people or so, it's super hard to offload any of that sort of thing, as far as I can figure.
I have no knowledge of AJL particularly but I'd be inclined to cut some enourmous amount of slack. It also sucks to have an order and then have it cancelled. The margins here are non-existent. I'm sure people have a plan for every dollar coming in. The alternative is just not doing it.
>I ordered a quiet and portable that was due for delivery in September October. I heard nothing and followed up over those months with lack of responsiveness.
>Unfortunately, a medical situation happened in my family to where I could no longer move forward with the order. This would not have been a problem if things would’ve been on time. He finally indicated that the Guitar was done the week after Christmas and ready for delivery.
So just tbc OP, he contacted you in December when the guitar was finished and that was when you made him of aware of your intentions to cancel the order, never in any previous communications right after the medical emergency?
I informed him of the medical issues on several occasions with no response/acknowledgment until guitar was finished. I understand that it’s natural to be skeptical when you are hearing only one side of it, but I am here because well, I really don’t have options. I totally hear you on trying to call that’s my fault and wanted to avoid international phone charges.
interstingly enough after posting this I have a feeling someone here gave him a nudge. I just received a short follow up email to my 8th follow up email saying the same thing in March, almost word for word
“I have one discussion going on. It sounds good. I will get back to you when It’s confirmed”
no acknowledgment to me emailing over 10 follow ups or past Facebook messages. Nothing about what happened to the buyer in March. I am confident in the slack I have given and trying to give him a little more. I asked if I could move forward in trying to purchase it and trying to resell it on my end. There was a time I really wanted it but now I am trying to justify just stopping this back and forth ( well I mean back because I can’t get a forth) in hopes that I can get a little money back. Like I said before I offered to a very gracious partial refund so I have been trying for him to get all he is supposed out of the guitar. I empathize that luthier work is tough, an art, and not trying to burn anyone. But a part of custom work is communication, rather you like it or not, I believe it’s how you would want to be treated if you are PayPal if someone thousands of dollars out of the country with little or no recourse to follow up.
Anyway I know this genre is a small tight knit community and will defend each other. I am glad so many of you have had a good experience. Hopefully this turns positive.
you're saying you commissioned a guitar from him, he finished it approx 3 months after he said and at that time, after the guitar was finished, you told him you couldn't purchase it? And this was all within a 1 year period?
erm, I think that one is entirely on you, sorry.
In luthier delivery time, 3 months after scheduled completion time is actually 6 months in advance. That's impressive turnaround time.
Sir, this is not a McDonalds.
I informed him of the medical issues on several occasions with no response/acknowledgment until guitar was finished.
Appreciate you clarifying the timeline. That does indeed sound like some pretty crappy communication on his part.
Did he say he didn't want the guitar or did he say he had medical issues? That's unclear. Two different things.
But if you commission a guitar from someone, you should be prepared to pay for it. 100%. You are asking someone to take time out of their life to do something for you. It's emotionally draining and financially totally detrimental compared to pretty much any other way of making a living. I think commissioning a guitar is pretty much purchasing a guitar that you will take delivery of at a later date.
One of the reasons I really don't want to take commissions. It's a really hard way to live and you get into situations like this. It is an absolute nightmare to have someone badmouth you online. One post like this can really do detriment to someone's reputation. I'm not sure the poster here has a super valid complaint. He's in a rush to have someone sell the guitar that he commissioned. By rights I think he should pay for the guitar and sell it to someone else. Or if he can't afford to do that, he might have to/should eat his deposit.
That's how it appears to me.
Interesting points as that is exactly what I just offered to do. But will see if there continues to be responsive. I don’t believe it’s bad mouthing to share an experience but I have since revised my original write up to try and be fair with my frustration induced comments.
Still not not a valid excuse to ignore paying customers though. Keep in mind he did that for an extended time before the medical issues got in the way. I hope and pray you don’t have to deal with what I have brother. Still have medical issues I am just trying to scrape together some things to get this resolved so I don’t have to keep following up. If that is the case on commissioning a guitar that needs to be communicated and holy cow, be empathetic to extenuating circumstances of people. Building and music is a people biz first and communication is important to any relationship. I communicated he did not for very long stretches and frustrated a paying customer. Easily resolved by talking and responding to one of 10 emails over two months time.