In November I purchased a used KoAloha Red Label Tenor from a fellow UU member. The origin was outside of the U.S. and even though I had reservations, I engaged in a pretty lengthy dialogue with the seller before finalizing the purchase. The instrument was described as being in 99% new condition. I didn’t expect perfection, but I expected the instrument to be in good playing condition. Once the payment cleared on Paypal, seller agreed to send the package fully insured. That is where the first problems began. The seller decided on their own that insuring the instrument was too expensive, so they did not insure it. The problem with this option was that the carrier did not offer any tracking service for uninsured packages, not to mention if something happened to the instrument on the long journey from China to the US, there would be no recourse with the Carrier. So, I waited . . . and waited . . . . and waited . . . . . and then one day (4 weeks later) it arrived. I was obviously excited and opened it up for inspection and a bit of strumming. Aesthetically it was fine, with no major blemishes found. But as I looked at the neck and bridge I noticed that the saddle had been shimmed all the way down to where the strings were actually sitting directly on the bridge. This was a big concern for me since there was no break angle at all behind the saddle. When I check out a new instrument one of the first things I do is play single notes up the neck on the A string to check the intonation. By the time I got to the 5th fret it was already out of tune. At the octave it was painfully off. Upon further inspection it was easy to see that the top had extreme bellying and there was no way to address the intonation problem with the saddle already having been shimmed down to nothing. So, I contacted the seller and initiated a dialogue about my concerns. The seller claimed to be shocked and couldn’t believe the extreme terms I was using, such as unplayable and painfully out of tune. They tried to convince me that my expectations were not realistic. Having used paypal was starting to look like a wise decision. The seller had tried to convince me to use family and friends, but being overseas I insisted on doing it with paypal protection. On a whim I decided to call KoAloha and see if they thought it was something they might be able to fix. I spoke with Griz and pretty quickly he agreed with my conclusion that there was a problem. Then a magical thing happened. He said “The warranty on Red Label instruments follows the instrument and not the original owner” I am not exaggerating when I say I was shocked (in a good way) to hear this. So, he instructed me where to send the instrument. Once he received the instrument he concluded it was unrepairable and offered to build a brand new one. To this day, I am amazed that KoAloha did this for me. Even more amazing, is the fact that my case is not an isolated one. I have read on UU threads of at least two other members who had entirely new instruments built for them when their instrument encountered serious problems. I cannot thank them enough or say enough good things about the customer service I received from KoAloha and Griz in particular!
Here are a few photos and a sound sample of the newly built instrument:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8f0f2xaqk92g00q/KoAloha Red Label sample.mp3?dl=0
Here are a few photos and a sound sample of the newly built instrument:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8f0f2xaqk92g00q/KoAloha Red Label sample.mp3?dl=0