Monday, November 1, 2010

Auckland Warehouse and more ...

Consider this screen shot of MT front page which was taken on the 1st Nov 2010.

http://www.box.net/shared/bjns2y9nd2

Let's consider some of the highlighted pieces ...

1 - 'making false claims as to the official manufacturers warranty'
The only people in New Zealand and that can claim to offer an OFFICIAL manufacturers warranty is official resellers of that product. Anyone who parallel imports the product, can not offer a manufacturers warranty in New Zealand, because the person/company who offers the warranty, won't look at goods that weren't bought through them.

He parallel imports all the brands and products he does. Suppliers in New Zealand don't want to be associated with him because of his past history, actions, and misdemeanours. That means that for him to honour a manufacturers warranty claim - he has to send it back to wherever he bought it from. At his cost. And then pay to get it back here again. At his cost.

2 - 'our usual 7-14 day timeframe' vs 'dispatched 7-12 days from time of purchase'
Well, that's just genius. So on one hand you say that goods are received with in 7-14 days. If I order on the 1st Jan - I should see it between the 7th & 14th Jan.

But then you say that they are dispatched within 7-12 days from the time of purchase. So if I order on the 1st Jan, it won't leave until the 7th - 12th Jan and then take how long to get here? Could it be another 7-14 days ... which would make it possibly a month to get here?

3 - NZ Orders are dispatched from our Auckland warehouse
This is bordering on a lie. It is inferring that all goods are in a warehouse in Auckland. In fact, they are not. They are ordered in once a customer has paid their money. The only goods that are (possibly) kept in Auckland (and not in a warehouse) would be the goods that people have ordered and then decided they didn't want, or didn't want to deal with MT at all. These would be the items shown as instock on the 'Deal Center'. Which runs nicely into ...

4 - Deal Center, Find the Best Values!
Hmmmm, that's an American spelling for the word 'center'. No one in NZ, who passed high school english would, make that spelling mistake. And 'Find the Best Values', is poor english at best. So it's a stolen graphic, or MT is really an American company with someone that doesn't grasp basic english.

All great confidence inspiring stuff. Not.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Sella Musicthingz bad feedback

I just had these fowarded to me ... screen shots of some bad feedback that was on MT's Sella profile before it was disabled (just like Paypal, eBay, Trademe, National Bank etc ...)


http://www.box.net/shared/bxj8ye6i6i - screen shot 1

http://www.box.net/shared/xppjktudcx - screen shot 2

Typical stories of long delays, and then requests to change feedback. Note the estimated time for deliveries is 7-12 days - these were considerably longer than that.

Facebook RippedoffbyMusicthingz

As we all know, the Facebook page that saved so many people from having the misfortune of being messed around by Musicthingz, was taken down. The response to the page was amazing as there were a lot of people out there that had been ripped off by them.

However, an suitably disgruntled Musicthingz victim managed to cache a page from Facebook and sent me this MHT file which, despite the bad formatting, should serve to show up a few of the types of posts that were on the original page.

MHT files are single files of webpages, so none of the links will work and the formatting will look wrong. However scroll down and you can read of some of the frustrations people had.

http://www.box.net/shared/t9b5anyg2t

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Musicthingz review on Guitargear.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1. Bought it , great pedal. For those of you who aren’t satisfied. It’s only $50 :)
    Smooth, dynamic overdrive to boost your sound.
    The Digitech Bad Monkey Tube Overdrive effects pedal produces the smooth, natural character of an overdriven tube amp while maintaining your guitar’s distinct tone. Low and High tone plus Level and Gain controls. Dedicated output with cabinet emulation to run direct into a mixer or recorder.
    DigiTech Bad Monkey Tube Overdrive Pedal Features:
    High, Low, Level, and Gain controls
    Amp and recording/mixer outputs
    Where can I buy?
    http://www.musicthingz.co.nz

  2. on July 3, 2008 at 6:58 pm | Reply Andrew Taylor
    Musicthingz just sell parallel imported goods without a genuine NZ manufacturers warranty so I’d go to one of your local shops to buy as it’s safer.
    PS Charli just works for Musicthingz so is just doing some blatent self promotion.

