N & T Services, LLC

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Dear Mr***:This is a written follto our phone conversation last week regarding a complaint filed by Mrs*** *** with Revdex.com about an unvarnished
(white) violin, which she received from us in March of 2017. Mrs*** ordered white (unvarnished) violins from us made by a master luthier from BulgariaThe instruments were sent in separate packages, one in late Feband a second violin in MarchThe reason was that Mrs*** wanted first to see one violin before requesting a second instrumentShe liked the first violin very much and ordered another one in March She promised me on the phone that she would pay for the first violin within a weekThis did not happen, and we had to send her an overdue-payment reminder on April 21, (see the attached PDF documenting our email correspondence between March and Feb 2018)The email reminder was sent after numerous attempts on my part to reach her by phoneShe did not return any of my calls despite multiple messages left by me on her voice mailWe received a payment for the first violin in early May of without any word about the second instrument.Over the course of the summer in I repeatedly tried to contact Mrs*** by phone concerning the payment on the second violinShe never answered or returned my callsI then emailed her a note with an attached overdue Invoice on Octhoping that she would reply to it, if she had not received my prior voice messages for some reasonI was wrong! Mrs*** remained unresponsive, and after waiting for another months, I finally decided to send her a legal demand for paymentThe first formal demand was mailed in the late December as a Certified Letter requiring a signature upon receipt. After about weeks, the letter was returned to us, because the Post Office could not locate Mrs***They left her several notifications, but she did not come to the Post Office to sign for & pick up the letter, which resulted in a returnWe then resent the Letter by standard Priority Mail, this time without a signature requirementI also emailed the demand letter to her just in case the hard copy got lost in the mailThis time Mrs*** replied on Jan It was the first communication I've received from her in months (see email correspondence in the attached PDF)!Mrs*** claims that the top of the violin cracked on its own (allegedly due to wood "shrinkage") after the instrument had been sitting in her air-conditioned room for 4-months (see the attached photos I received from Mrs***)She also claims that she had emailed me photos of the broken violin in August of 2017.First of all, I have not received any emails from Mrs*** until Jan 17, Had I received a message from her in August, I would not have continued calling her for payment and re-sending her the InvoiceHer claim about the August email can easily be checked/verified by inspecting the mail server logs of *** and ***I plan to conduct such an inquiry if we go to court, because I'm highly confident that she had not sent me an email in AugustSecondly, if she had indeed discovered the crack on the violin top in August, why did she not call me on the phone right away? I have two phone numbers listed on my InvoiceWhy did she not try to mail the violin back to me in August? Why did she not respond to my last overdue Invoice emailed on Oct2017, where I threatened her to turn the case over to a collection agency if she did not pay by Oct16, 2017? Mrs*** has made no effort to communicate with me until she received the legal Demand for Payment on Jan 2018. This behavioral pattern is not consistent with her story!Mrs***'s claim that the violin cracked on its own, also makes no physical sense for the following reasons: a) The wood of these master-grade instruments has been cured (dried) between and years prior to carving of the instrumentsIn the violin-making business, wood that is cured for longer than years is considered save to use in a sense that it will not cause warping or shrinkage of the instrument over timeHence, the wood on these fine violins is extremely well seasoned for established standards and, therefore, a shrinkage is practically impossible;b) I have worked with this Bulgarian maker for years and have sold his instruments to many shops in the US and CanadaNo one has ever complained about such a shrinkage-induced crack on any of his instruments!c) In my 20-year experience with handling violins of various grades, I have never seen such a damage to result from wood shrinkageThe longitudinal crack visible on the photos along with Mrs***'s own admission that there was "no loose seam" on the instrument is only consistent with a strong hit or high pressure applied to the top of the violin, not with wood shrinkage! My guess is that the violin has been hit hard while in possession of Mrs***I have asked couple violin shops in the US, who have purchased this type of violins from me over the past months to provide a written assessment about the possible cause for the crack on Mrs***s's violin based on photos of the instrument she sent meI will forward these statements to you when I receive them.Finally, Mrs *** claims that I had offered her a one-year warrantyThis is not true! We never discussed any warranty terms either by phone or by emailThis topic simply did not come up because, in the violin business, a well-made instrument can last for many decades and even centuries, and one can quickly tell whether an instrument is well made or notUnlike appliances or computers that have limited lifespan, violins are a type of long-lasting merchandise that does not require written warrantyIn my experience, there is no practice in the violin business to issue such warranties.I have presented all of the above facts to Mrs*** in an email dated Feb 07, (see attachment). In support of the above information, I'm sending you attached the following documents:- Original Invoice for a white master-grade *** violin;- Email correspondence between Mrs*** and myself from March through Feb 2018;- Demand Letter for Payment sent to Mrs*** in Jan 2018;- JPG photos showing the damage of the violin top sent to me by Mrs***;Sincerely,Ned N*** *** ***
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