# PSA: Kiesel Guitars victim of mail fraud for 16 guitars



## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 16, 2016)

https://www.facebook.com/kieselguitars/videos/1724951994454762/


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## KieselGuitars (May 16, 2016)

Thanks for the share brother!


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## Dawn of the Shred (May 16, 2016)

Damn just seen this and shared on FB! Hope they catch them!


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## big_aug (May 16, 2016)

Wow. I can't believe this happened. Who would steal a Kiesel?


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## schantist (May 16, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Wow. I can't believe this happened. Who would steal a Kiesel?



Crooks who like crooked sidedots


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## kevdes93 (May 16, 2016)

Damn, the whole showroom gets jacked over the weekend? That's terrible


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## CapnForsaggio (May 16, 2016)

How does a facility that cranks out custom guitars worth $3000 each not have $200 of cameras up and running at all times? A monitored security system?

The tools alone in that shop should justify these measures, not to mention trade secrets and finished inventory....

Reaks of an inside job. (Like a disgruntled employee or something, NOT AN INSURANCE CONSPIRACY.....)


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## technomancer (May 16, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Wow. I can't believe this happened. Who would steal a Kiesel?





schantist said:


> Crooks who like crooked sidedots



Time and place, and a thread about stolen stuff is definitely not it.


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## element256 (May 16, 2016)

FBI for a local petty theft crime? Something fishy not adding up here.


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

they have insurance, which will compensate for the stolen goods. but you have to wonder if its not an inside job to collect the insurance money. the whole thing is fishy as said.

"now would be a good time to buy a guitar'? cmon


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## schantist (May 16, 2016)

CapnForsaggio said:


> How does a facility that cranks out custom guitars worth $3000 each not have $200 of cameras up and running at all times? A monitored security system?
> 
> The tools alone in that shop should justify these measures, not to mention trade secrets and finished inventory....
> 
> Reaks of an inside job.



Reeks of a publicity stunt on social media, a company like Carvin should be properly insured to cover the stolen goods (and why should the FBI investigate on 16 guitars). This is another sales rep move to create a buzz incl. snazzy video effects


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## element256 (May 16, 2016)

Dana said:


> they have insurance, which will compensate for the stolen goods. but you have to wonder if its not an inside job to collect the insurance money. the whole thing is fishy as said.
> 
> "now would be a good time to buy a guitar'? cmon


 
Doing anything to suppress all the recent bad build threads popping up I guess since dozens of people cancelled or went elsewhere for their builds?  Need to get that inventory flowing again and a $40k valuation check? haha that'll do donkey... that'll do


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## bzhan1 (May 16, 2016)

FBI? They have a 20 page thread here full of haters to look through.

I doubt they'd pull a potentially business ending stunt to get $40k, that's just retarded.


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## Electric Wizard (May 16, 2016)

CapnForsaggio said:


> Reaks of an inside job.





element256 said:


> FBI for a local petty theft crime? Something fishy not adding up here.





schantist said:


> Reeks of a publicity stunt on social media... (and why should the FBI investigate on 16 guitars)


_
REALLY?

_Maybe the FBI is investigating because major retail theft is something that they're concerned with? Maybe they are investigating because they investigate cargo theft? Maybe Carvin was part of a large string of thefts?

There's been some legitimate criticism of Carvin on SSO lately, but this is full on witch hunt tinfoil hat territory.

Hope those people's builds are found.


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## Demiurge (May 16, 2016)

EDIT: not customers' guitars... still a drag


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## beneharris (May 16, 2016)

Guys, I'm sure they didn't fake "steal" the guitars. Are they maybe using the situation to goose sales? Probably. But its not an inside job, and they didn't steal 40k of their own guitars...


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## ferret (May 16, 2016)

Per Jeff on facebook, these were guitars-in-stock. No customer orders. This was the show room.


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

Electric Wizard said:


> _
> REALLY?
> 
> _Maybe the FBI is investigating because major retail theft is something that they're concerned with? Maybe they are investigating because they investigate cargo theft? Maybe Carvin was part of a large string of thefts?
> ...



did you even watch the vid? no customer guitars were stolen.


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## element256 (May 16, 2016)

Well in the words of the last Carvin "custom" build:
"I STRONGLY caution anyone to take a hard look at how this owner handles his business before spending your hard earned money with them."

When the shady owner of a shady company gets robbed of a product that has no value to the thief (since they literally can't be sold or traded anywhere for even the lowest of profit) there's only one basic conclusion to come to if you exert a shred of common sense and it's not in tinfoil territory.

No matter how hard you suppress free speech eventually the truth comes out. Carvin can no longer keep their tentacles in every pocket of every forum and online entity and we're now seeing the "truth" come to fruition with open eyes and full transparency.


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## Electric Wizard (May 16, 2016)

I missed the part in the video where he pointed that out. Doesn't mean the theory that Carvin faked a theft has any more credence at all.




element256 said:


> No matter how hard you suppress free speech eventually the truth comes out.


That's... that's not what free speech is. Carvin isn't the government, nor is Alex and the mod team.

I give up...


