Anyone bought from ukulele24.de? I'm having communication issues...

Has anyone bought from or had any experience with ukulele24.de?
I have ordered a Pono ukulele from there and i am having communication problems with them. I have sent a few emails but with no reply.
He is based in Germany and i'm in the U.K so i'm wondering if theres maybe a language barrier?

If anyone has any information or experience with ukulele24.de any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thankyou in advance.

If you check German Ukulele Club I believe you will find more "issues" with communication. Only a handful of German members here, lots of experience there.

Hi ukerazy.

I have that experience. I sent them two or three emails that didn't get replied. Then, after some time, he wrote me telling he just found my emails on the spam folder.

So... I suggest you to try to contact ukulele24.de by phone.

Hey thankyou for your replies, i have read some of the german forums... unfortunately a little too late.
I have received emails from him last night and he has told me he will ship middle of next week, i have given him a 3 week time limit to get the Ukulele out to me if i have not received it by then i will file a dispute with pay-pal.
I hope i am not going to be one of his many customers that have had to wait over a month for delivery. I received a private message yesterday from someone who has had a bad experience but have also found a few people that have got their Ukes and are happy with his service, for now i am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I would appreciate any other peoples experiences with ukulele24.de to be shared.

Ukerazy.

I have ordered strings from Ukulele24.de a couple of times. The Uke24 excellence strings he gets produced from the Worth company are really great. I have had different experiences.
The first time I ordered it took around 3 months and about 15 emails until I finally got the strings delivered. When they finally did arrive he included another pack of free strings to make up for the long wait.
The second order took about 2 weeks which was ok for me since it was only strings again. Waiting 2 weeks for a uke would be a different subject .

The guy running Ukulele24.de is a lazy bitch but you can bargain with him about the prices quite well and get your uke cheaper than from ukulele.de, you just have to be patient.

Thanks for your reply, i have heard on the German forums of people waiting long times for strings. If it was just a few weeks wait im sure i could manage but i feel it might take longer than this, i have been informed by one of the Ukulele manufacturers that he doesn't get his Ukuleles direct from them he has to get them in from Risa and as Risa don't have the Ukulele i want in stock (If they did i would have ordered from them!) i feel it would be more than a few weeks wait, regardless of him telling me he will ship next week.
I have asked for a refund as i don't wish to do business with someone so negligent and lazy. I just hope he doesn't have me waiting too long for a refund as this time he's chosen the wrong customer to mess around with.

I will keep you updated on the progress with ukulele24,

Ukerazy.

He sounds a bit like a Drop Seller, these are people that advertise as if they have the products in store, but they only get them in when they have an order, or have the order sent from another seller. I looked at the site and some of the Ukuleles had a 1 to 3 month delivery, which seem a bit excessive for the type he is selling. Anyway good luck, hope it all turns out well for you.

Hi there, yes i noticed some long delivery times. The mango Pono i ordered said 7-10 days for delivery. He has actually stopped his only valid contact number ringing in so i think contact with him is going to be increasingly difficult. Im pretty gutted really, saved my money for months and it now looks like im going to have to wait that long again to get it back.

Ukerazy.

ukerazy said:

Hi there, yes i noticed some long delivery times. The mango Pono i ordered said 7-10 days for delivery. He has actually stopped his only valid contact number ringing in so i think contact with him is going to be increasingly difficult. Im pretty gutted really, saved my money for months and it now looks like im going to have to wait that long again to get it back.

Ukerazy.

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Man, that's too bad. I feel for you. Hope you get it all sorted out. Please keep us informed.

Still no reply to my E-mails over the weekend, the phone that was ringing on Thursday is now permenantly set to an answer machine. I have sent him numourus E-mails requesting a refund but nothing returned.
I have also contacted the main European distributor and as they don't have any in for up to 2 weeks this means ukulele24 would not be able to ship to me middle of next week as informed. As the manufacturer told me he would need to get his stock from them.

I hope nobody else has or will order from ukulele24.de anytime in the near future until customer service is sorted out.

I will keep updating with any news,

Ukerazy.

That's well out of order, I hate it when that kind of thing happens, I hope it all turns out OK, if you do get your money back, Mike at Mainland is top notch for customer service, also MGM. I know it will mean another import but these guys seem to be super trusted.
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Update: After many forceful E-mails over the past few days i have just received my refund. I am very pleased, i think this was due to my persistance on the matter. I appreciate the refund but would have appreciated some communication too. Everything i have written has been fact and i am not going to slate ukulele24.de any further, you all can make your own opinions and choices on whether to use them.

Thankyou for all you kind messages, i am going to order my Pono mango next week from Risa the european distributor for Ko'olau.

Ukerazy.

P.S - The best thing that came out of this situation was a message from Seeso... I love him, lol!

