Musician's Friend

They are my go to place for all my odds and ends like cable, pickups, or adapters. I have bought from stomp boxes, bulk guitar picks, to various strings through them. I have never been disappointed in any way, and have never had to use customer service, because everything is on time and correct when delivered. This is very important to me, because I live at the edge of a wilderness area, and "at the end of the road". The nearest place to buy any musical gear or parts is over 200 miles away, that`s one way... So delivery to my door is very important.

I found a case that was described and pictured as an original Gibson j-45 hardshell case. I paid 119.99 for it. Free shipping. I received a totally different case for an electric guitar. I called customer service for the return, and they said they didn't have the case I needed, and that if I wanted to be refunded and return what they sent, I had to pay for shipping! Are you kidding me? It should not even fall under the "return" category. It's only their fault, and in addition to the huge waste of time I have to pay for shipping it back?!?! The only thing I could get from their awful customer service is store credit to have them pay for shipping.

If it's sounds too good to be true... Unfortunately, I fell for one of their "Black Friday" deals for a ukulele. Great deal, price knocked down, was going to be a Christmas present for my daughter. Item was then on back-order, would supposedly receive it beginning of January. So I told my daughter she would be getting a late present. Well, today I called to check on it, and they told me the order had been cancelled "by the system". They are no longer on good terms with the ukulele manufacturer and there are no ukulele's (BTW--this was an expensive acoustic electric model). They never once thought to notify me--although they said they did---it was a flat out lie. I kept every single email from that company including all their sale and promotion emails--and there was no email from them with a cancellation. I asked if they could help me out, flat out "no!" Unbelievable. So now I am left with nothing. Going to deal with the credit card company now...

After screwing up my Christmas present (the only one my son was getting) and shipping HALF of a desk, they then told me the only way I was going to get the desk now was to send them back their screw up, pay more money to get another desk shipped that would get there well after Christmas, and then some day they would refund my money for the original purchase.

After I shipped them their junk, they refunded part of my payment and then proceeded to ignore my emails. I had to open a case against them via PayPal to get my money back. I promised that if I didn't get this resolved, I would spread their name on every review site I could find, so here you go. This organization is a joke and should be avoided at all costs.

I bought an Explorer style case from musicians friend it was poorly packaged and had some damage on it that I was willing to overlook for a decent price reduction but the best thing they would do is 10 bucks so now I'm paying for essentially a used item thats damaged, and payed damn near full price... so I going to leave them a bad review... they absolutely refuse to do anything else and the only way you can get them to answer your emails is to insult them so they're basically losers go somewhere else save your time energy and money... I could have got a used Explorer style case for 50 bucks

I purchased a PRS SE custom semi-hollow from MF. After arriving, I noticed the stoptail bridge was damaged. I sent it back to exchange. Second one arrived; also damaged, but less severe. I sent it back to exchange again. Third one arrived; damaged again, but I'm deciding to keep since I'm tired of going back and forth. My advice for customers: if you want a brand new item, look elsewhere. My advice for guitar companies: be wary of working with MF; they are selling your guitars as new, though clearly have damage, which is a reflection (though a poor one) of your craftsmanship.

Sold me a 2017 Les Paul custom axcess, Portland Orange, 1 of 25 made as new for $4599. 00 guitar had massive amounts of wear on fret board, strap wear both ends, worn finish on back leg rest contour, finish on horn worn through to paint. Scratches on back and front of guitar, missing switch cap with miss-matched color replacement just left in case. Then they claim they have no idea how this sort of thing could hve happened and drag their feet on the the return of my money. Excuse of working through a mass backlog of returns. How does anyone let a high end custom out the door in this condition by accident? They don't, bottom line it is attempted fraud. My advice to anyone in similar situation. FBI IC3 site, your states attorney general office (NAAG.ORG) and the federal trade commission. They are committing interstate fraud on a regular basis as you can see in many cases on this site and all should be reported as I have.

"I ordered a new Fender Special Edition Stratocaster HSS Electric Guitar from their website advertised as brand new. After going thru some kind of buyer confirmation process after they had already deducted the purchase price from my bank account, I received the guitar in about a week but it was not brand new. It was either an out of box store display or a customer return. It was covered with fingerprints and the plastic film that protects the pick guard was all nicked up from someone playing it. Hair line scratch on the body and a visible repair where a chip in the lacquer finish was touched and buffed. The Humbucker Pickup pole piece screws were stripped and could not adjust string volumes. The neck was about 1/8 inch out of alignment. After one month of moderate playing ,the humbucker stopped working all together .Tell tell signs of pick guard mounting screw wear, which tells me that someone may have swapped the original humbucker for a faulty one. To say the least I am not a happy customer and am considering filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. As dealing with these people directly would be a waste of time since this was an obvious con job. I would not recommend buying anything from this place."

I have spent thousands of dollars ordering from them because over a decade ago they would always give me the best deal I could find... by far! Now they are affiliated with every other music site so you can't haggle, every site just gives you the same deal a different way. Ex- full price plus a case that costs $20, other site says full price with a warranty that costs $20, other site says they will give you $20 dollars off. More of a choose your poison attitude now rather than trying to get you the best deal so they can be the one to make the sell.

Musician's Friend tells you on their website they have a 2 year Musician's Friend warranty on the items they sell, but it's a total lie. I purchased a Warlock from them less than 2 years ago. Today was the first time I changed the strings on it and discovered that the screw that holds the high E string tuner is stripped out. I called Musician's Friend to exercise this 2 year warranty, but they told me that since it was over 45 days since I made the purchase, there was nothing they could do about it other than to give me the phone number to BC Rich.

When I asked them about the two year warranty they advertise on their website, I was told that the 2 year warranty stated on their website is actually a manufacturer's warranty, not a Musician's Friend warranty even though it clearly says on the website that the warranty is a Musician's Friend and not a manufacturer's warranty; moreover, it says on the website for someone to exercise that 2 year warranty they should contact Musician's Friend and not the manufacturer, but when you contact Musician's Friend, they tell you they will give you the manufacturer's phone number so you can contact them about the problem. Basically, the two year warranty you see on their website is nothing more than a lie to get you to buy from them; they do not actually honor that warranty.

I would not recommend anyone buy from Musician's Friend. They are not honest and do not honor their stated warranties. You could pay for a very expensive musical instrument like I did and then be stuck with a piece of garbage; their only answer is to pass the buck to someone else.

I bought a guitar case that ended up not being a great fit for my guitar. I got free shipping and it costs them 10.99 to ship the large box with the guitar case inside it.
I bought another case from them that fits a little better, but shipping the original box back was $65.00. They did give me a $15 - $20 credit off of the new case. So I ended up with one guitar case, and paid $30-$40 terrible customer service tax. Their return policy sucks, so if you're unsure, don't buy from them.

I bought a Dean Flight guitar for my son for Christmas (2015), and the situation has been eating at me, so I feel others should be warned. The guitar comes with a gig bag. It comes with it on ALL websites I can buy it from. Musicians friend, however, decided to only send a guitar and keep my gig bag. So Christmas morning came, and my son opened the box and only received the guitar. I feel I was stolen from since they took my money, but didn't deliver the product. Look elsewhere to buy. I wish I'd have read reviews before shopping with them.