Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[hippietim]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

As much as this blows and as moody as Lee supposedly is (he's always been coordial to me) - this is very much the sort of customer service you get just about anywhere for anything. Sure, we can all name exceptions but generally speaking I dread having to deal with any customer service situation of any kind.

[paddok]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[ QUOTE ]

Maybe the pointy head is the key to the problems with this guitar? That's no consolation to Vic, but maybe GMW aren't set up to make pointy heads, so they outsource - still doesn't defend the hack job that this guitar has been from the start though.....

[/ QUOTE ]
I have a pointy headed GMW. Problem free. I don't think that should be what caused the issues with Vic's. I'm pretty baffled myself.

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

So who does Lee farm his inlay work out to? Hopefully not the same folks who're currently working on a guitar that'll be headed up here soon.

[Shawn]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[quote
I wrote to Lee and he responded like the warm fuzzy guy he is, told me to get lost, that the guitar "did get a new board".


[/ QUOTE ]



Now THAT is the Lee I know and love. My feelings are well known, and I have a good friend that got a total piece of crap from him. A $2000 piece of crap. Lee's answer? "Too bad."

I have owned a couple from him in the past that were great guitars. You can make the best guitars in the world, but when one comes out that is a turd, you better fix it.

I have friends here that I respect that tell me all the time"Wow, he is great to me". or "Well, thats Lee, depends on his mood."

FUCK THAT. If I am calling you to send you multiple thousands of dollars, you better listen,pay attention, and answer my questions...

Bottom line, there are way too many better options out there. Buyer beware.


Shawn

[paddok]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[ QUOTE ]
So who does Lee farm his inlay work out to? Hopefully not the same folks who're currently working on a guitar that'll be headed up here soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure the fancy stuff is done by that guy Ron Thorn. I'm not sure who does dots though.

[monte]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

Did you contact Lee again? Maybe you should and explain what you found to be the cause of the frets being messed up and also let him know that it is now costing you additional money to fix it.

Maybe he will work something out with you.

Just a thought.

[VinceV]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[ QUOTE ]
So who does Lee farm his inlay work out to? Hopefully not the same folks who're currently working on a guitar that'll be headed up here soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding was that it was/is Ron Thorn. Thats how Thorn gets to make those super tasty guitars, from the money his inlay work brings in.

On a side note. Lee has always been nice to me, but the reasons for going to him, no longer seem to be there. Mostly everyone wanted Charvel/Strathead style guitars. well now that you can get those, what purpose does his shop serve anymore? His deliverary times are ridiculuos. If you want something refinished, good luck. It's gonna be cheaper and quicker to just get a CS Charvel, that Dan will end up painting anyways.

[fett]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

This is a PR disaster for him. Do you think we will get him or a spokesperson to respond on this site? God knows, you guys have put his titties through the wringer. And you guys are customers!!!!! [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] Now that this is out in the open, you would think he would defend himself. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[surfdork]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure the fancy stuff is done by that guy Ron Thorn. I'm not sure who does dots though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoever does the dots does not know the first thing about charvel spacing. At least they didn't when I had a Charvel SD pointy neck reboarded there. I have photographic evidence to support this.

[btx109]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

Thorn used to do the inlays for GMW but hasn't for quite some time. Lee is working with someone new who uses a CNC for inlay work, to cut down on the wait time and costs for custom inlay stuff.

It's ironic to read this thread because for whatever reason I've been thinking of emailing Vic/Genebaby for a while to follow up on if he received his guitar and if everything worked out. We exchanged a few messages back then when his issues first surfaced.

I can only imagine how sick to your stomach you must feel, Vic, after ordering your guitar and having these issues.

From my own experiences with Lee/GMW, something about this doesn't sound right. I'm in the camp that believes a fretboard veneer doesn't make any practical sense whatsoever, just from a playability POV. If you're gonna plane the board, you might as well just install a new fretboard...the fretboard is only so thick, and the frets have to be seated securely in the wood to guarantee intonation...it just doesn't sound like a professional solution to the issue presented.