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

Electric Wizard said:


> I missed the part in the video where he pointed that out. Doesn't mean the theory that Carvin faked a theft has any more credence at all.



it has as much credence as any theory at this point, since nobody except the thieves know where the guitars are. duh


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## Andromalia (May 16, 2016)

element256 said:


> When the shady owner of a shady company gets robbed of a product that has no value to the thief (since they literally can't be sold or traded anywhere for even the lowest of profit) there's only one basic conclusion to come to if you exert a shred of common sense and it's not in tinfoil territory.



Most likely the thieves don't have a clue about guitars at all and just went there because they had an opportunity. Stealing this or whatever else basically makes no difference to them.


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## technomancer (May 16, 2016)

*Apparently the nice statement wasn't enough, don't be a douche in this thread. I'm as sick of some of the Kiesel crap as everyone else, but a thread about stolen guitars is NOT the place to dog pile a company and it won't be tolerated.

Also Alex removing ONE thread about a customer with an issue that got his money back hardly constitutes infringing ANYONE'S free speech *


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## that short guy (May 16, 2016)

element256 said:


> FBI for a local petty theft crime? Something fishy not adding up here.



Correct me if I'm wrong but don't thefts over a certain amount automatically get handled by the FBI? I may be remembering incorrectly but I think the number is something like 10K


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

Sorry, but this is not how a company should be properly addressing theft.
I think the whole "buy a guitar now" thing just turns me off. Even if they did get robbed.


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## Greenbrettiscool (May 16, 2016)

ferret said:


> Per Jeff on facebook, these were guitars-in-stock. No customer orders. This was the show room.



As a local to Kiesel, I visit the showroom to hang out quite a bit, about every week to say hey. What's odd to me is that more than a few of those models shown were in fact in the showroom, yes, but most of them are kept back in the wearhouse, and I know for a fact more than half were back in the wearhouse. 
It just seems so fishy to me as well..


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## Greenbrettiscool (May 16, 2016)

So that means they had time to go check out the showroom, pick and choose, then go to the back and pick and choose? It's just so odd to me.


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## Demiurge (May 16, 2016)

that short guy said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but don't thefts over a certain amount automatically get handled by the FBI? I may be remembering incorrectly but I think the number is something like 10K



Yeah, according to the FBI website, they do investigate "retail theft". I didn't see where they state a threshold, but $40k is probably enough.


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## Womb raider (May 16, 2016)

Dana said:


> Sorry, but this is not how a company should be properly addressing theft.
> I think the whole "buy a guitar now" thing just turns me off. Even if they did get robbed.



Yea wth was that? Hey guys we don't have enough security to keep our showroom from getting robbed of 16 guitars, but now is a GREAT time to make that large purchase you've been thinking about!


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## Hollowway (May 16, 2016)

So, does he mean it was a burglary? I don't want to be pedantic, but robbing means there were people there when the guitars were stolen, and so maybe they got a look at the thief? 

Also, I don't think it sounded like he was asking for people to buy guitars too much because of it. It was more of a, "if you were thinking of buying, that would be great, we appreciate the support." It didn't seem like the overall message. I doubt he gave it that much thought. 

It is a weird situation if the guitars weren't all in the same place, because you'd think this would be a smash and grab situation, but I guess we really don't know for sure they weren't all together at the time.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 16, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Wow. I can't believe this happened. Who would steal a Kiesel?


Disgruntled customer that they disappointed?



schantist said:


> Reeks of a publicity stunt on social media, a company like Carvin should be properly insured to cover the stolen goods (and why should the FBI investigate on 16 guitars). This is another sales rep move to create a buzz incl. snazzy video effects


Uhhh...



Hollowway said:


> It is a weird situation if the guitars weren't all in the same place, because you'd think this would be a smash and grab situation, but I guess we really don't know for sure they weren't all together at the time.


Right.


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## big_aug (May 16, 2016)

Most likely someone with inside knowledge. Would any thief target a building/company like this otherwise? Guitars aren't exactly gold bars. The size and scale alone would deter common thieves. Insiders would have known they had zero security which any reasonable person would expect.


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## cip 123 (May 16, 2016)

I get it could be an employee stealing if the guitars were in different places.

But you guys saying its Kiesel doing this for Insurance money...You've gone off the deep end.

I don't like Kiesel but I hope it all gets sorted out, no matter who's actually involved in the theft.


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## Slunk Dragon (May 16, 2016)

You guys are seriously criticizing Carvin for announcing that they had several of their instruments stolen? Did Jeff run over all your guys' cats or something?

I seriously hope they find these instruments. It'd be nice to hear a good ending to a story for once, the worst happens far too often.


