Musicstore.de - Non-delivery of pedal (13.07.21)

[blackcat]

Wondering if any of our european members have any experience of dealing with this ( large ) outfit based in Cologne, Germany? I placed an order for a Mad Professor Pedal on the 12th July, paying by Mastercard. The money went out at that point and responsibility passed to their carriers, the infamous UPS.

UPS were twice given my correct ( albeit long ) address and have since failed to deliver. The pedal has been sitting in Toulouse since 27.07.21 and they have mailed multiple times to promise delivery by the end of the following day - zero result. Virtually impossible to contact, we have spoken to them once by phone and the confirmed that they were in possession of the correct address. Today's mail refers to a 'Rescheduled delivery', but with no anticipated date. I suspect that the problem lies with their secondary couriers who tend to be a bunch of white van men, who give up at the first hurdle. They have my phone number.

For French deliveries, Cologne maintain a French 'presence' which I suspect amounts to one guy, placed over here as a buffer to complaints and enquiries. He is not helpful and suggested that I ring UPS myself, declaring that I had not paid for a 'premium service'. The return mail at the point of ordering suggested that I should receive the order by Monday 19th July. Unlike sites like Thomman they currently state that delivery can be delayed by 1-3 (!) days as couriers are 'currently very busy'. Also unlike eg Thomman, they do not provide the name of the person responsible for my order.

Should I smell a rat ( or multiple rats )? All I know at this point,17 days later, is that I am minus 170€ and no pedal!

[Stefan Eff]

Did you contact Musicstore?

[ThatRhythmMan]

I’m not in the EU, but I ordered a Diezel D-Moll head and an ENGL 212 cab from musicstore.de last year. UPS was the carrier. The head was stolen before even leaving the EU and the cab arrived with a small tear in the tolex.

Musicstore.de kept stringing me along for a month saying they couldn’t do anything for me until they finished their investigation, and in the meantime offered me what would be a $20 US refund in on the damaged $600 cabinet. I finally decided to file a credit card chargeback. Musicstore.de sent my credit card company proof of the delivery of the cab and claimed that it was delivery of both items. After providing all of the necessary information, and spending far too much time, I finally got the chargeback on the $2000 amp head. After all of that, I just gave up on the damaged cab and kept it.

Needless to say, my experience with them was not good.

[Stefan Eff]

I would always recommend Thomann, even if that doesn’t help yet…

[blackcat]

Did you contact Musicstore?

From here, 'contacting MusicStore' means going through their French 'filter'. They direct everything back to their .fr site and e-mail. Neat. He is not over sympathetic and as pointed out above, suggested that UPS was 'not their premium service for delivery'. That is to say, if only I had paid a bit more..........................

Finally got hold of a supervizor at UPS today who suggested that maybe our rural French address did not 'quite fit' their GPS template. Not bad for an organization that purports to be 'international'. If not delivered withing 24/48 hours I shall send a recorded delivery complaint direct to the CEO in Cologne.

[blackcat]

I would always recommend Thomann, even if that doesn’t help yet…

Excellent advice and I have dealt with them for 18 years. However, they did not stock this particular pedal AND last time I attempted to pay them ( same card details as for the last six orders ) their filtering bank ( Deutsche Bank ) rejected my details. Plenty of money in the account and can think of no valid reason for rejection. A mystery to my own bank here.

[Jabberwocky]

Seems as if the problem lies with UPS? Could you schedule a pick up in person from the nearest UPS depot? It just may be that you live too far out in the countryside to make it worth their while for one small parcel.

[Stefan Eff]

Excellent advice and I have dealt with them for 18 years. However, they did not stock this particular pedal AND last time I attempted to pay them ( same card details as for the last six orders ) their filtering bank ( Deutsche Bank ) rejected my details. Plenty of money in the account and can think of no valid reason for rejection. A mystery to my own bank here.

I‘m from germany. If you need any help for your communication with them, let me know

[blackcat]

Seems as if the problem lies with UPS? Could you schedule a pick up in person from the nearest UPS depot? It just may be that you live too far out in the countryside to make it worth their while for one small parcel.

Thanks for that. In fact, there is a relay point at the Tabac in our local village. Never had to use it in the past because UPS ( via their couriers ) have delivered here scroes of times in the past. For some reason, on theis occasion their GPS seems unable to locate our village/commune. Definitely the next step as we approach week four!

