ComplaintsforHeid Music

• Initial Complaint

  03/22/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Was not told prior to having 5.5 hours work done on my guitar but the owner of Heid Music charged me $70.00 per hour for a total bill of just over $400.00 with tax. Discussing the size of the bill with him he said the $70 per hour I was charged reflected the $12,000.00 he was required to invest in equipment to have his new guitar luthier work for him. Personally I never heard of anything like this and it seems ludicrous. Why? Because no one does this. Every business owner at different times needs to invest money like this but does not abruptly pass this on to a customer to make up his money fast! He charged me $385.00 for 5.5 hours of work from his luthier named "****" out of his ********* ********* store on ************* when owner ***************** had an ad recently online to hire a guitar luthier for just under $25 per hour. ***************** owes me $385.00 minus $137.50 which equals $247.50 in addition to the extra tax I paid. Will be waiting for your reply. I do have the receipt also which shows the $70 per hour rate and the 5.5 hours worked. The receipt is dated December 13, 2022. I'm having a problem attaching the receipt to this online form but am happy to send it via email, all I would need is your email address. Thank you, will be waiting.Sincerely, ***************************

  Business response

  04/17/2023

  Ciiff called Heid Music concerned about the total cost of his repair and wanted to speak to the owner.  Apparently he wasn't aware of the amount of time or the cost of the work that needed to be done.  I personally called ***** and explained to him that ****'s a very skilled luthier and the hourly rate is $70.00 per hour.  This is a very fair labor rate and what we charge for all of our repair services in our company.  **************** and Guitar work are all charged at $70.00 per hour no matter what the level of instrument or nature of the repair.  Time spend is charged the same for everything we work on.  This hourly rate for skilled labor is right in line with all of our competitors and music retail stores across the country.  We/I never mentioned that we had to charge this rate because we had to cover the expense of setting up a luthier as he mentions.  We were having a conversation and I mentioned the investment in tools we recently made to get **** started with the shop that was it.  ***** was completely fine with the $ he was charged for this work and we ended our conversation in a positive way.  I asked him if he was happy with the work and he said yes.  This claim mentions that he saw an add for a luthier position at our company for $24.00 per hour and this apparently has rattled his cage thinking he was over charged.  First we have never placed an add for a guitar luthier position and we have never posted a help wanted as with an hourly rate.  These claims are false and really have nothing to do with our shop rate.  I don't see any relevance to his claim of asking for the difference of the $70.00 an hour labor rate over what we apparently pay our employees to preform this work.  How can any business invoice the same rate verse what they pay there employees?  This is business 101 and I don't have the time to educate ***** as to what goes into that.  We wants me to convince the BBB about what Profit is all about because he apparently doesn't think there should be any mark up for labor.  He forgot to mention that our Luthier spend additional time calling the company he ordered the part from that was necessary for us to complete the work.  We also responded to multiple emails from ***** among with other research done to do the work successfully.  This additional time was not factored into his total invoice as most other companies would've charged for that time spent.  There is a lot that goes into running a business and it's really unfortunate that someone like this doesn't respect what we do everyday to help musicians.  Our company has been doing this for 75 years and never have I been challenged about something so silly!    We repair thousands of instruments every year and this is a first. 

  Please call if there is anything else I can do or say to make this go away. 

  *****************

  Customer response

  04/18/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

  Despite what ***************** says, I was not happy on December 13, 2022 after he received my $408.29 for 5.5 hours of work he and his guitar luthier in ********* ** charged me. Simply put I wanted to get my $4,000.00 guitar back into my hands as quickly as possible and not leave it there any longer as it had already been there for 2 months. So ********************* claim that "all this time went into the guitar" is simply rhetoric. The fact is, his ********* luthier let me know he would "get  to my guitar off and on while working on other projects" as he and I waited for parts to come in, like the part I paid for from ******* that cost me $229.00 in addition to his ********* luthiers work. Five and one-half hours was put into my guitar from ********************* luthier in ********* and no more than 5.5 hours. That's the fact. Even automobile mechanics are honest as far as their hourly rates go as they 'work between projects' and as ***************** references himself in his response, his luthier does not earn $150 per hour.

  Moreover BBB, ***************** and his luthier shipped my guitar out to a third party called Island Music in ****** ********* to see if that luthier could fix my guitar. He couldn't fix it but nonetheless I paid that luthier the cost for new parts totalling $54.00 and that ******* also spent time 'between projects' to get my guitar fixed but as it turned out he couldn't. I had no problem paying him for parts. I understood that. They were brand new and I got those parts back in my possession. 

  AsTodd **** said, his luthier in ********* does not earn $150 per hour. But the fact is, his luthier in ******* ********* does not earn $70 per hour either, or did not when I brought my many guitars to his luthier in ******* ********* over the past 3 years. The hourly rate per hour for ********************* ******* luthier in ******* ********* was more like the link below which says $24 per hour on the high end. This is the hourly rate I paid the Heid Music ******* luthier every time he fixed my many guitars and over the past 3 years. When this luthier moved to another department with **** late in 2022 I thought it was okay to work with the Heid Music luthier in ********* ********* because I had great work done by ****** ******* luthier over the past 3+ years. That luthier an verify everything I am saying. 

  The fact remains I was charged something totally different than previous work done and at ****** ********* location and this is what makes zero sense to me. Why the difference from one town to another just 50 miles up the road?

  I don't care what ***************** says. I was overcharged by $255.00.

  The bill from the ********* location is attached. 

  **********************************************************************************************************
  

  
  Regards,
  
  ***************************

  Customer response

  04/19/2023

  There has been zero resolution. As far as I'm concerned he still owes me over 200 dollars for overcharging me. I forwarded you his email to me, said I thought his claim that him saying basically he could charge me anything he wants under the sun and for any reason was not a good reason to charge me 70 dollars an hour nd no nothing's been resolved. You've read his 2 messages to me so what do you think? Do his reasons make sense to you. If so let me know. ********

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