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## A-Branger (May 16, 2016)

Dana said:


> Sorry, but this is not how a company should be properly addressing theft.
> I think the whole "buy a guitar now" thing just turns me off. Even if they did get robbed.



and how they should then??? 

by making a social media video with the photos and serial numbers of the guitars so everyone can spread the word is the best they can do

the "buy a guitar now" its not a Fricking marketing strategy!!!!!! c'mon people!!, I know a lot of you dont like this brand (me included) and we all are with a bad taste in our mouths from the alst two incidents here but seriously dudes!!. If you want to keep trashing them this is not the time or place to do so, go and create a new tread. If you dont have anything good to say or add to this tread, just SHUT UP and stop making weird excuses and conspiracy plots.

he did NOT say "buy my guitars now" in order to sell more, he say you can still buy guitars so people know they can still do so. If you were planing to make an order, you are safe to do so now. Just because they got 16 guitars stolen doesnt mean they are going to stop production, so yes, you can buy guitars now. And due to a 40k$ in loss due to a thief, the company its on a money loss at this moment, so yes, any guitar you purchase now it helps them to keep paying their bills and employess, so yes, buy a guitar.


who stole the guitar? anyone really, someone from the inside, someone from the outside, someone with a knoledge of these guitars and how much they are worth in the market. Who cares, someone did. Yes people do it, remember we are living on an era were Steve Vai gets one of his main guitars stolen from a sound check and John Petrucci gets stolen his first JP15 from the showroom floor at NAMM 

They are even giving you a 5k$ or a custom guitar build for you if you have any info about it!!!! and you all keep trashing them like this were some stupid sort of marketing scheme and inside job to cash in some insurance

seriously whats wrong with you people 



also for the Mods, would be better to pin this tread in the guitar sub-forum. Like we have done with the other guitar stolen treads?


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## MajorTom (May 16, 2016)

And this is exactly why I'm extremely cautious about posting photos of my guitars, especially photos with more than one guitar in it, or of an expensive, old or rare guitars. 

The theft of musical instruments is just becoming far too common these days, especially guitars.


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## Lemons (May 16, 2016)

Wow, I should have put on my tinfoil hat before reading through this thread.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 16, 2016)

MajorTom said:


> And this is exactly why I'm extremely cautious about posting photos of my guitars, especially photos with more than one guitar in it, or of an expensive, old or rare guitars.


This is why I go out and take fancy photos of my guitars in nature.


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## extendedsolo (May 16, 2016)

I think it's fine to say "yeah sucks that they got robbed but I wonder what the whole story is." Yes it could be a disgruntled employee.

It's much different and completely ignorant and stupid at this point to say the conspiracy theory bs. The guitars were stolen and Kiesel is saying they were robbed. What is the other sides proof? I'm not sure how some people on here have even made it this far in their life.

I hope they find the guitars but I fear these are headed overseas


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

A-Branger said:


> And due to a 40k$ in loss due to a thief, the company its on a money loss at this moment, so yes, any guitar you purchase now it helps them to keep paying their bills and employess, so yes, buy a guitar.
> 
> 
> ?



How is it a loss? Unless they are dumb enough to not have insurance....
If anything, they will get insurance money from a bunch of guitars that were sitting there unsold making exactly zero dollars. It's not a monetary loss at this point. Cripes.


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## jvms (May 16, 2016)

Hey, guys, where is the Kiesel/Carvin hate on SSO comming from? Thought everyone liked them here...


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## Jonathan20022 (May 16, 2016)

Wow, reading through this thread is pretty ridiculous. Hope it gets sorted asap.


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## jc986 (May 16, 2016)

Yeah, while it sucks the guitars were stolen, acting like they are out anything financially is insulting. If anything, it's like they just sold 16 guitars at once (many of which had just been sitting there in the GIS section for quite a while). They positioned this as if it were truly a $40,000 loss, but in reality they'll be getting a $40,000 check from the insurance company.


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## Captain Butterscotch (May 16, 2016)

This thread got stupid really fast. Hope this gets fixed quickly.


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## ilyti (May 16, 2016)

Facebook is useful sometimes:

Inside job? - "it was no inside job, that we know for a fact"
Cameras? - "oh we have plenty of security cameras here that is for sure"
Why FBI? - "like Jeff Kiesel said we have been told by the FBI not to give any more info. No customer guitars were taken, just in stocks."
Don't you have insurance? - "well we do but the deductible is higher than the dollar amount of the guitars so it's coming out of our (me and my dad) pockets unfortunately..."


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## 13la13la (May 16, 2016)

Sucks for them, your property getting broken into and your belongings stolen is just terrible.

I am not sure why he had to mention it was worth $40K though, seems irrelevant to me?


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## Jaxcharvel (May 16, 2016)

Wow man. Where did all the Carvin/Kiesel hate stem from? I'm sure there have been people who have gotten faulty guitar builds, but goddamn, what do you expect? In the last couple years their backlog has went through the roof so it's only expected that mistakes will be made. The vast majority of people who have had a guitar built have been more than satisfied, myself included. They're still one of my favorite custom shops and are still without a doubt the best bang for your buck out there. People sure are quick to jump on the love/hate train around here.


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## Dana (May 16, 2016)

ilyti said:


> Facebook is useful sometimes:
> 
> Inside job? - "it was no inside job, that we know for a fact"
> Cameras? - "oh we have plenty of security cameras here that is for sure"
> ...



Ahhh, ok thanks for posting this. Looks like I stand corrected.


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## MattThePenguin (May 16, 2016)

13la13la said:


> Sucks for them, your property getting broken into and your belongings stolen is just terrible.
> 
> I am not sure why he had to mention it was worth $40K though, seems irrelevant to me?



