Beedster

Flock of Seagulls managed it also

I don't know anything about them, but I hate Braintree Paypal

To be honest, at face value this sounds like the sender got the address wrong and the courier are doing their best to help Owen, I might be wrong, but given the totality of courier deliveries I'm guessing the 'too many stories' are a drop in the ocean. But man, as per my post above, it still drives you crazy when it happens to you!

Culturally we tend to blame people for their mental health. His mental health appears to be part of the problem of both the backlog and his apparent aggression. It’s tough. Had the guy been fighting cancer for ten years, been in and out of hospital and was able to say ‘it’s the chemo, it makes me aggressive’, things would probably have been different.

Absolutely, I owned one for quite a long time and came to the conclusion that despite the fact it was well engineered and beautifully built, design-wise it was a Dodo. I'm sure there are those who love them and play them well - and perhaps for a touring player who needs both instrument they are a God-send - but I found it hard to play as a bass guitar, even by acoustic bass standards, and impossible to play as an upright instrument. The ultimate aesthetically pleasing acoustic bass however

Problem is that if the person at the PO enters the wrong postcode, they'll only be offered a limited number of addresses, and if in a rush (or coudn't be arsed), might have entered a completely incorrect address. Seller's responsibility to get it to you, so the problem is at their end. Hope it gets sorted mate. C

Yep, I bought an old Fender from a reputable dealer a few years back. He took the neck off to show me the stamps etc, and when he put it back on I was really surprised that he didn't appear to be putting in any effort. I asked him about it and he said as per the above, they didn't leave the factory all that tight and they don't have to be any tighter than he'd tightened them to be stable. He was right about the latter for sure, neck never gave me any problems.

I refused to accept a delivery from UPS a few weeks back because the box, a violin for my daughter, had been trodden on and the contents were rattling, not usually considered a mark of quality with a string instrument. The driver, who has just delivered the replacement, said that after he returned it, the depot taped over the box (covering the damage), and put it back for delivery the next day. To his credit he refused to accept it into his van. I don't know how stupid/cynical courier depot staff must be must be to think that customers are that stupid?

Thomann were also, for them, very unhelpful, telling me I should have signed for it, inspected it, and then sent it back, which puts the onus on me to unpack, inspect, repack (using a new box because the previous one was trashed), print labels etc and wait in all day for the return of the same idiots that broke it in the first place. No thanks Thomann

Couriers

I have no idea why anyone has ever though those things sound good on a bass, I can only assume that on a low volume instrument they are slightly louder than other options which is why manufacturers put them on at the factory, but god they sound awful.

Acoustic Bass? A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: un-amplified it sounds different to electric bass, but has to be amplified to be heard in 99% of settings. When amplified tends to sound like a poor quality electric bass! OK, that's a harsh analysis, but IME acoustic bass is 80% of the time a visual/aesthetic choice rather than an sonic/musical one. I have a Breedlove FL. It's very hard to play compared to an electric FL, so makes me play differently, which is often a good thing. I also mic it if playing live, which adds a dimension to the tone that is absent when using the on-board electrics. It's great for living room jams with the kids and/or friends. Bottom line however is that I never use it as a first choice bass, simply when the DB is too big or too inconvenient to use and electric bass isn't right for the gig/occasion

One electric, one acoustic, one DB. All FL. Taken me a while to cut it down to this.

Much appreciated 51m0n, it was on my list, now on its way

RME Babyface still on the list 51m0n? I'm looking for a small portable interface I can use with my laptop and to get my daughters into recording?

There's a feedback forum on this site, so I see no need for a forum moderator for open a thread to go over this in 'General Bass Discussion'. Leave feedback and have done with it. If that's not good enough, it's easy enough to find the guy in question and deal with the issue directly.

I think we’re going over old ground here

This was one occasion when they didn't funnily enough, I ordered some resin and fingerboard oil a while back and it came in a bigger box that the bloody violin! Anyway, the violin was in some bubble wrap in the box, and the bow likewise. I was really angry with the driver because he held the box in such a way as to hide the damage while I signed for it, and when he handed it to me it was clear from the damage that the very least that had happened was that the box had been trodden on quite heavily, and the list of possible worse scenarios is clearly rather long in the case of couriers. I asked the driver to remove my signature and return the box to the sender straight away. I then spoke to Thomann who said I should have opened and inspected it fully, but as the driver wasn't prepared to wait it would have meant me having to waste another day waiting for it being collected by the same driver in the same van (IMO there's no way that the contents weren't damaged in some way). Bloody couriers

Great that you got it back, wee done for persisting. Over 50% of the courier deliveries to have arrived here recently have been damaged, this is the latest to get sent beck, the driver having tried very hard to cover the damage by the way he positioned the packaging when he asked me to sign for it. Courier companies are a complete joke. The content were quite an expensive violin and bow for my daughter, neither in a hard case, which does beg the question of why Thomann don't bother to put some FRAGILE labels on.

Me too