Once you've gone black, you can never go back

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:58 am

astro wrote:
Nick wrote:Fuck Jeannie pickguards. Seriously FUCK JEANNIE PICKGUARDS.
How come?

I wanted a mint 3 humbucker pickguard for my Ibanez Blazer. I knew things like the screw holes weren't going to be perfect, but I was willing to do a bit of fitting on my own part. I emailed him through ebay to see if he could do it, and what his prices were. He gave me some ridiculous pricing guide like $15 extra to add or remove a pickup route. But whatever, I didn't feel like going through the hassle of sending my original pg back in forth to have someone from the boards do it, and this guy already had a good reputation and the pickguard tracing so I splurged and paypal'd him the $63 he asked for the pickguard once he told me he could do what I asked.

Well a good 10 days or so goes by, he never sent me an email acknowledging my payment or giving me an idea of when he'd have it done so I emailed him just asking for an eta. He replies saying something along the lines of "It took forever to get that middle humbucker route done, it might be a little off but we really had to eat the labor cost on this one, so no bitching if it isn't perfect. I'll mail it out tomorrow". Yeah you heard right. He actually told a paying customer "NO BITCHING if it isn't perfect".

I get the thing and not only is it not perfect, but there's a huge gap on the upper side of the middle pickup that continues around the bottom of the pickup and then angles up. So basically an "L" shaped gap around the pickup. In fact, it goes out so far that there's only a sliver of plastic between the pickup screw and the route. the thing looks like it could snap at any second. I ignored the countless ebay warnings and technically didn't buy it through ebay, and I really didn't feel like arguing with this douche over a paypal dispute so I just counted it as a lesson learned.

Honestly, this guy does not know what he is doing and has got to be the shittiest dude I've ever done business with. Fuck him and don't give him your money.

EDIT: I found a pic that shows just how bad he fucked this up:

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:10 am

What a dick.

astro · Post by **astro** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:17 pm

Shit, if I had known about that, Nick, there's no fucking way I would have done business with him. "No bitching if it isn't perfect"!?! WTF kind of customer service is that? $63 is way too much even if it had been perfect!

We should have some kind of poast somewhere listing all the people in the aftermarket parts trade that we should boycott because of douchery like this. A shortscale blacklist.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:20 pm

astro wrote: "No bitching if it isn't perfect"!?! WTF kind of customer service is that?

NoHo. Aug has said this before

James · Post by **James** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:25 pm

That picture also shows how great chrome Robroes look. If they werent so expensive and I knew the covers I have are removable (I've no idea if they are or not) I'd have a pair on my jazzbox.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:40 pm

astro wrote:
We should have some kind of poast somewhere listing all the people in the aftermarket parts trade that we should boycott because of douchery like this. A shortscale blacklist.

not a bad idea for guitar resources forum

out99990 · Post by **out99990** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:44 pm

I agree about the "DOUCHE" list. I will be looking for a pickguard maker soon and i'm glad you posted this. There is a saying: "learn from your mistakes", and this is true, but it's also easier (and cheaper!) to learn from others mistakes and that's why i appreciate it when people share their misfortunes-THANK YOU!!!

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:15 am

astro wrote:Shit, if I had known about that, Nick, there's no fucking way I would have done business with him. "No bitching if it isn't perfect"!?! WTF kind of customer service is that? $63 is way too much even if it had been perfect!

We should have some kind of poast somewhere listing all the people in the aftermarket parts trade that we should boycott because of douchery like this. A shortscale blacklist.

a blacklist would be a good idea

Will · Post by **Will** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:25 am

That's insane - it looks like they freehanded it. I was under the impression that they used one of those acrylic templates you get from StewMac and just carefully routed. Apparently not.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:14 am

At the time $63, although outrageous to charge that much extra just for a 3rd pickup route, wasn't that much considering it was a custom pickguard for an unusual guitar. If a shortscaler would charge $40, by the time I get done shipping my pg back and forth, I'm out another week's time and an extra $5-$10 in shipping anyway.

After all was said and done I was in a difficult spot. I'm sure I could have challenged it through paypal, but at the very best I probably would have ended up getting a refund for returning the guard at my own expense, which I didn't want to do, because even though he fucked up the middle hole, it still was better than the original pickguard which I had butchered for 3 buckers and covered the mess with cream pickup rings. I didn't want to be back to square one, and at the time nobody else on ebay was selling repro blazer pickguards.

There is another seller now but they only advertise a SSS model (however they say they can do any config, email for quote). Even if the restore of this guitar goes well I probably won't even bother, because nobody in their right mind would pay anything close to what I did for this guard, and I'm already in too deep.

Once you've gone black, you can never go back

once you've gone black-you can never go back