I think to push the magnitude of the theft. Whole situation sucks. 

There are probably a ton of cameras, but if I were a criminal stealing stuff, I'd probably be wearing something to obscure my face/skin color/any sort of marks or tattoos before performing something like this.

I doubt this was a one man job, some of you make it seem like someone just waltzed in there and took some out of the cases. This company has gotten a lot of notoriety over the past couple of years, I seriously doubt they need money that badly and the popularity only makes them a bigger target for unlawful folk. 

I hope justice is served and the guitars return home.


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## coreysMonster (May 16, 2016)

Dang, didn't they just have their warehouse roof collapse a couple of months ago, too? Talk about bad luck. Hope the douchebags get caught.


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## 13la13la (May 16, 2016)

MattThePenguin said:


> I think to push the magnitude of the theft. Whole situation sucks.
> 
> There are probably a ton of cameras, but if I were a criminal stealing stuff, I'd probably be wearing something to obscure my face/skin color/any sort of marks or tattoos before performing something like this.
> 
> ...



Oh I completely agree with you on all fronts. It seems my typing gets worse at night! 

Concerning the whole insurance thing; the business would make a loss, not the owners directly (unless they then have to take a paycut).


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## Hollowway (May 16, 2016)

ilyti said:


> Facebook is useful sometimes:
> 
> Don't you have insurance? - "well we do but the deductible is higher than the dollar amount of the guitars so it's coming out of our (me and my dad) pockets unfortunately..."



I'm not in with the conspiracy theories, but I'm gonna have to call BS on the deductible being higher than $40,000. That's horribly unrealistic, and insurance would not consider each individual item when calculating a loss. If that were the case, no one would ever get that insurance. "Oh, your house got flooded? Well, your carpet, couch, cabinet, and table will all be considered individually, and a specific deductible will apply to each." 

I like Kiesel, but, and no particular shade to anyone here or affiliated with the company, I think Jeff knows how to move words around to imply things other than the 100% transparent truth. My guess is that these guitars were stolen, it sucks, they feel totally violated, they have to repair the damage, etc. But I doubt that they are not able to claim it on their insurance. Either way, I really hope the police are taking this seriously, and not like, "well, someone didn't die, so..." I'd love to see the bastards that stole the guitars get busted.


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## A-Branger (May 16, 2016)

Dana said:


> How is it a loss? Unless they are dumb enough to not have insurance....
> If anything, they will get insurance money from a bunch of guitars that were sitting there unsold making exactly zero dollars. It's not a monetary loss at this point. Cripes.



not sure what kind of insurance they have. But theres a good chance they insurance only covers for lets say a fire which destroys the whole factory thing, or something big like that.

Yes its a monetary loss. They might wont had sell those guitars yet, but they will. Its a investment for a future sell. Now (assuming they wont get those guitars back), they wont be able to recover the money invested on those guitars (materials used to get them built, waves of workers who spend time working on those, % money from those guitars to pay other bills and marketing, web, promo, maintenance, tax, ect). Its money they are never going to see. They might wont be loosing 40K exactly, as every guitar has some kind of profit (if not they wont be in business), but the rest of the money its gone, so yeah its a loss on the long run


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## Hollowway (May 16, 2016)

A-Branger said:


> not sure what kind of insurance they have. But theres a good chance they insurance only covers for lets say a fire which destroys the whole factory thing, or something big like that.



Yeah, that's true. I know .... all about insurance for guitar factories. But still, that's some ....ty ass insurance, if that's what they have!  I seriously hope Jeff was being dramatic about that, because I'm still bitter about the $600 I lost to BRJ - I can't IMAGINE being out $40,000!


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## jc986 (May 16, 2016)

They would be foolish not to insure their retail space separately from their factory and I'd be very surprised if they didn't. Any business operating in the retail space with inventory of this kind of value typically also has a separate theft/loss rider addendum to their insurance policy. I'd be shopping for different insurance if their deductible is over $40,000.


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## ramses (May 16, 2016)

It is very likely that the assholes that stole these guitars have no idea what they have in their hands ... unique instruments they won't be able to sell.


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## Grand Moff Tim (May 16, 2016)

To the anti-fanboys: I hope you realize that the ridiculous hate-spewing that seems to instantly happen in all Carvin/Kiesel threads these days has actually literally cost SSO money. I'm no Carvin fanboy and have even had some stuff to say myself recently, but good lord. Calm yo t*i*ts.

To any Carvin/Kiesel employees actually reading this: I hope you realize that the haters here are just a very vocal minority, and that your gear is still generally well received on SSO. There are regular NGDs, and people have good things to say. Pulling all advertising from the site was throwing the baby out with the bathwater.


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## Hollowway (May 16, 2016)

ramses said:


> It is very likely that the assholes that stole these guitars have no idea what they have in their hands ... unique instruments they won't be able to sell.



Actually, that's a very good point. It's no point hypothesizing that "if the thieves were smart..." because they're not.  That's what sucks. You have a dumbass thief who steals the guitars, then can't do much with them once stolen, and so literally no one wins. Still, I hope the cops actually investigate and find them. It's faaaar to common for me to log in here and find out that someone's guitars have been stolen.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 16, 2016)

Company with shady practices and poor customer service gets robbed.

