You might associate receipt checks at the door with electronics stores like Best Buy and warehouse stores like Costco, but one notorious door-checking offender is big-box music store Guitar Center. At least, as one reader reports to Consumerist, until now. [More]
guitar center
Chat Transcript Reveals That Guitar Center Coupon May Be More Flexible Than It Appears
By 3.29.13
Yesterday, we told you about the Guitar Center “Easter Savings Event” that somehow managed to exclude more than 300 brands from the sale, indicating that virtually nothing in the store would actually be included in the promotion. But further investigation by Consumerist readers found some cracks in the fine print. [More]
This Guitar Center Coupon Is Great, Unless You Actually Want To Buy Anything
By 3.28.13
Guitar Center is having an “Easter Savings Event” offering up to $150 off purchases of $750 or more. Which might sound like a good deal to anyone looking to buy a new instrument or some gear, except for the fact that the deal excludes just about everything in the store. [More]
Guitar Center Fixes Mistake, Apologizes And Offers A $50 Credit
By 12.5.11
In a world of disgruntled customers and unhelpful sales associates, hearing a consumer’s story of a bad experience turned good makes our insides all warm and melty. Akshat wrote in to tell us of a recent interaction with Guitar Center that started off on the wrong foot before ending happily. [More]
Guitar Center Customer Loses Fight With Elmo
By 9.28.10
Who would punch Elmo in the back of the head? A disgruntled customer at a Guitar Center in Florida, that’s who. The Elmo performer was working a gig at a toy store next door, then wandered over to Guitar Center. That’s when a customer came in, played some drums, behaved aggressively toward other customers and staff, then punched Elmo. [More]
Guitar Center Solves Receipt Check Dilemma: Give Receipts At The Door
By 2.21.10
Tommy reports that he visited a Guitar Center store in Houston, and found what seems like a nice compromise between receipt checking and not receipt checking. Instead of giving out receipts at the cash register, the store gives customers their receipts at the exit, as they leave the store with their merchandise. Since it’s hard to put a Stratocaster in a plastic bag. [More]
Musician's Friend Responds To Guitar Center Shipping Mix-Up
By 2.13.09
Bob Weibel at Musician’s Friend contacted us only a few hours after we posted Mitch’s story of the used guitar shipping screw up. He writes, “This kind of thing simply can’t happen, ever. We’ve tracked down Mitch’s order information and have been attempting to reach him on the phone to make things right.”
Guitar Center Ships Broken Guitar From Another Store's Inventory, Says Too Bad, Now It's Yours
By 2.12.09
Did you know Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend, and “a few other online music retailers” all share the same centralized distribution center? That’s the explanation a Musician’s Friend CSR gave Mitch when he tried to solve the mystery of the dented, twisted-neck, not-even-from-the-right-store Fender Telecaster. It looks like Guitar Center shipped him another company’s returned item. That’s bad enough, but now Guitar Center says they won’t make good on his order because it’s beyond the 30 day return period. Hey, Guitar Center: What return period? Mitch never got the product he ordered in the first place.
Update: Musician’s Friend has responded with an apology.
Guitar Center Corrects Prices On iPods, Gives Refunds Plus $10 Gift Cards
By 9.12.08
We received an email from Guitar Center’s Chief Marketing Officer this afternoon letting us know that the $100 markup on their iPods was a pricing mistake, and that they’re automatically refunding the difference to anyone who bought at the wrong price as well as giving them $10 gift cards.
Guitar Center Adds $100 Premium To iPods
By 9.11.08
Update: Guitar Center has fixed the pricing error and offered refunds.
Quick, get out your throw-away cash and head to Guitar Center! Their website sells the iPod Classic and both sizes of the iPod Touch for $100 more than what you’ll find pretty much everywhere else. (We guess there’s extra rock-n-roll in them.) You know what makes us crazy? We bet people still buy them.
Buying A "Black Friday" Guitar From Guitar Center's Website Is Extremely Difficult
By 11.28.07
I have a story to share about an ongoing problem I’m having with Guitar Center’s 20% off Black Friday sale. The sale was last Friday morning from 8am-10am. I woke up a little before 7am Friday, and had NO desire to go out at all. So I looked online and realized I could get the sale price on the Gibson SG I wanted (and free shipping) online. Perfect! Below is a brief rundown of what has happened so far (they still have not let me buy the guitar at the sale price):
Guitar Center Sucks
By 6.19.06
Our lil sister going into the 6th grade wants to be a mix-master. We decide to help her out, and entered a month-long battle with Guitar Center.
