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Found this on the Nile site, forgive me if it's old news:
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The following is the tragic story of Tommie Hex, his guitar company, and the shameless ripoff of scores of Metal guitarists . For those who do not know , Tommie Hex ( aka Thomas Bradley) runs a 'company' called Hex Custom Guitars
.
There are , at this moment , a large number of Tommies customers who paid upfront to have custom guitars built, have never received them , any refund, or even any real news about Tommies actual and truthful whereabouts. ( vague emails claiming " The guitars are built , I am shipping them tommorrow" DO NOT COUNT) People with first hand knoledge of Tommies exploits in Austin Texas have
come forward IN LARGE numbers , with reports of Tommies drug abuse, the fraudulent business practices he used to rip off clients , and the pawning of many of their guitars which had been used for trade-ins. Apparantly, Tommie purposefully targeted younger Metal guitarists , who were seeking to have custom guitars built - his basic M.O. was to quote them an attractively low price , ( usually in
the $850 to $2000 range ) with the stipulation that 50 % of the quoted price would be required to begin an order on a Custom Hex
Guitar.
Tommie was also willing to accept trade-ins of guitars as a partial down payment. Once a client sent in their guitars or money , that was usually the last anyone ever saw or heard of either their Guitars, Money, or Tommie Hex. For a long time, up to a year for some people-Tommie had been able to hold off these clients with the repeated excuses, " It takes time to complete a custom guitar , please be patient " but inevitably , all any of these customers could do was wait, wait and wait. Many were told that their guitars were ready to ship , but there were UPS problems . Finally with the recent disappearances of Tommie Hex, and the public "coming out" of some of his former colleagues ( Whom Tommie probably owes money as well) many of these customers had become extremely agitated at being ripped off by Tommie Hex. There is currently a collective effort by many of these people to seek legal action Against Tommie Hexx. Tommies exploits were not confined solely to young guitarists - he has also ripped off members of Deicide,the Misfits, Averse Sefira, Vital Remains, Nile, as well as several respected members of the legitimate guitar building community. It is my hope that by coming forward publicly , we can alert any potential future victims of Tommie Hexx , to AVOID doing ANY business with him, and ESPECIALLY not to send him any money.
When Tommie first approached me , ( at a Nile show - Feb 03 Trocadero, Philly) he was delivering a bass to Dark Tranquility.
He asked if he could show me his work , and come backstage and have a talk. I had been interested in finding someone who would build a double neck V that I had been interested in - Tommie seemed like areally nice likeable guy , who loved Metal and guitars
and seemed to be a genuine fan of my band. His bass was interesting , exotic shape , nice wood - but the bolt-on neck joint was nightmarishly frankenstein . He made an unbelievable offer to me- If I would become an "Hex endorser" , he would build my doubleneck for free. My first response was wait a minute Tommie , how can you charge me NOTHING? Surely just the costs of parts and materials for a doubleneck, is considerable - even if you are willing to donate your time and labour for free, don't you still have out -of-pocket expense that will be considerable? Wouldn't it be more real to charge me at least for materials and parts ? But he insisted that his offer be completely "free", except if I wanted the roland synth kit installed, I could send him one. He seemed so down to earth and sincere, that I couldn't help but think to myself, that if this guy really wants to work with me that much, what kind of asshole would I have to be to say no? Besides, it wasn't gonna hurt me to help out some struggling independent guy: especially when the folks at Jackson wanted $8,000 for the Dble neck I wanted ( this was before I hooked up with the nice guys at Jackson Fender )
and that was twice what I could afford. And, I reasoned if this was a neck -thru design, then Tommie's clumsy neck joints would not be so much of an issue ... ( or so I naively thought, anyway) Over the next two months or so, Tommie spent hours with me on the phone, working out the details of the guitar - and talking about guitars, metal, life, his shop, The Brotherhood of Wood, and his love and respect for Neal Moser - (which now I know where Tommie got his design ideas from)
The next event in this saga , was when Tommie needed money to move from Philly - and he called me and asked me if I would buy a bolt-on Guitar from him. Well, OK, -- sure Tommie, how much do you need? He says $250. I go, "How can you build me a bolt-on for $250 ? He says, I got all the parts laying around here , and the hardware, he could whip it right out with no out-of-pocket expense.