Karma.


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## Jlang (May 17, 2016)

The only thing that seems kind of odd, is that he would mention the amount of money they are supposedly out (40,000). I think it gets the point across to say 16 guitars were stolen, I am by no means a conspiracy theorist , but, it does seem a bit fishy.


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## schantist (May 17, 2016)

ramses said:


> It is very likely that the assholes that stole these guitars have no idea what they have in their hands ... unique instruments they won't be able to sell.



... or return because they're opt.50 guitars


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## Fiction (May 17, 2016)

Jlang said:


> The only thing that seems kind of odd, is that he would mention the amount of money they are supposedly out (40,000). I think it gets the point across to say 16 guitars were stolen, I am by no means a conspiracy theorist , but, it does seem a bit fishy.



Eh 16 guitars could be $1600 to the average joe who has a crappy acoustic sitting in their loungeroom, so I don't think pointing it out is that bad, imagine if someone walked in and stole your yearly salary, ouch.

What happened to SSO some of you guys are getting ridiculous, just chill out errybody.


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## MoshJosh (May 17, 2016)

Now I know I've had some negative things to say about Kiesel in the past, but come on, this sucks! 

What I don't understand is why? To my understanding Kiesel/carvin guitars don't have the best resale value but now you're going to sell stolen ones? I don't see a huge reward for the huge risk (being chased by the FBI), not to mention at the price Kiesel is quoting, these guitars must have been decked out customs easily picked out of a line up.


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## feraledge (May 17, 2016)

Piggybacking on Rev's ingenuity.


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## Swyse (May 17, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Piggybacking on Rev's ingenuity.


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## Demiurge (May 17, 2016)

jc986 said:


> They would be foolish not to insure their retail space separately from their factory and I'd be very surprised if they didn't. Any business operating in the retail space with inventory of this kind of value typically also has a separate theft/loss rider addendum to their insurance policy. I'd be shopping for different insurance if their deductible is over $40,000.



In most cases, the insured can choose what their deductible is going to be. It seems that if $40k doesn't meet it then it's gotta be crazy high, but that's probably for a reason. Premium is commensurate with risk, and what is essentially a large woodshop with finishing operations (all those chemicals) AND a warehouse is, in terms of fire loss and workers comp exposures especially, not going to be cheap to insure. In fact, not every carrier is going to write a risk like that, leaving the ones who do in a "seller's market"-type advantage with regard to pricing. To mitigate that situation, businesses may elect to take high deductibles or lower-level coverages in certain places to save on premium.


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## extendedsolo (May 17, 2016)

Emperor Guillotine said:


> Company with shady practices and poor customer service gets robbed.
> 
> Karma.



Except there is no such thing!



Demiurge said:


> In most cases, the insured can choose what their deductible is going to be. It seems that if $40k doesn't meet it then it's gotta be crazy high, but that's probably for a reason. Premium is commensurate with risk, and what is essentially a large woodshop with finishing operations (all those chemicals) AND a warehouse is, in terms of fire loss and workers comp exposures especially, not going to be cheap to insure. In fact, not every carrier is going to write a risk like that, leaving the ones who do in a "seller's market"-type advantage with regard to pricing. To mitigate that situation, businesses may elect to take high deductibles or lower-level coverages in certain places to save on premium.



This. Medical insurances sometimes work this way in fact. I'm guessing they are covered in case of the factory burning down or being completely cleaned out. Otherwise they probably just eat the loss. Not really a weird practice.

After watching a lot of things about the JFK assassination, conspiracy theories are always more appealing whether they have any basis in fact or not.


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 17, 2016)

Wowww, breaking into a shop and making off with SIXTEEN GUITARS is pretty ballsy.
I have to give Jeff props for sounding so calm and composed during the video. I'd be seething. 

At least they'll probably get busted, unless you guys got robbed by an extreme collector out to expand his personal stash. A custom guitar is probably one of the dumbest things to steal, honestly. Have fun moving that, f***er.


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## cwhitey2 (May 17, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Piggybacking on Rev's ingenuity.





This is too much!



This is a screwed up situation though.


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## TedEH (May 17, 2016)

Maybe I didn't watch the same video, but in the one I saw, Jeff admitted that the monetary loss wasn't the big deal so much as the feeling of violation that goes along with someone acting so maliciously towards you. And to be honest, I don't imagine that it's easy for him to have to read through comments suggesting he deserved it. Nobody deserves that.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 17, 2016)

TedEH said:


> Maybe I didn't watch the same video, but in the one I saw, Jeff admitted that the monetary loss wasn't the big deal so much as the feeling of violation that goes along with someone acting so maliciously towards you. And to be honest, I don't imagine that it's easy for him to have to read through comments suggesting he deserved it. Nobody deserves that.



After reading this thread, I came here to say exactly this. He said they're financially fine, but it was a moral blow. Totally understandable, and the unwarranted hate is sickening. 

"Some saddles and a couple paint jobs were sketchy. They're a pos company who deserves a large quantity of product stolen/they're doing it as a publicity stunt. (Despite having .... tons of orders coming through creating long wait times.)" Get the .... out of here with that nonsense. Some of you peoe are straight messed up. I hope this ends up in their favor and the pricks are caught.