I won't speak for him but I can pretty much guarantee that Lee won't deal with this issue at all after being called out publicly. That is the worst thing you could do to try and motivate him to address any situation.

[sully]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

i hear ya on the public outcrying, but vic did hold off on it originally when the problem arose and lee wasn't too into doing much about it.

sully

[Genebaby]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

Just to answer some common thoughts quickly, I did send Lee the pictures and asked him to explain. He ignored the shocking workmanship and even defended it.

In a nutshell, he defended the work done, said "the neck is fine and I stand by my work. A new board was installed, hence the small gaps. They have zero effect on playability of the neck, which of course you will never believe"

He said he will be deleting all further communications from me.

How he can defend a badly veneerd, and he calls is a "board", of maple on top of even the existing fret slots is beyond me. It is the most shoddy execution of an idea I've seen on a brand new guitar. You wouldn't even do it to a guitar someone brought in to get fixed, unless you told them beforehand it would suck big time and they still agreed. To do it to my new, custom guitar is beyond bad, and his attitude towards what has happened is a joke.

I apologize for the intro to my first post, I was mildly cranky yesterday. If I was a car, I think I would have overheated and seized the engine. The enormity of what GMW had done to my guitar hit home, I was ropeable.

[Twisteramps]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

Wow.

Pete

[Genebaby]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

[ QUOTE ]
Thorn used to do the inlays for GMW but hasn't for quite some time. Lee is working with someone new who uses a CNC for inlay work, to cut down on the wait time and costs for custom inlay stuff.

It's ironic to read this thread because for whatever reason I've been thinking of emailing Vic/Genebaby for a while to follow up on if he received his guitar and if everything worked out. We exchanged a few messages back then when his issues first surfaced.

I can only imagine how sick to your stomach you must feel, Vic, after ordering your guitar and having these issues.

From my own experiences with Lee/GMW, something about this doesn't sound right. I'm in the camp that believes a fretboard veneer doesn't make any practical sense whatsoever, just from a playability POV. If you're gonna plane the board, you might as well just install a new fretboard...the fretboard is only so thick, and the frets have to be seated securely in the wood to guarantee intonation...it just doesn't sound like a professional solution to the issue presented.

I won't speak for him but I can pretty much guarantee that Lee won't deal with this issue at all after being called out publicly. That is the worst thing you could do to try and motivate him to address any situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Believe you me, I could have filled every thread of someone getting a new GMW with anti-Lee propoganda, but I didn't, I'd told my story, got some support, got some not-support and quietly went on my to fixing what everybody thought was fixed.

I had planned to just show everyone the guitar with the new fretboard installed, playing great for the first time, still wondering why I had the worst playing GMW in history. Removing the fretboard changed all that, I now know I was 100% correct in deciding to replace the board as a proper fix, I did not expect to find what I did, it blew me away, but explained a lot.

[Inazone]

Re: Lee Garver is an unethical piece of *&#%$@

If this was in fact an outsourced job, then it's one more reason to do business only with shops/techs/luthiers who do their own work...whenever that is an option, anyway. My very first experience with a Jackson repair (non-warranty) went sour when a "fix" for a dead spot on a fretboard rendered my guitar unplayable past the 14th fret. The shop I took it to "outsourced" their guitar repairs to a guy I never met or talked to, who clearly didn't have the faintest idea what he was doing. Luckily, Jackson put me in touch with a local tech who has done nearly all of my setups, repairs and mods for the past 7-8 years.

I've had two guitars refinished at GMW, one just a repaint and one a graphic, and both turn-around time and quality were fantastic. However, when I asked Lee about custom inlays, he suggested that I take it to someone local, which I did. If I *was* having inlay work done "by GMW" then I'd damned well expect it to be done by Lee.

I have no complaints about GMW, but it makes me wonder how many other small shops are outsourcing work to someone else and still demanding prices based on their personal reputation...not some for-hire third party.