[blackcat]

I‘m from germany. If you need any help for your communication with them, let me know

That is really kind Stefan. If all else fails with the robots at UPS, I will definitely be writing to Kohn direct. However, although my wife has some basic German ( worked in Dusseldorf years ago and for Lufthansa ) she is now rusty and that sort of communication needs to be exact. Will give it until the weekend and then send a registered letter.

Thanks once again. Really appreciated. I want that pedal!

[339 in june]

Hello from France !
I live in the countryside, too, and my address consists in only a "lieu-dit" situated 4 km away from the village
I had the same kind of problem around one year ago, not with musicstore.de, but with Thomann
I should say with UPS, as Thomann uses UPS as a carrier.
UPS claimed they cannot deliver because address was not full in their document.
Communication with UPS was impossible as they stated that address modification in this order was not possible.
So I contacted Thomann who firstly made a kind of automatic answer ("Be patient, your order is on its way to you"). After some exchanges and finally got a contact with a real person, they asked UPS to return the parcel to them and then proceeded to a new shipment through DHL
Total : 1 month delivery time for available goods at Thomann.

My feeling is that it only depends on the UPS driver who is willing, or not, to make the job he is paid for correctly. Most of them do, but a few don't.

[blackcat]

Bonsoir from le Quercy blanc!

It seems that lieu dits are a constant problem for these people and yet they have to deal with them on a daily basis. Sorry to hear that my current problem is not unique. The problem with UPS ( apart from lazy courier contractors with white vans who, as you say do not always make the extra effort to locate an address ) is that their software templets are not flexible and can chop a village name in half! This happened the first time in my case but then the French representative of Music Store rang the full and exact address directly to them (nil result, and pretty well his only contribution to date ) and so did I a second time. Our address is long, with a house name - no number ( that seems to blow their minds even though UPS in Toulouse are of course French! ), a lieu-dit, a village name, a zip code and then the (long) name of the commune.

It's not as though we expect them to perform plumbing operations or brain surgery in their spare time!

Thanks for relating your experience 339.

David

[Drifter]

Musicstore in Cologne is somewhat known to be the worst of the big musical instrument retailers in Germany, at least regarding their service. Still, in this case I guess they are quite helpless. They have shipped the pedal and UPS in France just doesn't get the job done. This may or may not be a problem of UPS in France, but all postal services all over Europe, DHL included, are still working at maximum capacity, Covid really has shifted retail business from local to online. All the stores have reopened by now but the buying habits only shift back to local very slowly.

Once a parcel is underway, delivery time is totally up to the parcel service, even the shipper cannot file a complaint for weeks (usually yes but not now due to Covid), especially if the parcel is scanned regularly without being usefully transported. The shipper can only intervene and the parcel service will only accept complaints or investigation orders, if the parcel is not scanned for a longer period of time, so that it might be lost. I guess that this French connection at Musicstore is just trying to stall you until finally the parcel will be delivered. It really doesn't make much sense for them to ship it again but I am sure that they will if your parcel is officially declared lost by UPS. They probably just have too many open cases like yours to ship all of them twice and bear all the costs for double and triple shipping hence and forth. Musicstore may have a questionable customer service at times but they don't rip you off.

Yes, you can book premium express shipping but that will cost you. And that's the same with all the retailers. I don't recommend to generally buy at Thomann. Thomann is excellent, they don't ship once a day but 24 hours a day, they must have robots working the night shift. And I'm sure they at least have a special deal with the first DHL parcel distribution center where they deliver their parcels to. You can place an order around midnight and it will be shipped in the morning, delivered the next day. That's crazy good but is it really necessary?

I think we should buy more locally again. Support your local retailer. If he doesn't carry the pedal you're looking for, ask him if he is wiling to order it for you. Even if it takes a little longer and even it costs a little more. As you can see, shipping time during a pandemic can be a much worse pita because the seller is out of reach and all you can do is wait and bite your nails. If things continue to develop like they do, in a few years we'll only have Amazon and Thomann to buy our musical equipment at. You'll all know what I mean after Hans Thomann has joined Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson on the moon.

That being said, good luck to the OP, I hope your parcel will be delivered soon. And that the pedal was worth the wait.

[pcjazz]

You might try supplying GPS coordinates. That was the solution for one delivery company that kept missing my rural address (and insisted that our small swimming pool was a “lake” on Google Maps).