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## thrsher (May 17, 2016)

are they in the process of moving to the new space yet? maybe they were starting to pack up and mover stole them or something alike?


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## Hachetjoel (May 17, 2016)

just wanted to address a few of the insurance remarks. 



Dana said:


> they have insurance, which will compensate for the stolen goods. but you have to wonder if its not an inside job to collect the insurance money. the whole thing is fishy as said.
> 
> "now would be a good time to buy a guitar'? cmon



A commercial claim for $40,000 would be absolutey the worst thing they could do, if they were going to commit fraud it would be for much more. you have to remember if they file a claim their rates are going to go up and its possible with any claim an underwriter may determine they are too large of a risk and drop them. so if they were going to do fraud, it wouldn't be for $40,000.




Dana said:


> How is it a loss? Unless they are dumb enough to not have insurance....
> If anything, they will get insurance money from a bunch of guitars that were sitting there unsold making exactly zero dollars. It's not a monetary loss at this point. Cripes.



as others have pointed out its below their deductible threshold, most people only know about their auto deductible which is probably about $500. deductibles are in place to keep policy holders from constantly filing claims for every minor little thing. and commercial deductibles are huge. my dad works for a university here in ohio and they had around $300,000 in damage and my dad said they didn't even hit their deductible. so it was a 100% out of pocket expense.



jc986 said:


> Yeah, while it sucks the guitars were stolen, acting like they are out anything financially is insulting. If anything, it's like they just sold 16 guitars at once (many of which had just been sitting there in the GIS section for quite a while). They positioned this as if it were truly a $40,000 loss, but in reality they'll be getting a $40,000 check from the insurance company.



I really doubt they would even file a claim. and claims aren't just a free check. its not like you just call your insurance company up and say. "hey yea we just had about $40,000 worth of guitars stolen, can you cut us a check?" and they send you one in the mail the next day. the claims process can be lengthy and exhausting. ESPECIALLY for commercial claims.




Hollowway said:


> I'm not in with the conspiracy theories, but I'm gonna have to call BS on the deductible being higher than $40,000. That's horribly unrealistic, and insurance would not consider each individual item when calculating a loss. If that were the case, no one would ever get that insurance. "Oh, your house got flooded? Well, your carpet, couch, cabinet, and table will all be considered individually, and a specific deductible will apply to each."
> 
> I like Kiesel, but, and no particular shade to anyone here or affiliated with the company, I think Jeff knows how to move words around to imply things other than the 100% transparent truth. My guess is that these guitars were stolen, it sucks, they feel totally violated, they have to repair the damage, etc. But I doubt that they are not able to claim it on their insurance. Either way, I really hope the police are taking this seriously, and not like, "well, someone didn't die, so..." I'd love to see the bastards that stole the guitars get busted.



It's a commercial policy, the deductibles on commercial policies are ABSURD. you have to remember $40,000 might be a lot to you or I, but the amount of operating income and resources carvin has this is most likely not nearly as much. also where as you or i may have a $500 deductible on a $20,000 item or a $1,500 deductible on a $250,000 item such as a house. commercial policies are at way more risk. the payout can easily be tens of millions, so deductibles are much much higher.


They would be foolish not to insure their retail space separately from their factory and I'd be very surprised if they didn't. Any business operating in the retail space with inventory of this kind of value typically also has a separate theft/loss rider addendum to their insurance policy. I'd be shopping for different insurance if their deductible is over $40,000.



jc986 said:


> They would be foolish not to insure their retail space separately from their factory and I'd be very surprised if they didn't. Any business operating in the retail space with inventory of this kind of value typically also has a separate theft/loss rider addendum to their insurance policy. I'd be shopping for different insurance if their deductible is over $40,000.


it's possible an underwriter refused to insure the risk with anything less. its possible that whoever they're with had the lowest deductible.


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## feraledge (May 17, 2016)

^ Joel, as SSO's resident insurance agent I believe this should be in your signature:


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## Hachetjoel (May 17, 2016)

I'm not an agent or an adjuster  but that is pretty ....ing Metal.


I'm just lucky, guitars and insurance are like two of my passions, so when i see them together on the same forum you better believe I can't contain myself.


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## USMarine75 (May 17, 2016)

that short guy said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but don't thefts over a certain amount automatically get handled by the FBI? I may be remembering incorrectly but I think the number is something like 10K



Generally, it has to be a major theft and/or cross state lines (hence _federal_). But there can be mitigating factors... like press, pressure from above (executive office, DOJ, SEC, AG), etc. Each field office has its own budgetary limits, therefore each has its own loss amount threshold (>$100k and up to $500k).

Not sure why this would qualify...


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## coreysMonster (May 17, 2016)

What I don't understand is why somebody would be so stupid as to steal 40 grand worth of easily identifiable custom-made guitars.

How are they going to sell them? Who would even buy them? Custom made instruments aren't exactly car stereos.


