Pete's Music Center

Review: Failed to respond, repair, and retrieve my cello.

I trusted too much Pete's Music Center. I left one of my cello's for repair and it got rented out to another customer. They took huge pride in tagging, however my tag was retagged to a different cello bag. Don't let the comfort of a small town fool you. Upon retrieving your supposably repaired instrument make sure it is yours! I was shocked that it wasn't mine. I returned it as soon as they opened. When I got there [redacted] said that it was in fact the only instrument with my 'tag' on it. For 3 weeks I insisted that it was not my cello, I heard nothing from [redacted], nothing from his employees. They were cold and stubborn. I had a Yuba City Police officer meet me there to have a chat, he even had [redacted] meet us there. [redacted] said, "I repaired an instrument, and that's where my Liability Ends". I also sent the previous owner of my cello for verification. But My Wonderful Instructor, [redacted] of

[redacted] Music School XXX-XXXX. She pleaded to get the phone number of a customer whom it had possibly been loaned to. It was. She drove all the way to Oregon House to retrieve it, doing the Center's job! When [redacted] refused to meet me so that I could personally retrieve it from him, he had sent me a weak apology via [redacted] via an email signed, 'Musically [redacted]'. I replied to this with a demand of a personal letter to me as his customer and signed by him...no response.Desired Settlement: A personal letter of apology from the owner Pete Van Alstyne explaining in detail how this mishap came about and admitting fault for poor customer service and to never take any of his cutomers for granted again!!!

Business

Response:

Business' Initial Response

Contact Name and Title: [redacted] Manager

Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Contact Email: [redacted]@gmail.com

[redacted] left her cello for repair on 5/16/13. The instrument was repaired at no charge and picked up by [redacted] the next day. [redacted] did not call until 5/22/13 stating that the cello she took home was not her cello. She had brought in a 4/4 cello and was returned a smaller cello. After speaking with her early that morning I advised that she bring the cello in so we could better manage the situation.

While waiting for the cello to be brought in I immediately starting retracing our steps to see what could have happened. This included everything from calling the owner and other sales associates to checking instruments we have in stock on location. Once [redacted] arrived I went over everything in detail with her and told her that she should leave the instrument for the owner to inspect in person but that there wasn't anything else that I could do at that moment in time.

I did however loan her a bow to use for her lesson later in the afternoon since she said she did not have one with the understanding that she would return after her lesson and we could go over her cello again if any new information had come up. I spent the afternoon looking through our rental accounts to see if [redacted]'s cello could have been rented by mistake. The last cello we rented that could have been mistaken for hers was on 5/8/13, well before she came in with her cello. The next day on 5/23/13 I called [redacted] in the morning and left a message that I needed her to return the bow that was loaned to her and that I wanted to go over the cello situation again. While waiting for her to arrive I checked with the owner again to see if he had found anything. I also checked with my co-worker to see if she could have misplaced the repair tag since she was the one with whom [redacted] dropped off the cello. Once [redacted] arrived I went over everything, all the conversations between the owner, co-workers and myself and also showed her the list of rental customers. She wanted to see our rental stock so I took her to the back where our rental cellos are stored. We went over each cello one by one and had pulled out the two larger cellos (which were 3/4) so she could examine them. She opened and inspected the cellos and determined they were not hers. Before she left we were under a mutual understanding that we would both keep looking and check back with each other.

Over the remainder of the week I continued to look through records including all the 4/4 cellos sold in the past 2 years. There weren't any transactions that happened after [redacted] initially came in. I also spoke with the previous owner of [redacted]'s cello. She said that the cello that was repaired was not the cello she sold [redacted]. I told her everything that I had done and what I was still needing to do. She suggested that maybe the cello could have been misplaced during a cello lesson at a separate location. We were in agreement that all that could be done was for both parties, [redacted] and us here at Pete's Music, to continue to retrace our steps.

I did not hear anything from [redacted] during this week so I continued to search for her cello. On 5/28/13 a friend of the owner who helps with repair delivered the repaired cello to [redacted]'s instructor to see if she had seen it before or see if there was any information she could add.

After not hearing back from [redacted] she showed up unannounced with a police officer on 5/30/13. I explained in detail to the police officer what had been done and what was being done to retrieve [redacted]'s cello. [redacted] seemed upset about my explanation and the officer had to remind her that we were not here to argue and even took her outside several times. I called the owner to have him meet with them. As far as my understanding goes, [redacted] left unsatisfied with threats of small claims.

Between 5/30/13 and 6/15/13 there were several conversations rotating between myself, the owner, fellow co-workers, and [redacted]'s instructor. I last spoke with the instructor and told her everything that had occurred. She said she didn't really want to be involved but wanted to see the matter settled. I told her that the only possible thing left to check was a cello that had been loaned out the Saturday after [redacted] initially came in. I told [redacted]'s instructor that the man who took the cello on loan had informed me that he knew her well. I also told the instructor that I was going to be calling the customer to have him return the loaned cello and we were going to replace it with a rental instrument so we may see if there were any mistakes and possibly find [redacted]'s cello. I called and left a message with the customer to return the instrument. He got in touch with [redacted]'s instructor before getting in touch with us and had informed her that he would not be able to come into Yuba City for at least a week. Being that [redacted]'s instructor lives up in the Oregon House area and knew the customer it was agreed that she would bring the instrument down for him. Upon doing so it was found that the cello loaned to him was indeed [redacted]'s cello. [redacted] picked up her cello, case, and bow from us on 6/15/13 with no repairs done.

In [redacted]'s original complaint she spoke of us retagging a different instrument with her tag. However, it is my conclusion that an honest mistake was made in the initial tagging of [redacted]'s instrument. My co-worker must have wrote the tag up and put it on the wrong instrument to begin with. We would never tag and then retag a different instrument.

Personally I was surprised to get a phone call after five days of having returned the instrument, so it took longer than normal to recall what could have happened; but we did our best to settle the matter in a fair and timely manner.

There is no [redacted] that works here. I am assuming since I spoke with [redacted] on all occasions that she meant to write my name down. By reading above I would hope that anyone could see that we in no way would ever treat our customers coldly and ignore them for three weeks. I did everything I could, as fast as I could, to try and settle the matter. If anything, hindsight has shown me that I should have insisted on having the customer return the cello directly to us instead of allowing a fellow friend to help therefor eliminating the confusion of how her cello was found to begin with.

The owner of the store emailed an apology letter that can be provided if requested. We are very sorry for the honest mistake and will continue to do better to not have that ever happen again.

Consumer's Final Response

(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)

Thank you [redacted] for your help!

But this response is not acceptable. This not a response I requested from the owner, [redacted].