Posted by Slim on 3/18/2008, 12:16 am

Last Saturday afternoon about an hour before they closed I visited the local music emporium...... and I purchased a Roland Mini cube, a set of headphones to use with it and a Boss pedal...... here's the deal...... The headphones were a brand I had never heard of but were the top of the line that the store carried..... I started to open the box to check them out.... but the sales guy told me they had a set open at the digital drums that I could listen to....... I go over to the drums but it's Saturday afternoon and every 8 to 12 year old in the store is over there to take their turn on the drums........ so I buy them without trying them out first...... So I go home and take the Micro-cube out of the box and it's what I expect... no problem...... I open the headphones...... and without taking the foam sleeve off the part that slips over your head I plug them in and..... they are not very good....... I had a set of low end Sennheisers that they were meant to be an upgrade to...... but the Sennheisers blew them away. So I carefully put them back in the box with all the packing intact...... you can't tell they have ever left the box......... so now I'm gonna have to find some other headphones..... and I decide to buy some good Sennheisers off the net as there is really nothing available locally....... I find a set that MF sells for $259 for $169 NIB from a reputable dealer and I spring for them........ so now I think...... I;ll carry the headphones and the pedal back....... but I'll upgrade the amp some...... the dealer will still keep most of his sale (and the profit from it)..... I'll have a better amp and some good phones and everybody will be happy........ So Monday morning I head back to the store......the first business day since I made the purchase at closing time....... and I carry the pedal and headphones into the store and tell them I want to return them and that I also brought the micro cube and am willing to swap it for a higher ticket item to keep the amount of the sale as much in tact as possible...... or I'd keep the Micro cube.... whatever they wanted to do........ so they agree to swap out and I spend a little time looking and end up with a cube 30X to replace it and that lowered the refund from $227 to $112 which was less than I had paid for the headphones alone...... so now they tell me that there is no cash refund........ store credit only..... and I am not happy....... so after much haggling they finally give me a refund..... but not before I had to listen to them complain how the internet and the chains were killing them, etc, etc....... after I got my refund I explained that I could have bought the amp from MF or a dozen other internet vendors who would have shipped it to my door for the same price I paid them..... but I had driven to their store and paid sales tax in addition to the sales price in order to do business with them. I explained the rationale was that they would give better service and if I wasn't happy with my purchase exchanging it would be easier....... I then told them that the internet wasn't killing them..... they were killing themselves. I told them that regardless of your opinion of Wal-Mart....... they would take a three legged dog back without any hassle to the customer and somehow that had made them the World's largest retailer and a top 5 Fortune 500 company. Too bad y'all guys didn't learn from watching some of your successful competition. I walked out the door and after years of dealing there..... we're done.