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## xzyryabx (May 17, 2016)

coreysMonster said:


> What I don't understand is why somebody would be so stupid as to steal 40 grand worth of easily identifiable custom-made guitars.
> 
> How are they going to sell them? Who would even buy them? Custom made instruments aren't exactly car stereos.



NEVER underestimate the stupidity of the other guy~


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## that short guy (May 17, 2016)

So can anyone actually direct me to a thread that shows proof or some kind of justification (for example an NGD that went south or that the purchaser was unsatisfied for a valid reason) of why there are so many Carvin/Kiesle haters?

I spent a few months away from the site so I'm completely lost as to why there's so much negative stuff in this thread. And I get it, normally on internet forums the people bashing the loudest generally have no room to speak because they were never personally affected, and with the word choices and responses from some of you I'd be willing to bet a few of the people in this thread fall into that category.

I myself own a DC800. I had a great experience ordering from them. I ordered my guitar a month before I was supposed to come home from my last deployment to Afghanistan and the customer service was great. I got an amazing instrument that was exactly what I asked for. An instrument that was so good that I sold my Mayones Regius 8 because I never played it anymore. So you can imagine my surprise when I'm reading things about them having bad customer service and sending out bad instruments.

So please some body direct me to some proof/justification for all of the hate

But lastly I'd like to leave this just for thought: All of you talking badly about Jeff or his company and saying that it's "Karma" .... if you really believe in Karma, what do you think it will have in store for you for kicking a man when he's down?


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## Hachetjoel (May 17, 2016)

So we don't get any more carvin hate on this thread in which we should all really be feeling bad for carvin, if you have an issue with carvin I would say pm him so we can keep this thread on topic please.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 17, 2016)

that short guy said:


> So can anyone actually direct me to a thread that shows proof or some kind of justification (for example an NGD that went south or that the purchaser was unsatisfied for a valid reason) of why there are so many Carvin/Kiesle haters?



There were a couple NGD's where something was wrong. A flubbed finish or two (peeling clear by the nut), and some folks complaining about saddles making pinging noises. The pinging saddles, mind you, got taken care of. There was a single thread that got deleted, which I think was related to the pinging saddles, and then a handful of people got whipped up into a tizzy about how they're trying to "hide" issues with Kiesel guitars. (despite the handful of other threads that stayed open consisting of much larger problems, including the infamous color match gone wrong.)

Basically, Kiesel released a few duds into the wild (as 100% every other manufacturer will do at some point) and people read way too much into it. Now every time Kiesel comes up, somebody likes to talk about how "shady" they are based on one deleted thread and a few duds.

So yeah, I feel for Kiesel here. I truly hope their stock gets returned. It's good to hear no customer guitars were lost, but still unbelievably effed that somebody made off with 16 guitars. Somebody had help and/or a large vehicle and ample time. I'm curious how quickly it was carried out, and how an alarm wasn't tripped, or why the cops were maybe slow to arrive. If they were slow to arrive, or if it was really executed super quickly...

Basically, I really just want to know more details since we know next to nothing other than .... got stolen. I'm really interested in seeing how this pans out and I hope we get some good news in the sorta near future.


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## A-Branger (May 17, 2016)

the hate didnt came because the duds and the little (and big) issues of those guitars. The hate came from the way Kiesel decided to handle the situation (or lack of it) 

Really hope they find these guitars. I bet you is going to happen like with the Steve Vai's stolen one, eventually the guy dropped it. Being such a one-off guitars most people would know about it. This is not some Ibanez prestiges that would blend in the market. Also beign such a niche brand everyone who knows what Kiesel is and would be interested to buy one of these guitars theres a good chance by now they would have seen the video.

I bet you they would find some of the guitars but not all of them. The thief would have stolen 1 or 2 for himself, another 2 for his buddy, maybe sold one to another friend and maybe another one to a pawn shop before the news, but I really doubt hes going to be able to sell all of them, at least at a good price enough to justify the crime


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## oracles (May 17, 2016)

A-Branger said:


> Being such a one-off guitars most people would know about it.



I disagree with this.

Remember that forum guitar players make up a minority of the overall amount of guitar players, and there will be quite literally millions of players who have never heard of Kiesel in their life, especially with the name change when they may have known of Carvin. 

Either way, this is a pretty ....ty situation and I do hope for a positive outcome. The blind hate and tin foil is a little much. I've had my own issues with Kiesel that make me less than pleased with them and will ensure I never order one, but the blood lust and witch hunting is plain ridiculous.


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## A-Branger (May 17, 2016)

EDIT double post


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## A-Branger (May 17, 2016)

oracles said:


> I disagree with this.
> 
> Remember that forum guitar players make up a minority of the overall amount of guitar players, and there will be quite literally millions of players who have never heard of Kiesel in their life, especially with the name change when they may have known of Carvin.



true that, but at the same time being Kiesel a niche brand, the ones who know the brand theres a good chance they would know about the situation (hopefully). The people who dont know about Kiesel dont think they would adventure to buy one of these guitars as they wont know about them and the value they are, they just see them as a "pretty guitar I know nothing about". They might if they are cheap, but then what was the point to stealing the guitars and commit the crime if you are not going to get good money out of them.

