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I was all set to include my miserable experience with TME but found the thread closed.
How did this happen. Was TME able to shut down the discussion?
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03-09-2024 06:31 PM
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I asked a moderator to restrict it due to growing and less than courteous criticism of TME. Again my purpose with that thread was to share an honest experience and case study. I have reached out to TME via email and offered to lock the threads and de-escalate. I’m not trying to cause undue or disproportionate damage to their business. I feel that the owner, Joe, and the employee, Eliot, exacerbated the situation, which had previously been resolved, with their retaliatory and slanderous remarks on TGP and victim blaming here on JGF. Numerous forum members saw this attempt to shift the blame onto me and reacted. I don't want things to get too far out of hand.
To others here who know me and stepped in to defend me against the unfounded allegations, thank you. This is why I stick to this forum of trusted individuals. We may have opaque usernames but none of us are anonymous to each other. I value the relationships that have been built here, in contrast to the environment on TGP.
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The are a number of examples of unpleasant discussions of this site that seem to go on forever. Yet, here is some info that might warn people about entering into a bad purchase.
The people at TME are horrible and don't stand behind the products they sell.
I don't understand why we care if the conversation escalates. It happens all the time.
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Escalation just poisons the water and creates bad blood between people that isn't helpful or necessary. It happens in the threads that veer into politics, too. I'm also mindful of the old adage that "there are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth."
For many years, I was a participant in the wild wild West that was Usenet, particularly the old rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz newsgroup. It ended up being destroyed and poisoned by a few individuals, one of whom openly and deliberately joined the group to do exactly that. As Robert Hunter pointed out about online discussions elsewhere, "we got to see what untrammeled democracy looks like: the ascendancy of the shrill and the exodus of the thoughtful."
There is enough of that in the world, I feel no need to replicate it here.
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I really dislike the nasty discussion about politics, culture and the like...but this is different.
We all spend good money on musical instruments. Hopefully we have a choice about who we want to do business with. Who can we count on when things go wrong.
Businesses always display their best side. It seems useful to allow some people's experience with the business to be discussed.
Like all the other threads with stupid arguments, you don't have to continue reading.
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I dealt with them for many years. I always had a great experience with them and they were always knowledgeable, courteous fair with their dealings with selling to or buying from me. Their stock was always in professional shape so I was surprised to hear so many people chiming in that they had bad experiences.
But anything I'd done was face to face with the staff in real time. I never dealt with them online so I can only give one side of the story.
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I have dealt with them in person and made several purchases.
I remember them in Porter Sq. Cambridge...
I have enjoyed the instruments I have purchase, but dealing with the staff is different. Because I have been around so long, I have a whole collection of stories of insulting comments, micro-agressions and slightly shady behavior...don't get me started...
Check out the Yelp reviews; all over the place.
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I have got my two cents in...everybody should get my feelings on the matter, so enough said.
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I have to disagree a little. I remember the old days of gigging when a club screwed bands or shorted bands on pay. Ever been there? You had no recourse. The cops will side with the thief I mean club management and say you need to take it to court, so you can eat it and leave, or get a trespassing charge. Unless you were Rock Bottom (well known Tampa guy) who would take a hammer to the beer taps of places like that. The beauty of the internet is that now you have recourse: the offending club gets put on blast to two hundred area musicians and the many live music fans in the area with the press of a button and your club is no longer going to have access to premium bands, as well as risking loss of clientele. If your club prided itself on live music you are now in a bad way.
Originally Posted by Cunamara
The internet is your hammer and the clubs online image and reputation can be the beer tap. A kinder, gentler world where rights can be wronged by people who make "mistakes in business" without the band having to go cutting off some bar fly's beer supply to get it done like Rock Bottom would.
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I never do business with them. This is from experience. I’ll leave it at that.
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Well, OK, point taken. The "escalation" I was thinking of is the tendency for these discussions to spiral into personal attacks and losing solid grounding in fact. Accountability and holding people to doing the right thing is a different discussion.
I've never done business with TME and am surprised by the wide variety of experiences being reported here. It wouldn't surprise me with a large company like Guitar Center, for example, but with a small business (relatively speaking) like this it's pretty astonishing.
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i’ve brought a number of extraordinary builders to tme, including michael stevens, scott lentz, gene baker, ron thorn, scott heatley, thomas rodriguez, damian probett, ben liggett and more. i strongly suggested that they bring fender onboard, as i’ve been a fender artist since 2019 and the company is making the finest guitars in the history of the company, right now.
eliot has done a great job of building up the electric side of the tme range. i have a great relationship w/ him. he sold my max les paul for me in 2 days, for $30,000, cash.
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