Beedster

I'm finding a lot of retail folk seem to be adopting a similar approach, acting as if every stage of your interaction with them is a form of 'service' or 'event' worthy of praise and/or feedback.

Someone in online music retail refusing to accept it's their mistake, who'd have thought it 🤔

I wonder if that change in approach has anything to do with the classified sections here?

Is that serious @EBS_freak?

Home collection only from my front door.......

Deep Purple £125

Gooseberryburst

Thanks for posting Marcus, sounds like you're not working in ideal conditions. Hope things improve with the new website and systems 👍

Agreed and agreed But what I find most annoying is their failure to recognise the oldest rule in retail; never ignore a customer. I've had shops be rude to me, give me incorrect information, not have the item in stock after all, forget to send the item, send the wrong item, send the right item to the wrong address, double charge me (one forgetting to charge me but remembering about three months later), even lose the item I've bought, but none of them are as annoying as being repeatedly ignored 🤔

To be honest, I ordered and paid online, in part because I don't want the inevitable "hang on I'll just put you on hold while I check if it's in stock...." or "hang on I'll just put you on hold while I check your account...." or "hang on I'll just put you on hold while I check why it's not been sent....". I think I've got to that point in life - AKA grumpy old git - at which being asked to hold while at the same time being forced to listen to a loud, upper mid-heavy atonal cacophony clearly designed by a neuroscientist to make you give up on the call and if not to beat you into some form of ultra-pliable emotional state in which you'll accept whatever you're offered - and usually having spent about 10 minutes navigating the automated call direction system in the first place - is an irritation I choose to do without! Anyway, I escalated this to PayPal and got a refund (I'd asked BD to do so directly and they hadn't replied). Not a single word from BD in that time though. If they have time to process a refund they also have time to drop a brief reply to one of my emails just to say "Sorry we made a bit of a mess of that, hope you'll come back again in future". I've spent a lot of money with them over the years after all As we all know well, these are very First World problems

I use bass-lead-amp but it works for me in my band, it wouldn't work for me if I was in a different band, if I was in an RHCP tribute for example I'm sure I'd need (want) a load of processing to emulate Flea's parts, in an 80's act I might want to smother fretless in chorus, an originals band might require specific sounds to express the music. I don't think there's any right or wrong, virtuous or deceptive either way. It's not the tool, it's how you use it.

Ah, EM 👌

That’s the truth of it

There's a big part of me wonder whether it's the need to bands to retain original members who themselves often feel the string existential need to challenge/escape/transcend the original band ethos that often leads to their decay?

A rather reassuring continuity

A band is an idea, like a business, sports team, even a country. Why should it contain original members?

Mmm, I've never had a problem in probably 10 years of buying from them, but then perhaps I've always bought stuff that was actually in stock. If they routinely ignore people rather than refund when they've sold an item they don't actually have, then perhaps they are the business a lot of people suggest after all

Well despite having used them for years without problems, Bass Direct just lost me as a customer for good, as having bought from them earlier this week I have no item and no response to several emails. Having just looked at the new site (new site, new set of problems), the item in question doesn't even show as something they stock despite having shown as in stock Monday evening on what I guess is the old site. I don't mind delays, I don't mind errors, I don't even mind when something is faulty, but I don't tolerate a business ignoring emails when they are holding close to £1500 of my cash 😡

As far as a (jazz) audience is concerned, if you look and act like you made a mistake, you made a mistake

That’s rather nicely put 👍