Well, OK . So I sent him by the Relaspe Records office in Philadelphia, THAT SAME DAY to pick up a check - and my guitar would be ready in a couple weeks, since it was to be a simple natural wood finish. And, then, a few weeks later, he says my guitar is finished - he was ready to ship it - and Since mid April or so, he has been jerking me off every time I ask him about my guitars - if they are finished, why can't he just ship them? and where's my double neck? I called the graphic artist who was supposedly working on the finish - Jon Zig - who tells me that Tommie never gave him ANY guitar to be painted. So here it is September, and I have heard so many lies from Tommie, and been called so many four letter words by him over the phone, even threatened by him with him beating my ass for being an "impatient corporate rock star asshole" that I could care less about the small amount of money
$250 plus the Roland Synth kit - $275 = what $525 ??) I have just been ****ed with and lied to WAY beyond limits of sane human
relations, and my name used to help rip off kids - who have saved their hard earned cash to afford their dream guitars.
I might be a grown man , and have a working band ,and able to afford my instruments nowadays, but I have not forgotten what it was like when I was younger, and had to mow lawns, sling cheeseburgers, and bag groceries for a year to save up my hard earned nickels and dimes for an old beat up Les Paul - (and a dimarzio pickup to stick in it...) So I know how these kids feel - One of these people Tommie abused - had traded his only guitar to Tommie , AND sent Tommie a considerable four figure amount of his parents money - is story was so heartbreaking , that I offered to sell him one of my Deans - really, really cheap and let him pick it up when Nile plays in Seattle. So there ya go. The Tommie Hex story.
Moral of the story ,
DO NOT BUY A GUITAR FROM TOMMIE HEX.
Here's a like to a discussion page on the matter :
http://brokenhope.proboards22.com/index.cgi
.
There are , at this moment , a large number of Tommies customers who paid upfront to have custom guitars built, have never received them , any refund, or even any real news about Tommies actual and truthful whereabouts. ( vague emails claiming " The guitars are built , I am shipping them tommorrow" DO NOT COUNT) People with first hand knoledge of Tommies exploits in Austin Texas have
come forward IN LARGE numbers , with reports of Tommies drug abuse, the fraudulent business practices he used to rip off clients , and the pawning of many of their guitars which had been used for trade-ins. Apparantly, Tommie purposefully targeted younger Metal guitarists , who were seeking to have custom guitars built - his basic M.O. was to quote them an attractively low price , ( usually in
the $850 to $2000 range ) with the stipulation that 50 % of the quoted price would be required to begin an order on a Custom Hex
Guitar.
Tommie was also willing to accept trade-ins of guitars as a partial down payment. Once a client sent in their guitars or money , that was usually the last anyone ever saw or heard of either their Guitars, Money, or Tommie Hex. For a long time, up to a year for some people-Tommie had been able to hold off these clients with the repeated excuses, " It takes time to complete a custom guitar , please be patient " but inevitably , all any of these customers could do was wait, wait and wait. Many were told that their guitars were ready to ship , but there were UPS problems . Finally with the recent disappearances of Tommie Hex, and the public "coming out" of some of his former colleagues ( Whom Tommie probably owes money as well) many of these customers had become extremely agitated at being ripped off by Tommie Hex. There is currently a collective effort by many of these people to seek legal action Against Tommie Hexx. Tommies exploits were not confined solely to young guitarists - he has also ripped off members of Deicide,the Misfits, Averse Sefira, Vital Remains, Nile, as well as several respected members of the legitimate guitar building community. It is my hope that by coming forward publicly , we can alert any potential future victims of Tommie Hexx , to AVOID doing ANY business with him, and ESPECIALLY not to send him any money.