  3. HAHAHAHAHA!!! ROFL! Thanks for the tip, Andrew!!! :)

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Read it for yourself here: http://guitargear.org/2008/02/10/review-digitech-bad-monkey/

Musicthingz Sella store has been disabled

Musicthingz has had it's Sella store disabled.  I do not know why, but stores are usually disabled due to some type of negative influence.

See the disabled store page here:  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4kjj2x/musicthingz/

Review of Musicthingz on Hiphopnz.com

I'm not too sure if this message should go here, but as a dj and a beatmaker I wanted to warn people about buying music equipment from Andrew Taylor at Musicthingz.

I've been mucked around by this guy since June. I've made a claim to the Disputes Tribunal, making a claim through Paypal, I also see that he has auctions on sella.co.nz, so I'll inform them of his dodgy practice, (loooooong waiting times, scratched off serial numbers). At best case sella bans him, at worse case they annoy the shit out of him. Then my next port of call will be a complaint to the Commerce Commission. Every little bit helps to nail this c*nt!!

I've been VERY patient but this guy has f**k3d me off to no end.

A bit of back history, I ordered an Akai MPD32 from him at the beginning of June (the 4th) for $579. The emails that proceeded, up until the 28th of Aug were all along the lines of "It'll be there ASAP! ... Delivery in 7 - 12days from payment ... sorry, the manufacturer has a back log ... coming to you by next week DEFINITELY ... sorry, I've been slack ... I'll get you the tracking number ... It'll take about a week or less ... I'll contact the manufacturer and find the exact date ..." BULLSH1T, BULLSH1T, BULLSH1T!! Nothing worse than excuses.

The MPD32 arrives at the end of Aug with the SERIAL NUMBER SCRATCHED OFF. WTF?! How do I register my MPD online with no serial number. Also, this pretty much voids any warranty I could claim through AkaiPro. How dodgy is that? I find out later on that he doesn't even have distribution rights for most of the DJ/music gear that he sells. As a consequnce those companies refuse to honour the warranty if anyone buys from him.

The reasons why I am posting here (and on every other NZ music forum) are two fold. First, to let those who have been burnt know that I am willing to be contacted, email me -- sovent@slingshot.co.nz and second, to warn people against dealing with him.

Don't deal with him! I thought I'd give it a go coz he seemed like a regular muso like the rest of us but he's just a money grubbing con artist.

Thanks,

Josh

http://back2basics.hiphopnz.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=52578

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Musicthingz review from a NZ music website

What you should know about Musicthingz
Over the last few years a New Zealand website has sprung up which on the surface looks similar to ours in that it lists a large number of products at great prices. However over the last 2 years we've been approached by a growing number of disgruntled people who state they have purc...hased from Musicthingz and apparently after weeks of waiting they didn't receive their goods even though their payment has been made. Some claim they did receive the goods but had to wait more than a month with no explanation, others were disturbed to find when the goods eventually did arrive they had all serial numbers removed.

We decided to do some investigating and this is what we've turned up which will hopefully help future customers decide just who to purchase from......

- Musicthingz parallel import their goods from US stores such as Guitar Centre to order and do not deal through the official NZ manufacturers agents like we do. (the exception for this being Presonus but see ** later). They are therefore not authorised NZ resellers for the large number of goods on their site nor do they have direct dealings with the manufacturers as they sometimes claim. They are simply reselling items purchased overseas which are usually designed for sale and use in the US, some might see this as making the goods second hand.

- The official manufacturers NZ agents we have contacted including TASCAM, Digitech, dbx, Shure, JBL, TC Electronics, Presonus, Rode, Numark, Alesis, Lexicon have stated they will not honor the warranty on any parallel imported items purchased through Musicthingz. There are currently complaints lodged with the Commerce Commission with regards to the Fair Trade Act and the claims made by Musicthingz on their site that they offer an "authorised warranty" because the manufacturers we have contacted state this will not be honored.- We have evidence that Musicthingz are supplying goods with all serial numbers removed, this means there is no way of checking the source of the goods or if they are in fact genuine or fake. Evidence of this has also been submitted to the authorities for further investigation.