[DonEsteban]

This might not be help full but just as a hint:

Here in Spain drivers typically don't even think of approaching your address if they can't call you before to check if you're at home.

So I had similar trouble with a delivery from Germany and the person at the dealer hotline explained to me, that by some law they are no longer allowed to print your phone number on the parcel. Data protection and so on... bla bla

So eventually I gave my consent to have my phone number printed on the label, she resent a new unit the next day that arrived very quickly without delay.

Maybe that could be of help for future deals.



BTW: I agree with "drifters" comment, musicstore.de definitively the worst online music shop in Germany, I for one will never buy there again.

[blackcat]

Thanks Drifter for your overview - really appreciated. Certainly will look to buy local more in future.
Thanks again.

David

[blackcat]

This might not be help full but just as a hint:

Here in Spain drivers typically don't even think of approaching your address if they can't call you before to check if you're at home.

So I had similar trouble with a delivery from Germany and the person at the dealer hotline explained to me, that by some law they are no longer allowed to print your phone number on the parcel. Data protection and so on... bla bla

So eventually I gave my consent to have my phone number printed on the label, she resent a new unit the next day that arrived very quickly without delay.

Maybe that could be of help for future deals.



BTW: I agree with "drifters" comment, musicstore.de definitively the worst online music shop in Germany, I for one will never buy there again.

Nor will I!!

Good point about the phone number, not sure what the law on that is over here. UPS do have both my phone numbers on file however. THanks again.

[blackcat]

You might try supplying GPS coordinates. That was the solution for one delivery company that kept missing my rural address (and insisted that our small swimming pool was a “lake” on Google Maps).

Great idea. Not sure how I communicate that to UPS - no place for it on their pro forma. Will investigate.

Many thanks.

David

[blackcat]

Just in from those nice UPS people in Toulouse...........................

Livraison estimée

vendredi, août 06 Dans la journée - fingers crossed!

---

[pcjazz]

Just in from those nice UPS people in Toulouse...........................

Livraison estimée

vendredi, août 06 Dans la journée - fingers crossed!

Bonne chance!

[Herbie]

I am sorry to hear Your bad luck with the shipping. I have bought two times from Musicstore Köln. Both were shipped fast and accurstely. But it was DHL. And my address is a normal city street address.

In fact all the addresses in Finland are in same format, even in the countryside. What’s the point of an address if a shipping operator can’t understand it?

I agree with Drifter. Local music business is in our hands too. I have bought Thomann once – it was the only place to get a Quilter TB202 from EU then – and I believe it is still now. Sadly.

[blackcat]

I am sorry to hear Your bad luck with the shipping. I have bought two times from Musicstore Köln. Both were shipped fast and accurstely. But it was DHL. And my address is a normal city street address.

In fact all the addresses in Finland are in same format, even in the countryside. What’s the point of an address if a shipping operator can’t understand it?

I agree with Drifter. Local music business is in our hands too. I have bought Thomann once – it was the only place to get a Quilter TB202 from EU then – and I believe it is still now. Sadly.

It arrived this morning - almost four weeks to the day! Made in Finland in fact ( Mad Professor Silver Spring ). The difference between UPS and DHL is cosmic. DHL never fail to find us and with a smile. Whereas this morning the driver was close to agressive, saying that he had tried to deliver four times ( we have not been absent over the period ) and 'even' checked with the mairie ( town hall ) to verify our address. The problem was that although the adress originally given to Music Store was correct, it somehow became mangled between them and UPS. Music Store then rectified it and I later rang UPS directly with the correct details. UPS software templets/pro-forma re-configure a long address and then they wonder why they can't find us! It can't handle a house with only a name and no number for a start. That said, France could clearly take a leaf out of the Finnish book on regularizing address format. None of this of course, excuses the originally dismissive attitude of MusicStore.

[blackcat]

A big thank you to everyone for their input. I was beginning to feel all alone on this one!

David

[Herbie]

It arrived this morning - almost four weeks to the day! Made in Finland in fact ( Mad Professor Silver Spring )…

Oh yeah!

In fact I am proud to have a honour to know some of the MP masterminds. Good guys! Great pedals!

[Amberville]

Musicstore have a poor reputation for customer service. If it makes you feel any better they have just been fined millions for price fixing lol. (In cahoots with major brands and Thomann).