Sweetwater — Local services in Fort Wayne

Less than 5 minutes is all it took.

I was a customer with Sweetwater for years. I kept them in mind first when it came to purchases and recommended them to my friends and family. We've collectively spent thousands here over the years. However, while I've never had a particularly helpful interactions with my Sales Engineer in the past, I had one yesterday that's turned me off to Sweetwater completely.

The Sales Engineer (who I won't name, as I don't want to harm his career) was prompt and professional with verbiage and the usual sales prompts. I brought up an inquiry about pricing for a specific software Sweetwater had on sale and wanted to see if they'd match (or come close to) a price that was previously listed by two other sellers (including the manufacturer). Rather than discussing it, potentially offering a different deal, or even explaining why they couldn't/wouldn't do it, I was just told that he can't budge on the price (or something to that extent) and that's all.

Since this was for a DAW I did not require (I already have a primary one), an easy sell would have been to point out a good deal on a lower version of the product and recommend upgrading through the manufacturer during a Black Friday sale. This would have meant Sweetwater gets $215 of my money. Or, if they had adjusted the price a bit, they could have had $314. Or, if they kept their sale price of $359 and made some sort of offer on a discount for some other software or hardware, they could have made $359+. Instead, I was told they can't budge on the price, was asked "can I help you with anything else?" and he was promptly finished with me.

Rather than probing, offering, or discussing anything, the whole call was me being polite and upfront explaining what I needed, what I was looking for, and my inquiry. Essentially I got a polite "No, anything else?" in a call that ended in less than 5 minutes.

I can't understand why you wouldn't even try to bother with me. Maybe this is small change for the rep and he has "bigger fish to fry" because, this time, my purchase wasn't huge. I find it disrespectful that my and my family's past purchases weren't taken into account and now I'm just being dumped off without someone even trying to take my money.

It seems to me that $0 and losing a customer (or customers, as my family wasn't happy to hear about this interaction) would be worse than gaining $215, $314, or $359+, but what do I know? I'm just the customer. Well, I was.

EDIT: I made a $500 purchase at JRR Shop today that I otherwise would have made at Sweetwater. That's $859 so far that you could have made if you had...

I had the distinct displeasure of dealing with Lydia Larson, whose handling of what should have been a routine order has left me thoroughly disappointed.

Despite completing checkout in full and receiving confirmation that my item had shipped, and receiving an invoice from Lydia showing that the order was fully paid, I was later issued an invoice demanding payment—as if the original transaction had never occurred. When I reached out to Lydia for clarification (screenshot attached), her response was both abrupt and unhelpful: “We received the item back. Let me know if I can help.” No context, no explanation, no apology. It was, frankly, one of the most dismissive customer service responses I’ve encountered, which is why I spent time, that I don't have, to write this review today.

After I pushed back—reminding Lydia that I had, in fact, paid for the item, that she herself had issued the invoice, and that I would not be signing for any package under the threat of being charged twice (UPS was attempting delivery and requiring a signature, which I missed the first day)—she replied with the claim that she had left me multiple “messages” and that there had been an “error on PayPal’s end with the funds.” This is categorically false. I received a single phone call while I was traveling for work and unable to answer, and we had already established communication via email. Not a single proactive email was ever sent to me. The entire burden of communication and follow-up fell squarely on me, the customer, in what should have been a straightforward transaction.

Due to the sheer amount of time being wasted on this basic transaction, I delegated the matter to one of my employees, who contacted PayPal directly. Unsurprisingly, PayPal confirmed there was no error on their end. The actual issue? Sweetwater failed to authorize the transaction within their valid window—an entirely internal failure, now conveniently reframed as someone else’s fault.

I take issue not only with the mishandling of this order but also with the refusal to accept accountability and the conspicuous absence of an apology. Even after we asked whether the item was being shipped or would arrive this week, Lydia’s response was simply to direct us to repurchase the item online. A second time.

This entire experience has been exhausting and unnecessary. I’ve long valued Sweetwater as a go-to supplier for backordered and specialty gear, and we spend copious amounts of money on equipment annually that we could easily refactor to Sweetwater. But after this incident, I’ll be keeping this company at arm’s length...

Sweetwater was recommended by my son's school to rent insturments and I will most certainly be letting the school know to find another option to refer to families. Sweetwater is a scam, and cares nothing about music, kids, customer service, or their reputation. Sweetwater took 2 weeks to ship us a cello, and it arrived severely damaged due to poor packing and shipping care. Mistakes happen, and if the instrument that was shipped to us was handled or packaged with any sort of protection I wouldn' be so upset. However, the way to cello that was sent to us was packed in a soft case, and able to bounce around in a big box. I'm not sure what the company expected, but if you wanted a cello destroyed in transit you would send it the way Sweetwater did to us. When we called our contact person they claimed to feel bad and promised a new instrument to be shipped out with expedited 2 day shipping. When Friday came around and we hadn't received any updates I called. The gentleman I spoke to had no information other than he guaranteed me the replacement cello had been shipped. The problem is, it hadn't, and we recieved a FedEx update about an hour after my phone call that a shipping label had just been created. Sweetwater failed us at every aspect of customer service. They charged us rent for the month of September but failed to provide a working cello, they had no regard for an expenisve instrument, letting a $1,000 cello be destroyed in transit due to poor care and packaging, they lied about expediting a replacement cello, and lied again saying it had shipped when it hadn't. My son has had to sit in an orchestra class with no instrument, we've been charged for a month of rental for a cello that doesn't exist to us, and we've been repeatedly lied to by Sweetwater's customerer service team. We've had to resort to ordering an inexpensive cello off Amazon to insure my son has an instrument to bring to his orchestra class. Ordering an inexpensive cello off Amazon was never an option I would have considered until the horrendous customer service from Sweetwater left my family with no other option. My son was failed by Sweetwater, and as a parent and customer, I will never do business with this company, and will make sure no other family I know makes the same mistake we made by giving Sweetwater any business. This company is a disgrace for taking advantage of families who are just trying to enrich their children by encouraging them to experience the...