Avoid Abes of Maine - rip off

[HTnewbie]

Avoid Abes of Maine-rip off (update w tentative retraction)

I am in the market for a Yamaha RX-V2500 receiver. Shopped around and decided to go with Abes of Maine. Not the lowest price but a dealer whose name I know has been around for a couple of decades. So I placed the order by calling them direct rather than online. I asked the salesman two questions that were deal killers. Is this a new item in a sealed box? Will there be a USA warranty card inside? A yes to both and I went foward.

The box arrived tonight after just a couple of days It was double boxed and I suspected I had a problem when I opened the outer box and saw the Yamaha box. Edge tape already cut, other tape holding box closed, packing staples nowhere to be seen. I took it out of the box and noted that a portion of the external skin of the Yamaha box had been cut away - about the size of a shipping label. Realizing I was in trouble I got out the digital camera and started documenting what I was sure was a dispute.

Turning the box over revealed not only that all four packing staples were gone but also indicated stuff was sliding around inside the box. Now I was sure I was dealing with a pre-sold item. I called Abes but it was after working hours. I decided to open the box and the fun really began.

All of the preformed packing styrofoam was cracked. All of the plastic bags holding the manuals and accessories had been opened. More photos.

The foam wrap surrounding the unit had been resealed with Scotch vanishing tape - the type you use to wrap gift boxes. It was torn where the original factory tape had been pulled off. More photos.

Peeling off the wrap first showed scratches on the side of the case which was nothing compared to the dent on the pack side edge of the case. Not a corner dent but one where the receiver had to have been dropped while out of the packaging. The dent was so bad that it had destroyed the digitial audio input jacks. More photos.

Now that I realized that his was not only a returned item but a badly misused item, I was really peaved. Adding insult to injury was noting that the protective film that covers the front display face had been removed - and dog hair was sticking to the plastic due to static electricity. Yes, dog hair. More photos.

I have reboxed the item and will call Abes tomorrow demanding a full refund. I will not be paying the 5% restocking fee that they neglected to tell me about on the phone but put on the back of the invoice. I will also not be paying for return shipping as they also suggest. I have called American Express and put the full charge on dispute.

I will let you know how this resolves itself. I might even be tempted to post the photos (dent & dog hair) if asked.

Your mileage may vary but I suggesting thinking long and hard before sending Abes any of your hard earned Abes.

 

[JeffreyDJ]

Great information. I DID NOT order my rxv2500 from them, though I did consider them briefly. I'd love to see the pictures, and hear what they had to say after you contact them. It can't be legal to sell used/damagaed merchandise and market it as new.

 

[HTnewbie]

A picture is worth.....

Jeff - Here you go.

 

[sjdgpt]

Before any body goes off the deep end, may I offer a bit of advice?

It may have been the intention of the vendor to sell you an "A" quality unit, and some underpaid, overworked highschool dropout working in the warehouse grabbed the wrong box.

Mistakes do happen.

I don't work for the vendor, I could careless about the vendor, but I would hate for somebody to start jumping up and down on a soapbox about my business before I had a chance to correct the problem.

So, take a deep breath. Call the vendor in the morning. And if a satisfactory agreement can not be reached, THEN get on your soapbox and bash to your heart's desire.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

I agree with the last post. Call Abe's and ask for a manager. Tell him what happened, and see if he'll ship a new one out minus all return shipping and get you a discount for the inconvenience of, say 5%, or throw in some cables. I bought a Denon 3805 "B" remanufactured through Denon and Ubid.com (saved $400), and it was boxed new, wrapped new, and stamped "B". Other than the "B" on the box, you couldn't tell is was a remanufactured unit. That was not a "B" unit, it looked like a "hot" unit. Too bad, especially for an expensive receiver like that. I have a feeling they'll take care of you, because if they don't, you will call the state's attorney general and file a complaint immediately!

 

[HTnewbie]

Thanks for the thoughts but...

Guys, thank you for the suggestions but I am not totally thoughtless. I work in a service business where reputation is everything so I am quite sensitive. I have lived and worked in or near NYC for the past 22 years so I have a great deal of experience dealing with NYC and Brooklyn based shops. What few realize is that many of the splashiest adds in the back of photo and computer magazines are nothing better than storefronts. With the exception of B&H and JandR, I transact with these companies with a certain amount of trepedation. Yeah, I should probably pay MSRP from an authorized dealer if I want true comfort but money does not grow on trees. That said, I have had dozens of successful and happy transactions with storefront and online retailers and something like this has never happend.

