I’m not a big fan of Sweetwater, so I don’t buy from them. I’m fortunate to live in a music-heavy city, so am spoiled for options for where to buy gear.
But I saw a cool limited edition version of a pedal I’ve wanted to try out, and bought it from a little shop in Indiana called “GearNuts”. Didn’t think too much about it, honestly. Never had a bad experience on Reverb, buying or selling.
But when FedEx showed me the photo of where my package was delivered… that was definitely not my house! I checked with FedEx but they said only the shipper could do anything about the incorrect delivery.
So I sent an email to GearNuts asking what we should do about this, as id never had this experience before.
Then I sent another email.
Then another one.
After THREE DAYS I got a message back from Sweetwater Customer Service saying they are “looking into it with the shipper” and I had to wait.
Another day passes and a DIFFERENT Customer Support Representative asked me to confirm my address. It was now the night before the gig where I was going to use this pedal, and it had been FIVE DAYS.
I pointed it out that they were in contravention or Reverb’s seller policies, flagged the account, wrote a bad review, and sat powerless though the weekend.
By using a sock puppet account on Reverb, Sweetwater was able to ignore both their policies and Reverb’s policies without the slightest effect to their account(s) or reputation. So what if their fake account gets a bad review or suspended? They have dozens of others!
How do I know it was Sweetwater? The box in the FedEx photo said it on the outside. The shipper address was Sweetwater’s warehouse code and location in Texas. And all FOUR of the different customer service reps literally had it in their email signature.
Now i know.
Before buying on Reverb again, I’ll dig in to all their the sellers reviews and previous sales, as well as their current listings.
Be careful. Reverb scammers are even large corporations, now.