When Tommie first approached me , ( at a Nile show - Feb 03 Trocadero, Philly) he was delivering a bass to Dark Tranquility.
He asked if he could show me his work , and come backstage and have a talk. I had been interested in finding someone who would build a double neck V that I had been interested in - Tommie seemed like areally nice likeable guy , who loved Metal and guitars
and seemed to be a genuine fan of my band. His bass was interesting , exotic shape , nice wood - but the bolt-on neck joint was nightmarishly frankenstein . He made an unbelievable offer to me- If I would become an "Hex endorser" , he would build my doubleneck for free. My first response was wait a minute Tommie , how can you charge me NOTHING? Surely just the costs of parts and materials for a doubleneck, is considerable - even if you are willing to donate your time and labour for free, don't you still have out -of-pocket expense that will be considerable? Wouldn't it be more real to charge me at least for materials and parts ? But he insisted that his offer be completely "free", except if I wanted the roland synth kit installed, I could send him one. He seemed so down to earth and sincere, that I couldn't help but think to myself, that if this guy really wants to work with me that much, what kind of asshole would I have to be to say no? Besides, it wasn't gonna hurt me to help out some struggling independent guy: especially when the folks at Jackson wanted $8,000 for the Dble neck I wanted ( this was before I hooked up with the nice guys at Jackson Fender )
and that was twice what I could afford. And, I reasoned if this was a neck -thru design, then Tommie's clumsy neck joints would not be so much of an issue ... ( or so I naively thought, anyway) Over the next two months or so, Tommie spent hours with me on the phone, working out the details of the guitar - and talking about guitars, metal, life, his shop, The Brotherhood of Wood, and his love and respect for Neal Moser - (which now I know where Tommie got his design ideas from)
The next event in this saga , was when Tommie needed money to move from Philly - and he called me and asked me if I would buy a bolt-on Guitar from him. Well, OK, -- sure Tommie, how much do you need? He says $250. I go, "How can you build me a bolt-on for $250 ? He says, I got all the parts laying around here , and the hardware, he could whip it right out with no out-of-pocket expense.
Well, OK . So I sent him by the Relaspe Records office in Philadelphia, THAT SAME DAY to pick up a check - and my guitar would be ready in a couple weeks, since it was to be a simple natural wood finish. And, then, a few weeks later, he says my guitar is finished - he was ready to ship it - and Since mid April or so, he has been jerking me off every time I ask him about my guitars - if they are finished, why can't he just ship them? and where's my double neck? I called the graphic artist who was supposedly working on the finish - Jon Zig - who tells me that Tommie never gave him ANY guitar to be painted. So here it is September, and I have heard so many lies from Tommie, and been called so many four letter words by him over the phone, even threatened by him with him beating my ass for being an "impatient corporate rock star asshole" that I could care less about the small amount of money
$250 plus the Roland Synth kit - $275 = what $525 ??) I have just been ****ed with and lied to WAY beyond limits of sane human
relations, and my name used to help rip off kids - who have saved their hard earned cash to afford their dream guitars.
I might be a grown man , and have a working band ,and able to afford my instruments nowadays, but I have not forgotten what it was like when I was younger, and had to mow lawns, sling cheeseburgers, and bag groceries for a year to save up my hard earned nickels and dimes for an old beat up Les Paul - (and a dimarzio pickup to stick in it...) So I know how these kids feel - One of these people Tommie abused - had traded his only guitar to Tommie , AND sent Tommie a considerable four figure amount of his parents money - is story was so heartbreaking , that I offered to sell him one of my Deans - really, really cheap and let him pick it up when Nile plays in Seattle. So there ya go. The Tommie Hex story.
Moral of the story ,
DO NOT BUY A GUITAR FROM TOMMIE HEX.
Here's a like to a discussion page on the matter :
http://brokenhope.proboards22.com/index.cgi
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