Stupid things you've been told at Guitar Center

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by Dean7

For them to be a little humbled by their situation and not treat me like I'm a bum even though I'm better off in terms of my financial situation??? :D

That works both ways.
I worked at GC. My first job when I moved to the US.
It's very hard to make decent money at all, workign there.

The customers pump yo for info, then buy it somehwere else for $5,- cheaper.
And it's worse now, becasue you an get it all online as well.

However, most people tend to not take into account, that when you buy online, you still gotta pay shipping, yet they want their local store to match the same price that doesn't include shipping.

Me, if I see somethig I want, I'll check online. And if after shipping, all I'm saving is $10,-, I'll buy it locally for the extra $10,-. I'm not going to go in and waste my time and haggle like a bitch for those $10,-.

And if you're that hard up to save $10,-, you shouldn't be buying music gear.

[olivia_nb]

Originally Posted by Henchman

Me, if I see somethig I want, I'll check online. And if after shipping, all I'm saving is $10,-, I'll buy it locally for the extra $10,-. I'm not going to go in and waste my time and haggle like a bitch for those $10,-.

And if you're that hard up to save $10,-, you shouldn't be buying music gear.

That's absolutely the best philosophy.

[ido1957]

Originally Posted by Henchman

That works both ways.
I worked at GC. My first job when I moved to the US.
It's very hard to make decent money at all, workign there.

The customers pump yo for info, then buy it somehwere else for $5,- cheaper.
And it's worse now, becasue you an get it all online as well.

However, most people tend to not take into account, that when you buy online, you still gotta pay shipping, yet they want their local store to match the same price that doesn't include shipping.

Me, if I see somethig I want, I'll check online. And if after shipping, all I'm saving is $10,-, I'll buy it locally for the extra $10,-. I'm not going to go in and waste my time and haggle like a bitch for those $10,-.

And if you're that hard up to save $10,-, you shouldn't be buying music gear.

This is in the running for the best post of the entire thread....

[roger]

i didn't think much of this thread until i went on a holiday to NYC a few weeks ago......i saw a guitar center when i was shopping with the mrs around 14th street somewhere......i went in and they had some pretty nice outboard that i had actually been looking out for.......soooooo i said to the audio guy: 'what's the best price you can do on unit 'x' here when i come back later with the cash?' (needless to say i didn't have the 2 grand in my back pocket at the time)...... the guy looked me in the eye and replied: 'actually after 2pm this afternoon (half an hour away) we aren't doing any more cash discounts. period. nation-wide that is the word from the top so we'll have to do this NOW if you want to get a good price'............immediately i remembered this thread and i couldn't help but laugh in his face - i felt rude BUT what a load of shit!

roger

[lowfreq33]

Sounds like someone was getting off work at two.

[erthquake]

Originally Posted by roger

...the guy looked me in the eye and replied: 'actually after 2pm this afternoon (half an hour away) we aren't doing any more cash discounts. period. nation-wide that is the word from the top so we'll have to do this NOW if you want to get a good price'...
roger

Depending on when you were there, he wasn't BS'ing you. GC now has a no-bargaining policy.

[ImJohn]

Originally Posted by erthquake

Depending on when you were there, he wasn't BS'ing you. GC now has a no-bargaining policy.

yeup, they move in, offer incredible bargins till the mom and pops and 2-4 store mini chains mostly go outa business and buy up the larger chains, then cut off deals now that they don't have competition.

[Kadden Heart]

Originally Posted by ImJohn

yeup, they move in, offer incredible bargins till the mom and pops and 2-4 store mini chains mostly go outa business and buy up the larger chains, then cut off deals now that they don't have competition.

agreed,
i've been thiking abut getting a credit card to one of these places for last minute purchases,..
but i'd HATE to give my money to guitar center,..
even moreso to sam ash,...

i'd use sweetwater but they're only online and that defeats the purpose.

i have no options,..GC rules the world.

even they are like 2.6B in debt.
lol

try to only d my buying on gearslutz, but that forces me to wait till i have all the money (and i like to finance and pay off in a month or two)
plus it's hard to find certain low end pieces on here.

[monsterpop]

i recently moved to the USA,and went to guitar center to buy my first Martin acoustic and case,,a few leads,,guitar stand etc

and it didnt even occur to me to try and haggle
as id heard they wouldnt even entertain that

the assistant was nice enough and all

but when he got me a cheap mandolin off the wall,i couldnt hear well enough to tune it properly in the store

so when i handed it back to him and told him that,i thought he mightve offered to find me a queit place or tune it for me,,but no luck there

id love to have other stores to go to,but sadly theres nuthin around here.

when i took 2 leads back that broke,
the guy tryin to refund me was a moron,,
couldnt work the register,and was goofin around with his 14 sandwich eatin mutha****a /emolephant of a buddy ,
as my wife and i stood and waited over 10 mins for the refund.

we also recently made a late trip to GC to buy a set of M-Audio monitors id saw on GC.com for $199.99

when i rushed in and saw them ,i asked to hear them
but the gusy said they werent hooked up

so i considered buying them anyway
but when i asked how much including tax,,he said something like $325

so i said no,,they are $199 on the website

so he came back and said no,,they only stocked the CUSTOM version

which is of course a lotta shite

but i left anyway,as they were closing in 15 mins
after having gone well out of our way to make a special trip there

no attempt whatsoever to sell me anything else,and when i said did that mean id have to order them online instead,,
he didnt even sy they could get them in the store for me and i could pick em up
no customer service whatsoever in fact
so much for that
so i ended up buyin them on MF,,for $199
with free foam pads and afree clock no less~!

they better not be shite like the ones i just sent back!