So, before I ascended my soapbox, I Googled up some others' experiences with Abes of Maine. I have provided links below to some of the many disgruntled comments out there. In fairness, Abes gets relatively benign ratings from Bizrate and even positive reviews from Pricegrabber. However, the range of positive/negative reviews were wide enough that I felt that my situation was not an isolated incident. There is clearly a pattern of some questionable behaviour at Abes which makes the "honest mistake" a lesser possibility. It was only then that I posted this.

I will post tomorrow when I have more to report and I will happily retract everything if there is a satisfactory response and outcome.

Epinions

Resellerratings

Fatwallet

Shopping.com

 

[Rob Babcock]

Best of luck to you. I guess now you'll really see what kind of company they are- how a company handles problems means more to me than whether or not the product was perfect. That's a pretty rough looking peice to resell even as B-stock or refurb, IMO.

Do keep us posted.

 

[JeffreyDJ]

Amazing it was shipped like that. And yes, in fairness it was probably not their intention to ship an obviously abused and reused product. However, keep us posted, because the outcome will depend on how high up that soapbox you should get.

Keep us updated!

 

[HTnewbie]

Tentative retraction

Fair & Balanced time: I am stepping off the soap box for the moment. Just got off the phone with Abes customer service (15 min hold time however). I took a non-confrontational tone and asked if there had been some sort of mistake, blah, blah. Thought it woudl be a better tact than my jumping down his throat from the start (yes, I can be reasonable).

Anyway, the guy was very cordial. Asked some questions to confirm this was not a shipping damage issue (the presence of dog hair convinced him). He said he will arrange for UPS to pick up the damaged unit tomorrow and that he will send out a new unit today. He called me "sir" several times (clearly does not know me ) and apologized for the inconvenience.

As a natural skeptic, I will believe this when it all comes about. Yes, I hope I am surprised and it all works out as promised. I must say that I find his promise to send out a new one prior to his knowing the old one is in route back to be interesting. Most cross shipped returns at least waiting until they have a UPS confirmation of pickup. Maybe I am being paranoid.

I will post updates as they occur. For now consider me shocked and surprised.

I will hold off on the "I told you sos" until we have a happy resolution (including no additional charges to my Amex).

 

[timw]

Good luck HT. I hope it all turns out OK for you. I recently purchased a Denon 3805 and was almost going to go the 'online' route to save money but decided to hit the stores for best price around my area(Northern NJ). Luckily there are plenty of auth dealers in a small square mile radius here. I'm sure I still paid a bit more but it saved me from my worst fear....what you're going thru!
Thx for sharing your experience. I feel for you...these receivers are expensive items and you expect to be treated right when you hand over your hard earned money to these businesses.
Best of luck!
Tim

 

[bri1270]

I typically don't purchase electronics online, however, I did buy my Pioneer Elite VSX-54tx from ElegantAudioVideo.com based on a referral from a member of this forum. They were about $200.00 less than my local Tweeter would sell it for which was $800.00 and Elegant will also cover the manufacturers warranty (they use an authorized repair house) for the whole period. They will also cover shipping on defects within 30 days. So they will ship a new one and pay for the defect to be sent back. Having read all of this on their site and having gotten a referral from someone on Audioholics, I decided to give them a call. The salesman was a little "pushy" but all in all it was a good experience. I received a double boxed, originally packaged, and sealed, Pioneer Reciever in three days. The only thing added was a notice to contact Elegant directly should there be a problem. The item was brand new, as far as I could tell. So all in all it was a decent expereince, but I'm still not all that trustworthy. I would do business with them again, but I would definitely be cautious no matter what place I'm dealing with.

Having said that, where do these guys get the equipment that allows them to sell it for so much less than an "authorized ealer?"

 

[HTnewbie]

The problem is that Yamaha is one of those companies that will not honor their manu warranty if the product is purchased at a unauthorized dealer, like Abes. Etronics was very forecoming about that when I was talking to them before going with Abes. I had read that elsewhere so I was not shocked but still wanted to insist on getting a USA warranty which Abes did promise (it was in the box). While that might only be worth the paper it's printed on, better that than a totally unusable global warranty. Abes said that they would handle repairs during the standard warranty period....

 

[20to20K]

Here's what I heard...

Having said that, where do these guys get the equipment that allows them to sell it for so much less than an "authorized ealer?"

From what I understand here is how it works.

