Guitar Center — Attraction in Stafford

Worst customer service on earth! First of all, I signed up for a 24 month no interest credit card through them. All good. Bought an awesome amp, had it break down on me.

I took it back into guitar center to have it checked by an employee who told me the behavior was probably just normal from the tubes. I was just having clean channel noise at the time.

Over time this got way worse to the point I knew there was a problem and the distortion channels were not holding up either. I took it back in again and the employee didn't check the amp or want to hear about the problems it had really. He did want me to call Pro Coverage until his supervisor said it would be good for him to call them. During the wait time for that he explained to me how he hated his job. Probably not entirely his fault. I get that.

He told me how they are supposed to ship the amp out to the repair center for me but that they were here in town so I could just drive it by. I work 9-6 regular hours that businesses are open. I can not take off work because you sold me a product that lasted less than a month.

So, he got me the number of the place to take my amp here in Houston and the name and address of the place. After that he discovered that my account said I was signed up for 6 month financing and that the employee who signed me up pressed the wrong button and signed me up for a financing plan I didn't plan on paying for and now I had to call Capital One.

I called Capital One and I wasn't signed up for 6 month financing on the price of the amp thank goodness but just the price of the Pro Coverage which I would easily pay with my regular required payments. Even though I never agreed for that one purchase to be some special finance deal because I had the credit line for it. Anyhow,..

Now the repair service they got me the number for is not picking up at all even though their website is still up. I sent them e-mails and they all came back as undeliverable. So, I just called Guitar Center and let them know that I needed to get them to ship the amp for me because we already called Pro Coverage they already got me the wrong number and they said that Pro Coverage would be able to get me a shipping label.

Pro Coverage should be able to give YOU a shipping label. Anyhow, you've screwed up the sale, screwed up the sale support, are unwilling to do what you can about the technical support and financial support issues. You have put 2 peoples credit on the line through bad Customer Service and then shirked off any responsibility or desire to help all of this brought to you by bad...

Absolutely terrible service; employees are frequently rude and will laugh in your face rather than help you with inquiries. The guitars on display are not being properly kept, and are in terrible condition- the strings on many of the guitars have rusted and some of the guitars were missing strings when I went to check them out. (Not to mention that these are the guitars that they will box and send people when ordered online?)

On top of this, when I called ahead to schedule a rehearsal room for my friend's band, they claimed that I could pay $15 up-front to rent out a room for an hour. (We live pretty far away from any recording studios and we had to drive almost an hour to get to Stafford, so we called a week in advance.) When we arrived, a heavy-set hispanic employee with glasses insulted us and changed the price to $36, and refused to assist us with any equipment. (We had gone many times with the Guitar Center in Memorial (195 Yale St Suite 200, Houston, TX 77007) and received excellent service, including being able to rent out a rehearsal room up-front for a low price and being allowed to borrow much-needed recording equipment from the store- not an outlandish request, mind you, considering they have all their equipment on display. In Memorial the employees were helpful and down-to-earth people who were willing to assist and answer questions.) When I asked the employee about the difference in service in Memorial (and called him out on his terrible service), he told us, verbatim: "If you don't know how to work your own stinking equipment, you shouldn't have any business asking us for a recording room. They shouldn't be lending you idi- (he stopped himself before further insulting us) people, equipment anyways, so I'm going to have to report what you just said to their management. Sorry. Not sorry." His co-worker at the front desk laughed and the manager was completely indifferent to our complaints.

When we got into the studio, the drum set was missing a kick-pedal and several of the microphones did not work, so even if we did know how to "use their equipment", we were missing several important pieces of the set and were told we would have to pay an extra fee to rent out the missing...

Don't buy used drums online. REPEAT: Don't buy used drums online. I'm in OKC area. Was looking for a used Tama Superstar kit with certain features. After looking around on the internet for a month or two I found one I liked. 4 piece Tama. Was listed as 8,10,14 and 22. What it actually is: 10,12,16, 22. Which is fine. Add also showed it came with all three floor tom legs (go figure) and it only came with 2. Add showed it coming with a double tom stand. It did not. Most awful packaging job I've ever seen (see photos). Even my UPS guy was surprised by the amount of damage on the OUTSIDE of the box. When I told him it was a drumset he was flabbergasted by the crappy shipping/packaging. I think he took as many pictures as I did. Upon opening the box. The batter side of the bass drum had only 2 lugs finger tight holding it on. I was not in fact "held on". It was cockeyed on the drum and had gashes in the hoop. They took the heads off the drums to "nest" ship the kit to save money. But they didn't provide anywhere near the amount of packaging that's required to ship this way. Tension rods and lugs were in plastic guitar center bags tied in knots. So at least I got all the lugs and tension rods. Minus some of the washers. This is a black nickel kit by the way. Not easy to replace parts. Can't use standard chrome. The resonant side of the bass drum was resting directly on the cardboard box. On this side the bass drum hoop was broken clean through. Yes, I understand I bought a USED drum set. USED does not have the same definition as BROKEN. Will guitar center stand up and make this right ? That remains to be seen.

C'MON man, really ?

UPDATE: July 2025 Received a partial refund and kept the drums. Still wouldn't recommend buying anything used from this store and having it shipped. Still VERY displeased. Skip GC, and shop at Sweetwater. At Sweetwater, most everything ships for free, packaged EXTREMELY well, and comes with candy. Here's the kicker, with Sweetwater they check in with you to make sure you're happy with your purchase. GC has NEVER done...