Glad to hear you got your refund!

ukerazy said:

P.S - The best thing that came out of this situation was a message from Seeso... I love him, lol!

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Awww..

ukerazy said:

Thankyou for all you kind messages, i am going to order my Pono mango next week from Risa the european distributor for Ko'olau.

Ukerazy.

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Rigk from Risa is a very nice person and you will have no problem with contacting him. I already bought 4 ukuleles from them and a lot of other stuff and never had any serious problems.

My drama with ukulele24.de

Here goes my sad story...

I ordered a ukulele from ukulele24.de, by mail, on April, 29th. I didn't received the proforma invoice to made the payment until May, 6th --and this was after having resent the mail. I payed on that same day.

On May, 14th I wrote him again. At that moment I didn't have have any news about the shipment. Then on May, 21th, I tried again. Finally I got a reply on May 24th asking if I did have received the uke. Still not, but it arrived on May 26th.

But... there was a major defect in my instrument. One of the braces on the back was badly shaped and unglued and had broken the inner ring. I emailed him about this on May 28th asking for a replacement. No reply. I retried on June 5th. No response.

So I mailed the brand owner on June 10th. (Later he told me that he forwarded the message to ukulele24.de). On June 19th I mailed ukulele24.de again. He replied on June 21th, offering me a partial money back if I could get the ukulele repaired, otherwise he would send me a new one.

I checked the instrument with a luthier who recommended me to get a new one, as a repair wouldn't last long. We exchanged mails on June 22th; he told me he would send me a new ukulele.

Then communication stopped. Zero. Nada. He didn't reply to any of the emails I sent after that date.

Fortunately, the brand owner offered me to send me a new uke directly if ukulele24.de didn't act. At this moment it's on its way to my home

Now, that's a happy ending for me --although three months late. But not for the seller reputation.

Note: I've been reluctant to post about this because I didn't want to harm the shop reputation, but now I think it's necessary.

Hi - sorry to hear about your bad experiences.

This isn't really relevant but I ordered a Bruko No.6 uke from the German store Thomann.de a few days ago and the service was absolutely excellent. If they stock the uke you're looking for I'd highly recommend them. I ordered my uke on Tuesday morning and it arrived by DHL courier on Friday afternoon. Shipping to the UK was £10. The packaging was a a bit odd - a massive box with those air-filled bag things inside, and my uke at the bottom in another (unpadded) box. Fortunately the outer cardboard box was very heavy duty and DHL didn't kick it around too much. I actually ordered a gig bag at the same time thinking that they would put the uke in it, but they didn't. On reflection, I think the uke was more secure the way they did it. They don't do paypal but they do take credit cards and bank transfers.

I didn't need any after-sales service, but their website is quite clear (more like shopping at Amazon than anything) and their FAQ section is extensive.

My bruko is absolutely lovely by the way. I think I'll get some brown medium Worths to put on it sometime.

Sorry to hear about the problems with ukulele24.de.

It is a shame their web domain name is so similar to that of ukulele.de AKA Risa, because ukulele.de is a great place to buy from. I hope everyone takes careful note of the problem URL and realises that it is not the same as ukulele.de.

For UK ukers, ordering from Rigk at Risa is a great solution to the lack of UK ukulele dealers. With no disrespect intended to the dealers we do have in the UK, I do not generally find their prices compare favourably to those available at ukulele.de.

Something is wrong...

ukerazy said:

Has anyone bought from or had any experience with ukulele24.de?
I have ordered a Pono ukulele from there and i am having communication problems with them. I have sent a few emails but with no reply.
He is based in Germany and i'm in the U.K so i'm wondering if theres maybe a language barrier?

If anyone has any information or experience with ukulele24.de any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thankyou in advance.

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Hey, I had a problem, too. I ordered uke strings worth EUR 50 in December 2008 and until today I've been waiting for them to be delivered... (The owner of the website wrote that he had sent the strings by snail mail (not insured), but they never arrived at my place and I received no further comments from his part - no answers to my e-mails!)
So, I can only advise you not to buy there! (Please mark, the problem persists with "ukulele24.de" and NOT with "ukulele.de" - the latter is an excellent shop run by Rigk Sauer!) Seems that something is wrong with the guy from ukulele24.de... that's what I think. :uhoh:

Hey im sorry you guys have had problems with ukulele24.de too, i believe the only reason i managed to get a refund was through force and threats of legal action. I managed to find a contact number and sent email after email until i received contact. I think in the end he realised he wasn't going to escape ukerazy lol. I hope all these posts here on the UU and i believe the German forums too warn off people from buying with ukulele24.

After i recieved my refund i bought my Pono with ukulele.de Rigk was most helpful and a pleasure to deal with, us brits would do better dealing with him for hard to find ukuleles.