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Looper's Delight
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On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Tom Spaulding wrote: > Hello- > > My name is Tom Spaulding and I am the Product Manager for Oberheim. Hello, Tom, and thank you for taking the time and initiative to reach out to some of your users here. > I welcome all > comments and suggestions about the Oberheim of the future, but please > refrain from flaming me about past experience with us unless you still > have an unresolved situation, in which case you will get an immediate > response. My current situation is in fact quite unresolved, but I shall refrain from flaming nonetheless. The timeline of my dealings with Oberheim are as follows: On Wednesday, July 23, I sent my Oberheim Echoplex into the Oakland center for repair (under the Return Authorization # 44727), along with a check for $35 dollars (since my unit is not under warranty), as per the instructions sent to me by then-Oberheim employee Dean Fouts. (I was also told that this $35 would be used towards my final repair bill). Dean informed me that there would be a roughly four-week turnaround rate, though he advised that this would vary depending upon the amount of work currently being performed. On Friday, August 6, I sent Dean e-mail asking for any further information on the status of my Echoplex. On Monday, August 18, having still recieved no reply from Mr. Fouts to my previous message on the 6, I sent another e-mail to him asking once more for any information he could provide. On Wednesday, August 20th, I recieved an e-mail from Dean apologizing for the delay, and stating that he had just submitted a query regarding the status of my unit's repair. On Friday, August 29th, having resorted to phoning Mr. Fouts at the Nashville office, I recieved a phone message from Dean stating that the repair would be completed shortly. I sent e-mail to him that night (the 29th) asking for details regarding the apparently soon-to-be-completed repair, including how much the final repair bill would come to, where this payment would have to be sent, and what the cause (and fix) of the problem was. On Tuesday, September 2, Dean sent me back mail saying that my account was now being handled by Pat Murphy, as Mr. Fouts no longer worked for Oberheim. Also on Tuesday, September 2, Pat Murphy e-mailed me to say that $45 would take care of the repair bill; he also provided an address to send the check to, which I did. On Monday, September 8th, Pat sent me another e-mail confirming receipt of the check. There was a considerable "cascade" of previous letters below his latest message, including one from Pat which was directed to a "Mike" (presumably Mike Lyon); in this letter Pat metioned to Mike that, according to an earlier e-mail from Mike to Pat, my echoplex was to have been ready some time that week. Approximately one week later, on Tuesday, September 16th, I recieved (via Looper's Delight) news from Ed Drake than the Oakland office had been closed and everything was being shipped to Nashville. Not yet having recieved my Echoplex, I was not inspired by this report. The same day (Tuesday the 16th) I e-mailed Pat Murphy asking for an update on my Echoplex. On Friday, September 19th, having recieved no reply from Pat to my previous query for information, I called him at the Nashville office (the number having been provided not by him or anyone at Oberheim, but rather by the membership of this list). Pat asked what the last word had been when he had gotten back to me; I told him that he had not in fact "gotten back to me," as I had not recieved a response from him with regards to my last question. He wondered aloud if he had even recieved the e-mail I had sent him; after searching through his computer he finally found my letter. He remarked that he had thought he'd gotten back to me; after checking, he confirmed my report that he had not. He confirmed the now widespread news of the Oakland-Gibson transit, which I pointed out had not been brought to my attention by anyone at Gibson. He told me that there was a repair team standing by once the move was completed, and that my repair job was in fact at the very top of the list. I then asked him why it was that I had sent a check in to him, on his instructions, to cover repair costs when there had in fact been no repair work yet done, and consequently no way to accurately gauge how much labor would have to be done (and, consequently, how much it might cost). He said that all of their information had come from Mike Lyon in California. I then pointed out that I had been informed (again, by Pat) that my unit was to have been ready earlier this week. Pat's only explanation was that Mike Lyon must have been lying. I then asked to be informed of any further developments, which he promised would be provided. This conversation, on Friday, September 19th, was the last contact I had with Oberheim; as of today, Thursday, October 2, I have heard nothing more from anyone at Gibson. I have, however, heard several more things regarding Oberheim and Gibson via Loopers Delight, not the least of which is that Mike Lyon apparently did not know about the Oakland-Gibson transit until the day it happened. My hope is that the aforementioned predicament is attributable more to communication errors than to gross negligence (though based upon similar reposrts I have heard from other Oberheim customers, I must conclude that a certain amount of the latter is involved). My reality at present is as follows: I was informed of an approximately four-week repair time for my unit. At present, I have waited over twice that long, have had consistent trouble communicating with multiple employees of Oberheim, and have sent in two cashiers checks totaling $80 (plus an additional charge of $12 to me, on account of Gibson requiring Cashier's checks rather than personal checks), and I don't even have confirmation that repair on my unit has EVEN BEGUN. With regards to my present situation, I would of course appreciate any information which is presently available regarding the repair of my Echoplex. With regards to your solicitation for suggestions regarding the future operation of Oberheim, I would simply point out the irony of the fact that I sent my unit to a location approximately six hours away from me, where it sat for approximately two months (whether or not it was worked on at all is unknown to me, and apparently to many of the customer service represetatives at Oberheim) before being shipped halfway across the nation. If the repair work had taken place during a timetable even TWICE as long as the one I was originally quoted, I would not have found myself caught in the middle of Oberheim's housecleaning procedure. It also ocurs to me that, had Mike Lyon known about the impending move some time earlier than the actual day that the move began, there might have been some possibility of this confusion being avoided or at least alleviated. I don't know how much of Lyon's ignorance regarding the move had to do with his own state of mind and how much of it had to do with the heads of Gibson not informing him, but what I do know is that at least one customer has found himself getting shafted as a result of company politics, via circumstances he had nothing to do with and had to find out about through third party sources. The fact that you are coming to the list to offer assistance is a good sign, and I certainly do not hold you personally responsible for the specific problems I have encountered with the three aforementioned invididuals. I look forward to any light you can shed on a solution to my situation, as well as to any reasons why the present situation even exists. --Andre LaFosse altruist@music.calarts.edu (818) 893-2144