I have had a very bad experience buying from uke republic. Inspite of a lot of glowing reviews on this forum about them mine was the total opposite. In fact it was so bad that since that transaction I don’t bother to look at his website anymore. I purchased a Koaloha from them during the pandemic and in my order I specified how I wanted the setup to be and if it were not possible to let me know beforehand. Before I ordered Mike replied every time I had a question but after that I didn’t hear from them at all and I thought all was good.
The uke shipped 1 day after my order and I was really surprised that he managed to set it up so quickly. When my uke came there was a note inside saying setup request not possible. Which was total nonsense. All I wanted was to have the string height a little lower on the thinner strings side. I have done this on a few of my instruments and have never had issue with it. On closer inspection I doubt he ever did any set up at all even though his webpage says that they setup every instrument. How did I come to this conclusion? Firstly the soundboard under the strings were dusty, very common if you leave the uke out. And when I took the saddle out I could see that the bottom part of the Tusq saddle was not sanded down at all. I usually tinker with my guitars and ukes and so I do know a bit about working on them.
To cut the long story short, the uke still had a lot of left over dry polish material all over the body, around the edges, fretboard edge and headstock. On the A string on the nut someone messed it up and used super glue to fix the action height. It was cut too low. From that I could surmised that he never did any setup otherwise he would have at least wiped down the uke and spotted the nut issue if it was sent in that condition from the factory. Or it would have been done by him and he kept quiet about it. Either one, what was done wasn’t right. I know what I say here are very damning and my accusations are strong. I just told myself maybe my experience was a one off. Thats why I keep quiet about it. I have an unboxing video still in my phone when it arrived with all the issues and also photos or everything out of the box to prove. I sent him all the evidence and he was very silent. He never offered any means to settle amicably. I got 1 email a day and sometimes it was a one liner. This went on for more than a week. In the end I gave up and contacted Koaloha directly, with all the photos.
After a few emails with Koaloha, Alan Okami called me and we spoke on the phone for a lengthy period and he was so apologetic even though it might not have been Koaloha’s fault. He said calling customers with such issues are so hard to do and I totally understand where he was coming from. I managed to come to a resolution on the matter with Koaloha and not with Uke republic. Customer service from Koaloha was top notch. and their warranty is truly better than the weather. From that experience I told myself to stay away from such retailers. initially I wanted to share it here but I told myself not too because I was very emotionally charged and terribly disappointed. This was the first expensive uke I put money down and the experience was horrid. But it’s been many months since and so I know I have gotten over it. But since someone posted a not so pleasing experience with them I thought I share mine. I have also bought a uke in the past from Terry Carter before all the negative comments on him surfaced here and I can say that at least he communicates and tries to resolve issues. I had nothing from uke republic. I have had issues with ukes from HMS too but each time Andrew, Kalei or Corey were quick to reply and help resolve issues or questions. One of them was a buzzing A string after I got it and on the same day I managed to get Andrew to help me out. Sometimes people make mistakes and that’s all ok with me. what really put me off was a total lack of customer support. The saying ‘Caveat Emptor‘ really holds true when you have no options but to buy online unseen.
sorry for the long post
