Hello,
My name is Grant and I would like to do all that is within my power to discourage you from buying from AV123.
Let me preface this by saying that I do own quite a bit of AV123 gear. However, I would like to discourage you all from owning it yourselves and the following is why.
A sale was made by Mark Scifter on 09-08-08 for a pair of Reference 3's and a Reference 100. This sale was for a friend of Mark's (though the money went directly to Mark Schifter)
That sale can be viewed here:
http://av123forum.com/showthread.php?t=36413&highlight=friend
(As an aside from anyone from AV123 who might remove this thread I already have a screen shot of it so please do not waste your time)
In that thread the items were guaranteed to be shipped
WITHIN TWO WEEKS.
To this day nothing has been shipped.
To this day Mark Schifter is now impossible to get in touch with. Neither Ryan (the friend who purchased the speakers that I recommended to AV123), nor I after I was involved, have heard from Mark for months.
I spoke to Jess in sales as well as Kyle in customer support and they both asked for a week to deal with the problem (Kyle has actually asked for multiple weeks).
They both said they could also not get in touch with Mark Schifter and that they were hoping Suzanne Johnson, who is apparently running the company in Mark's absence, so she could deal with this issue.
After many days of trying and leaving voicemails, which surprise surprise were not returned, I finally got through to Suzanne today and she told me several things:
1: She would not refund Ryan's money only Mark could do that
2: She said she could refund the money but she had "stock holders" to think about and so she couldn't do anything
3: She said Mark no longer has his cell phone and was not returning emails or calls
4: She said she would email Mark (good luck) and he might get back to me and he might not
She was informed, as was Kyle Mark and Jess, that Ryan was effectively robbed and that I would give them plenty of time to rectify it and if they chose not to then I would do my best to spread the word on their business practices before others are also screwed.
I hope I do not offend any moderators or anyone else by making this post. I would hope everyone would realize that I am simply
TELLING THE TRUTH about a company that completely robbed a friend of mine.
I feel it is my duty to tell others the experience that we have gone through to insure that they do not go down the same path.
Furthermore, I think it speaks volumes about an internet only company that no longer allows anyone to post on their forums due to the heat that they have come under in the past year because of not meeting goals, not delivering products, or delivering defective products.
It speaks tremendous volumes when a company who exists, flourishes, or withers due to word of mouth via the internet when they would rather be ridiculed publicly rather than refund a customer that was stiffed by their
PRESIDENT AND CEO.
I'm not trying to start a fight or a flame war. I'm just giving fair warning to others here before they are also robbed.
Sincerely,
JGC
