awful experience with thomann.de

[dheim]

let's start saying that i'm a complete idiot AND that the tech 21 midi moose is a pile of very expensive shitee... anyway i connected it to a 12v power source AND immediately discovered that i shouldn't have. ok. blew it the first second i put it off the box. if someone specified anywhere on that fuc*in box that 9-15 volts were supported JUST with phantom power it would have been better... i asked thomann for a change (god, after all i had it for 1 hour!) and they answered that their tech should have had a look at it before deciding to fix it at their expense.
so i brought it to MY tech (i would have paid anyway and so i decided to bypass the whole packing-sending-waiting an eternal queue-paying mail expenses thing).

well, he said that

1) it was completely fuc*ed and beyond every hope to repair without having to change virtually every bit of its guts

and that

2) the unit already suffered a serious damage and someone already repaired it quite badly

i decided not to raise any issue with thomann (after all i can't prove it and i lost my money anyway...), but

W    T     F    ?!?!

[Fourth Feline]

Sorry to hear about that dheim,  but thanks for raising the matter here ; as they have often made items and stock choices on their website look tempting - and so I feel that your most regrettable situation, may at least act as a timely warning to others. Their loss in the longer term - as news spreads fast , news spreads Googley fast. 

[Davey]

very weird.. i never had any issues with them .. you should've just sent it back, as you DO have a 30 day no questions asked money return guarantee.
i did have an issue with musikhaus.de .. though it wasnt THEIR fault, that the amp sucked.. so, they're ok :P i called them after two weeks, said i want to return the amp since it wasnt what i hoped for, they sent an UPS guy over, took the box and i got all of my money back. thomann as far as i know has exactly the same policy.
if you told them, the product arrived damaged, they would've taken it back.

it is possible, that someone did the exact same mistake that you did, sent it back on terms, that he wasn't satisfied with it.. and i doubt they test EVERY product they get back (had a friend who had a job testing returned stuff and.. they just see if it turns on and that's about it.. unless it's a lot of fun to play with.. like an RC helicopter), before they return it to the shelf for further dispatch. you probably just got unlucky, cos i really used to order from them a lot.

[dheim]

this is really my first bad experience with them - and not my first order, but their answer was really strange. i knew about the 30 day guarantee too...

[Davey]

weird.. i never exchanged something, so they'd offer to repair or something.
good luck with it

[Philly Q]

I'd guess if you had sent it back to Thomann their tech would've said it was beyond repair and they'd have replaced it anyway.

But if your tech's right that someone had already repaired it, that's another matter.  :?

Personally I've ordered from Thomann several times and I've always been impressed.  No problems so far (touch wood).

[gwEm]

I'd guess if you had sent it back to Thomann their tech would've said it was beyond repair and they'd have replaced it anyway.

+1

But if your tech's right that someone had already repaired it, that's another matter.  :?

it might have been another customer who did it dishonestly and then sent it back to thomann without saying. i once got an mp3 recorder from thomann which was in new condition, but had clearly been out to a customer before since some of the packaging was opened. didn't bother me, since clearly if customers return working stuff, thomann can hardly be expected to throw it away then

Personally I've ordered from Thomann several times and I've always been impressed.  No problems so far (touch wood).

+1

[dave_mc]

But if your tech's right that someone had already repaired it, that's another matter.  :?

+1

I've ordered from thomann once, everything was fine. :)

[choucas09]

dheim hang on in there and see if you can't come up with a bit of strategy. I mean okay you made an initial wrong move with the power supply, but it seems you're saying things weren't clearly explained in the quick start. More significantly your tech said what he did about it's history. If he is willing to stand by that statement then tis writ in stone. You can then join every significant forum and slag them uphill and down dale til they send you a grands worth of gear to shut you up. Speculation yes, but far from impossible.

[Ratrod]

Never had a problem with them. Ordered guitars parts and what not.

The band once got a whole PA system. Turned out it was faulty. Returning was no problem and they shipped a new one in just a couple of days.

[dheim]

dheim hang on in there and see if you can't come up with a bit of strategy. I mean okay you made an initial wrong move with the power supply, but it seems you're saying things weren't clearly explained in the quick start. More significantly your tech said what he did about it's history. If he is willing to stand by that statement then tis writ in stone. You can then join every significant forum and slag them uphill and down dale til they send you a grands worth of gear to shut you up. Speculation yes, but far from impossible.

well, the thing had no manual inside the box, just a downloadable pdf file in the manufacturer's website... that i read prior to buy it. my fault was to remember just the particular sentence in which they talked about phantom power. so 9-15v stuck in my mind...

[Davey]

dheim hang on in there and see if you can't come up with a bit of strategy. I mean okay you made an initial wrong move with the power supply, but it seems you're saying things weren't clearly explained in the quick start. More significantly your tech said what he did about it's history. If he is willing to stand by that statement then tis writ in stone. You can then join every significant forum and slag them uphill and down dale til they send you a grands worth of gear to shut you up. Speculation yes, but far from impossible.

sorry, that will not happen with thomann. they will at the best possible outcome say, sorry that happened, it was our fault, that we sent you a faulty item and refund you. what are you going to do? sue them for being polite? mistakes happen to the best of people. now you're gonna be a tw@t, because it blew up when connected to the wrong kind of power.. dheims' mistake btw. for all you know, it could've been working before the screwup.

seriously, send it back, write that it blew up when you connected the power supply and they will replace it or refund you if you wish. end of story. what is there to bicker about?
if it had no manual and it was clearly used before, you could have phoned them and asked for a brand new one, or moved this into a miryad of other possible outcomes, you chose the worst.

[gordiji]

i bought a cheap ibanez guitar from them a few years ago and after a few months i noticed a resonance noise when  i played an open A with distortion. I emailed them ,they arranged  collection and checked it out ,  and said it
was ok(my imagination)I later traced it to a trem spring , i easily fixed it with a cardboard damper
But theircustomer policy was efficient and polite;they shipped it from france back to germany and back to me without question.
I was so impressed i bought the company.......no er i bought my next amp from them.Customer service Exists still.
My brother had a bass drum pedal changed 3 times from uk  no charge
sorry to hear your story but i can't fault 'em

[Alex]

That is very odd - I don't think that Thomann sell a repaired unit, and if, I don't think it would be repaired badly, as they probably send it back to Tech21. In fact, I'd be quite surprised if they did this type of repair work.

I've ordered a lot in the past and my landlord, who runs a business as a sound engineer, has ordered gear worth thousands from them.

They've made a couple of mistakes in the past, but not very many at all and everything worked out well in the end.

[dave_mc]

if it had no manual and it was clearly used before, you could have phoned them and asked for a brand new one, or moved this into a miryad of other possible outcomes, you chose the worst.

to be fair to dheim, he only realised that it had been used when he took it to his tech. i'd be extremely annoyed too to be sent something which had been repaired when i thought it was new (though I wouldn't necessarily expect to get a ton of stuff out of them, but i'd expect them to make it right).