A big audio shop like say Tweeter for example needs 5000 Denon 3805's for their warehouse. Denon will sell them 5000 of them for $700 per unit...but would also sell them 10000 for $625 per unit. Even though Tweeter only needs 5000 they will buy the 10000 to get a cheaper price then turnaround and sell the extra 5000 they don't need to etailers and smaller shops for, say $650 each (500 units here, 250 unit there, etc) just to get their money back.

Tweeter is happy because it got it's 5000 units at the 10000 unit price, the etailer is happy because they got a much better deal as well. Tweeter sells theirs for $1199, but because the etailer doesn't have the enormous overhead that Tweeter does (fancy showroom, new trucks, huge warehouse, perky well dressed salesmen, etc) they can make a handsome profit selling for $899.

However since all those units are not registered to those dealers, this will void the warranty.

I've heard a couple variations of this basic theme...

 

[NetGeek]

What about Yamaha's extended Warranty?

I bought my RX-V1500 from an unauthorized E-tailer but was able to register it on Yamaha’s Website and had the chance to get an optional 3, 4, or 5 year extended warranty. Will they honor this extended warranty even though you did not buy it from an authorized reseller?

 

[20to20K]

I bought my RX-V1500 from an unauthorized E-tailer but was able to register it on Yamaha’s Website and had the chance to get an optional 3, 4, or 5 year extended warranty. Will they honor this extended warranty even though you did not buy it from an authorized reseller?

THAT my friend is the $64,000 question (In some cases almost literally!)
There is nothing that could have stopped you from registering online
(unless there was a question that asked: "Did you buy your unit from an authorized retailer" and you answered "No").

When you registered the product did they ask you where you purchased the unit? If they did...and you answered it may flag somewhere else down the line and you when you go to claim warrantee work the issue may come up then...hopefully not.

Unfortunetely there is no way of know for sure until you are put in that situation...that's when things could get dicey. But who knows...maybe you'll be fine. I've heard it go both ways...Good luck!

I guess you could call up Yamaha just to enquire whether your online registration was accepted...say your computer was acting kind of funny and you wasn't sure the last step of the registration completed and have them look it up and ask if it looks ok to you. If they say yes, get their name and operator number if they have one and write it down and put it with your warrantee info!

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

HT,

I can vouch for J and R, I've bought from them several times. They are an excellent outfit with good prices. I've found them to be very low on digital camera memory and Harman Kardon receivers. Shipping is quick and many times free. Hopefully Abes will act like J and R and take good care of you.

 

[HTnewbie]

Update #2

I just rec'd a call from the Abes guy. He wanted to confirm that the package was indeed double boxed (yes). He asked if the outer box showed damage (no). Sound like he is trying to make a UPS claim for the damage, even if the dent is on a portion that is protected by the pre-formed styrofoam. That's his perogative but I don't think it helps explain open bags, scratches or dog hair.

Anyway, he indicated the UPS will pick up the damaged unit tomorrow and that he is shipping a new one. I asked and he confirmed that the replacement will be a new unit, factory sealed, intact staples, etc. "Yes it will sir".

So far so good. Thinking about putting the soap box away but waiting.....

 

[JeffreyDJ]

I ordered my RX-V2500 from eTronics. Came double-boxed, and fully intact. They were upfront about the warranty issue, and said they would cover it for the manufacturers period. I also bought the Philips Extended warranty, and I verified with Philips that they will also cover from Day one.

Admittidly, I was a little concerned I would have some of the same issues as mentioned here, but my transaction went off without a hitch.

 

[HTnewbie]

BTW, 20to20k, thanks for the insight on how this all works. I have often wondered how these guys get their stock without buying stuff off the back of trucks.

As for the warrenty being honored, assuming you register online, do you need to supply proof-of-purchase when you make a warranty claim? Would that be the point where they trip you up?

Lastly, anyone have any experience with the Mack company that offers extended warranty service through guys like Abes. Three years was $79 which is longer than that Yamaha warranty and less than the cost differential of a authorized dealer. As long as they will be around and do the work, does this make sense? Or is there so much fine print....

Maybe that quesiton should be a separate post?

 

[JeffreyDJ]

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8141

That has some good info regarding the last question.

FYI. My Philips *5* year warranty was $79, and they send a delivery company to pick it up to overnight to them, and overnight it back to you once repaired. Also, if a local center is available to repair, you can take it in.

MACK seemed a bit more expensive, didn't cover shipping to them, and didn't offer local repair at all. I wasn't all that sold on MACK myself, which is why I didn't order from one of the companies that only offered MACK.