- as of the 4th Sept 2009 Musicthingz has had their Merchant Account terminated by National Bank due to numerous complaints by customers and several cases of failure to supply goods after credit cards have been billed including sales in excess of $1000. Musicthingz has now switched to Pago but we suggest you read the terms of Pago at www.pago.co.nz/story2190.aspx and note the terms under "Using Pago with online merchants" where it states "We won't cover any losses you incur when dealing with merchants because there is a problem with the goods or services you have paid for through your wallet (or the goods and services have not arrived)"

- We have evidence of a Musicthingz customer who had their credit card billed for more than the item price they agreed to when they purchased online, we suggest you check your credit card statement carefully if you have purchase from them. The item in question still hadn't arrived after a month so the customer had to track down the website owner and demand a refund. Our credit card company requires us to ship goods within 3 days of billing the credit card and we believe is fair for the customer. Musicthingz take payment and then order the item in from the US which can take weeks or even months to arrive. If you have bought any item online and not received it within 2 weeks we strongly suggest you contact your credit card company and arrange a reversal of the transaction so you can get your money back.

- At the time of writing the Musicthingz website has no phone number for contact which goes against the guidelines laid down by the Commerce Commission for online retailers. Fair Go recently gave some good advice on purchasing from online stores and said only deal with stores that have full contact details so you know exactly who you are dealing with due to the high number of fake goods being sold online and overseas scam websites, they advised checking out the domain owner details of the website to find out who is behind it. We followed the advice of Fair Go and just checked out another parallel music store in NZ on the whois.com website to find that the registrant and admin details are both registered to a mail forwarding centre in Las Vegas and the phone number given as +1 999 3211111 does not exist which is a breach of domain registration laws so we'll leave you to make up your own mind on that one!)

- Musicthingz have been banned from Trademe for breaching copyright law and attempting to sell goods that they do not physically own. Each time they have been banned they try to re-register with a new name and continue, they have now been banned at least 8 times that we are aware of. They are now no longer trading on ebay or using Paypal even though they still use the link on their website to show their ebay feedback (which cunningly turns off all the negative feedback about them, to see their true feedback click here MUSICTHINGS REAL EBAY FEEDBACK )
** Even though Musicthingz claimed at one time to be purchasing Presonus products through the official NZ supplier one customer earlier this year purchased a Presonus interface from them found that when it did arrive several weeks later it broke down when it was plugged into the NZ mains. The unit was returned to the authorised Presonus agent who discovered all serial numbers had been removed from the unit and it was a parallel import from the US. Most disturbing was the fact that the unit sold was not deemed fit for use with NZ voltages by the manufacturer. The NZ repair agent for Presonus has stated that this unit is not covered under NZ warranty and at the time of writing the customer still hasn't got a working unit. If that unit had been purchased through us the customer would have received a fully working unit with NZ warranty within 2 days of the purchase.

We strongly believe in Fair Trade and healthy competition but please take into consideration all facts when purchasing on the net and choose wisely. What seems like a site selling legitimate New Zealand new goods may not be and just because someone makes claims about warranty on their site doesn't mean they are true.

If you have purchased any item from Musicthingz and wish to make a complaint about any issue covered above especially removed serial numbers please contact the Commerce Commission at contact@comcom.govt.nz

If you would like further confirmation about the above claims then we suggest you visit this link www.nzguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9300&hilit=musicthingz or you might want to visit this Facebook group www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=135445953824
This page is in no way meant to be anti-competitive or slanderous it is simply to point out the experiences of many online shoppers.

JANDS NEWS

Buyer Beware: Musicthingz.co.nz
31 July 2009
JANDS the exclusive importer and distributor of JBL, dbx, Crown, Lexicon Pro, Soundcraft and BSS products in New Zealand is not a Trade Supplier to musicthingz.co.nz As musicthingz has not been sanctioned by JANDS as a Distributor nor any of the above companies as Manufacturers, we would advise caution when dealing with this online reseller. Please be aware that as there is no way to confirm the origin or authenticity of the product, warranty cannot be offered by JANDS.

Update 6/8/2010: link added

Found here: http://www.jands.co.nz/index.php/pi_pageid/23/pi_newsitemid/159

Write a Musicthingz review on Pricespy

Musicthingz has a pricespy rating, therefore:

1/ Sign up to pricespy..co.nz

2/ Wait 5 days. (Compulsory waiting period before you can do anything on Pricespy)

3/ Go here (http://pricespy.co.nz/store.php?ftgid=10157)

4/ Write an honest review about Musicthingz

Ripped off by Musicthingz

This blog is for people to express their frustration with dealing with Musicthingz.