Robert M. Sides Family Music Center — Attraction in Ferguson Township

Two stars is being a bit generous here. Essentially my complaint is that the management apparently doesn't bother to train the staff how to give accurate answers about the store's no return policy. You don't verbally tell customers that items are returnable and then when they try to return those items the next day point to the bottom of the receipt and say, "oh sorry, we can't accept that back, didn't you read the fine print on the bottom of your receipt?" Instead of owning their failure and miscommunication, the staff today refused to accept the return, but grudgingly agreed to an exchange. The employee who made the sale yesterday was a young female with a nose ring; the employee ID on the original receipt is IDZXHUMOHR. The employee who was so rude today has arm tattoos, ID KXSTITZE. I have bought a musical instrument at this place, as well as plenty of piano music, but you can be absolutely certain that we will NEVER shop here again. The prices are better on Amazon, and what you buy on Amazon is 100% returnable with no sales clerk drama. Shopping at this local music store was really just a matter of convenience, but obviously it was more of an inconvenience. I would give the place one star except that they did eventually agree to hey partial exchange. Not the way to keep customers...

I am a clarinetist, however I have recently picked up a new instrument and went to this store to see if they had any supplies. I show up in the typical farm boy attire I wear to work, proceed to look at the clarinets, and then get asked if I need anything in as few words as possible. I ask if they have anything for my new instrument, and I get "no" and that's technically the end of our interaction. No "let me see if there's something at another store," no help, nothing. No, the store wasn't busy in any sense of the word. I have never had anyone turn their nose up at me like this at any Robert M Sides before. I understand it's a "cultured college town," but my overalls do not make me dumb, unskilled or uneducated. I've been shopping at Sides for decades, but I will now be driving to Williamsport for my needs. Thank you, ma'am, for the disgust on your face the moment you looked at me. They're not dirty. They're not falling apart....

Decent selection of stuff but do not trust these people to fix your instruments. Specifically guitars and basses. They have no clue how to set either up. They will strip your hardware and charge you. They put bass strings that were entirely too short for my extra long scale bass and still charged me, despite the lowest strings being completely unplayable. They shipped my friends guitar out and returned it to him even more unplayable than when he originally gave it to them. Charged him 150 for set up and new hardware, still returned with hardware stripped to death.

Stick to classical instruments guys.

This has been a problem since I was 17...