[olivia_nb]

Originally Posted by monsterpop

they better not be shite like the ones i just sent back!

$199 for maudio monitors?

shite? not a chance...

[Soldier777c]

"Let me get 'so n' so', he knows this piece better than I do."

[Kyle S]

where do i begin?

ive been sold so many returned/restocked items ive just given up on that god damned place.

[jonvanvox]

Wait Shure SM 58 Mics don't need phantom power? Really? hmm....So do you think i have a chance to work at guitar center


lol, PS: i love being a newbie!

[donsolo]

Originally Posted by jonvanvox

lol, PS: i love being a newbie!
[/b]

That qualifies you to work at Guitar Center for sure!

"Oh you don't want that Trident Pre, check out this focusrite channel strip..."

[sluttygearhere]

This just happened the other day. I am in Colorado working a live sound gig and we needed some insert snakes. So my boss goes to pick some up (not a tech guy, he just owns the equipment) He doesn't really know what an insert cable is, so I explain it to him the best I can. He calls me about 20 minutes later wanting to know if what they gave him was right. They tried to sell him a patch snake. I had to explain to the guy, who works in pro audio, what a freakin insert cable was. How do you work in any kind of pro audio place, or even amateur audio place and not know what something as basic as an insert cable is. And it took me at least six different tries to explain it to him, and the only way I could get him to understand is by telling him it would only have four jacks on one end, and eight on the other, then he finally saw it. And when I mentioned something about an insert cable with XLR ends he said, "well I've never heard of anything like that before." so much for using my klark EQ.

-- Ben

[cataclysMic1]

hey i've been lurking around here for a few years now... but i just have to chime in on this one... a few years back... GC guy tells me that the roland monitors he was showing me sounded better than the rest because they are "digital"... so i proceed to look at the back and they are running them off of the analog inputs... i almost died laughing.

another one... guy tells me that he likes the 02R because its analog.

i walk into GC and dont talk to anyone... i try to get what i need, and exit the building asap... same as with best buy, circuit city, any chain that sells anything electronic... and i've actually had some similiar experiences at the smaller places... its crazy that they dont train these people.

[Greg Curtis]

Salesguy tries to sell me a handheld USB mic for a recording of commentary, and all he does is go off about AES 42-2001 protocols, as if that mattered!

[olivia_nb]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

Salesguy tries to sell me a handheld USB mic for a recording of commentary, and all he does is go off about AES 42-2001 protocols, as if that mattered!

ha! be careful where you post this though, you will get slagged for your attitude...

[Fluxpod]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

Salesguy tries to sell me a handheld USB mic for a recording of commentary, and all he does is go off about AES 42-2001 protocols, as if that mattered!

/rimshot!!!

Lmao.

[Duardo]

i walk into GC and dont talk to anyone... i try to get what i need, and exit the building asap... same as with best buy, circuit city, any chain that sells anything electronic...

You know, if I go into Best Buy and actually have a question on something like a printer or accessory of some sort I can never find anybody there to help...however, whenever I go in there just to browse CDs I'm accosted by three or four different people asking if I need help, or what I'm looking for, or once (and I'm not kidding) "so, you like music?"...

Another slightly off-topic one...I was at Taco Bell and got one of their extra large cups to fill up with Baja Blast (which, if you're not familiar with it, is their own tropical lime-flavored Mountain Dew variety...it tastes kind of like Windex but I dig it) and they didn't have any extra-large lids over by the machine. So I ask the guy at the counter if they have any and he looks under the counter and says "we don't have any up here, but we do in the back" and looks at me. An awkward silence ensues that lasts perhaps a good eight to ten seconds and he finally asks "do you want one?"...it took a lot of self control to ignore the flood of responses that came so mind and go with a simple "yes, please"...

[Greg Curtis]

Originally Posted by olivia_nb

ha! be careful where you post this though, you will get slagged for your attitude...

I can take it!

[tracktension]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

Salesguy tries to sell me a handheld USB mic for a recording of commentary, and all he does is go off about AES 42-2001 protocols, as if that mattered!

wow , the nerve of some people.those GC guys are something else.LOL !

you know that was funny!

[Antonio_4346]

Me: Do you guys have any UA Solo 610's around?

GC: No, but we do have the Universal Audio 610 in stock.

Me: How about the new ADAM A7's?

GC: Uhmm...Adam's not working today, but he'll be in tomorrow if you'd like to talk to him. He's an interface expert.

[boyinthebox]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

Salesguy tries to sell me a handheld USB mic for a recording of commentary, and all he does is go off about AES 42-2001 protocols, as if that mattered!

HAHA! Hilarious

[J Newell]

back in college, a mars music superstore opened up in nashville. i went in and got a fostex 4-track (high end audio, i know), but it was handy to have around for songwriting demos and so forth.

anyway, after about six months, it broke down. the playback mechanism wouldn't work. so i took it in for repairs, as it was supposed to be under warranty. at the time i was a wide-eyed and green to equipment repairs (lesson: NEVER GIVE THEM THE POWER SUPPLY AS LONG AS THE POWER SUPPLY WORKS). the store sent it in and said they would call when it was fixed.

it took eight months to get my 4-track back. the details are fuzzy, but basically the guy handling my repair was fired. his replacement was let go as well. his replacement quit. by the time i got a hold of his replacement, he had no idea where my equipment was.

i kept calling and calling. i explained how long it'd been out for repair and that surely fostex didn't still have it.

one day he called me and said he'd finally found it. one of the prior guys handling the repairs had actually marked it as "used equipment" when it came back in and put it up for sale! fortunately, he had checked serial numbers after seeing it in the used gear department.

"great," i said. "i'll come pick it up tomorrow."

"okay," he said. "the cost of the repairs is $150."

i lost it. after eight months of constantly calling and getting the run around for what i realized was a cheap little four track thatt cost me $300-something, which was a lot on my collegiate budget, i wasn't about to pay for repairs that should've been under warranty. i let them know what a hassle it'd been, that it had obviously taken too long, and reminded him that they'd tried to re-sell my property, and i wasn't terribly polite about it.

he told me he'd talk to a supervisor and call me back, which he did about ten minutes later and informed me that the repairs would be free. when i did pick up my four track, the power supply was obviously long gone so they called fostex and got me a new one for free as well.

mars isn't open in nashville anymore, but it did a whole lot of damage to some of the pro shops (poor rock block guitars) in town while it was around.

and now that i live in LA...

my favorite recent adventure to guitar center hollywood involved trying to pick up a set of adam a-7's.

a former coworker of mine works as an operations manager there and always gives me really great deals. he was having trouble finding the speakers in stock, as the computer inventory said they had seven, but he could only find four: the two floor models and then two more returned speakers that were clearly from different production runs (the attenuation knobs on the front didn't match at all).

he grabbed one of the "pro audio" guys to help him track them down. apparently, all of the other adams were in for repairs as they'd been loaned as demo models to various producers who had blown them (WTF? how does that work? i want GC to "loan" me gear, and what kind of "producers" blow loaner demo speakers). then he asked if i was doing surround mixing or music.

i would've thought that the fact i was buying a pair of speakers would've clued him in to the fact i wasn't doing surround mixing, but i told him i was doing stereo "music" work regardless.

"oh, you don't want those anyway, then. adams are meant for surround mixing. no one uses them for music mixing (can't you mix music in surround?). movie guys use them. if you're looking for speakers, you should get these other speakers because blah, blah, blah..."

all the while, my former co-worker was shaking his head and visibly mouthing the words "i'm sorry."

i assured him that i did, in fact, want the adams. guess i'm crazy for using them to "do music." then i found out i would have go somewhere else to get them (as after a search, my friend found that none of the GC's in the LA area had a new set of adams in. if i wanted them from GC, i was going to have to have them shipped in from seattle).

oh, and he tried to sell me a "guitar center warranty" on them before i said i was going elsewhere. a warranty on speakers that come with a 5-year manufacturer's warranty.

my former co-worker later assured me that he only works there for the health benefits and because he doesn't have to work on the floor with those types of guys anymore.

[J Newell]

thought of another one, not guitar center-related. the local guitar shop in my college town had a special event sponsored by washburn where studio legend chuck rainey was going to be doing a live performance/signing.

i guess they were pushing their new line of acoustic basses, as that's all chuck played, and the store and a few out for sale. i wasn't really in the market for one, but i was playing around on one and found a really bad fret.

the fret was so uneven, it wouldn't even produce a note on the g string, just a buzzing noise, and it was off on the other four strings as well. i took the bass up to an employee and said, "excuse me, there's a bad fret on this bass. you may want to have it looked at."

"are you interested in buying it?" he asked.

"no, i said. i'm not really looking to buy an acoustic bass right now, but i thought you might want to know that it needs repair if you're looking to sell it."

"oh, well, if you want to buy it, then we'll fix it."

"so should i just put it back on the hanger then?" i asked.

"yes." he said.

nothing better than having defective product out for the product you're having a special promotion for that day.

[Duardo]

mars isn't open in nashville anymore

They're not open anywhere any more...