I hope they find info soon as the more time it pass the easier would be for the thief to sell them, as some folks would start to forget about the situation, or forget which model/color was the stolen one


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## Alberto7 (May 17, 2016)

jc986 said:


> Yeah, while it sucks the guitars were stolen, acting like they are out anything financially is insulting. If anything, it's like they just sold 16 guitars at once (many of which had just been sitting there in the GIS section for quite a while). They positioned this as if it were truly a $40,000 loss, but in reality they'll be getting a $40,000 check from the insurance company.



As was said before, one of the things to catch my attention in the announcement was the fact that they explicitly admitted that this wouldn't be any kind of significant financial loss, but that they just want justice to be served. I'd be pretty upset if my gym card got stolen, even knowing I could have a new one done in less than 10 minutes.



Grand Moff Tim said:


> To the anti-fanboys: I hope you realize that the ridiculous hate-spewing that seems to instantly happen in all Carvin/Kiesel threads these days has actually literally cost SSO money. I'm no Carvin fanboy and have even had some stuff to say myself recently, but good lord. Calm yo t*i*ts.
> 
> To any Carvin/Kiesel employees actually reading this: I hope you realize that the haters here are just a very vocal minority, and that your gear is still generally well received on SSO. There are regular NGDs, and people have good things to say. Pulling all advertising from the site was throwing the baby out with the bathwater.



I like this post.



feraledge said:


> Piggybacking on Rev's ingenuity.



But this one more.

This thread got all kinds of WTF in, like, the first two posts.


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## big_aug (May 18, 2016)

My negativity towards Kiesel comes from the constant flood of gorgeous tops that are completely ruined by cutting off 25% of it. And their ....ty resale value. And Jeff comes off like an asshole many times. 


I had a few of their guitars though, and they were fantastic. 

I hope they find their stuff. Hopefully its me who comes into some info I can tip them off with so I can get that $5000.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 18, 2016)

A-Branger said:


> true that, but at the same time being Kiesel a niche brand, the ones who know the brand theres a good chance they would know about the situation (hopefully). The people who dont know about Kiesel dont think they would adventure to buy one of these guitars as they wont know about them and the value they are, they just see them as a "pretty guitar I know nothing about". They might if they are cheap, but then what was the point to stealing the guitars and commit the crime if you are not going to get good money out of them.
> 
> I hope they find info soon as the more time it pass the easier would be for the thief to sell them, as some folks would start to forget about the situation, or forget which model/color was the stolen one



Eh, any money is profit. Even if you sell them for $300, you're making thousands in profit. It'd also be a red flag to see quality instruments at that price, but the point remains. Just because they're worth 20k doesn't mean the seller would turn down much less. Who knows, maybe a collective $500 is all they want.


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## dhgrind (May 18, 2016)

I've got two theories if these are never recovered.

1 they were stolen and taken down south and distributed amongst some cartel kiddies.

2 someone stole them to chop them into fire wood and burn them because they're filled with kiesel hate.

either way I like my theories cause they're interesting.


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## _MonSTeR_ (May 18, 2016)

Señor Voorhees;4585423 said:


> Eh, any money is profit. Even if you sell them for $300, you're making thousands in profit. It'd also be a red flag to see quality instruments at that price, but the point remains. Just because they're worth 20k doesn't mean the seller would turn down much less. Who knows, maybe a collective $500 is all they want.



I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

I once had aconversation with a police officer who,was also a guitarist. He said if it's not stolen to order (such a celebrity instrument) or as a personal keepsake ( the thief wants the guitar himself) then the thief will probably be happy with anything they make on the sale. These will probably turn up for $100 each on Craigslist. Maybe after being sanded of any serial number and spray painted with auto primer to make them look more punk/goth/industrial.


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## MajorTom (May 18, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Piggybacking on Rev's ingenuity.



You have left out the two best characters, Shaggy and Scooby.


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## TedEH (May 18, 2016)

^ Our jam space has been broken into before, and we managed to get our stuff back when police caught the guy trying to trade our recto cab for $50 worth of drugs or something like that.


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## ferret (May 18, 2016)

Over on Kiesel BBS, Mike Jones posted that "It wasn't a smash and grab. Wasn't local. Wasn't anyone here.".... So I'm still guessing these were in transit to somewhere. That likely means over state borders, hence FBI involvement. Or, money/wire fraud.

Still a huge bummer.


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## ferret (May 18, 2016)

https://www.facebook.com/kieselguitars/videos/1725747954375166/

The instruments were international orders that were made with money fraud. They recovered six of the instruments before they shipped out of country so far.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 18, 2016)

Sorta good news. Huge bummer, but that video definitely answers a lot of the questions that people had.


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## TemjinStrife (May 18, 2016)

ferret said:


> https://www.facebook.com/kieselguitars/videos/1725747954375166/
> 
> The instruments were international orders that were made with money fraud. They recovered six of the instruments before they shipped out of country so far.



So the first video was a BS marketing move?

That does explain why the FBI was involved. Wire fraud and all that.


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## TheKindred (May 18, 2016)

TemjinStrife said:


> So the first video was a BS marketing move?



 JEFF WOULD NEVER DO [email protected]!! MAYBE TRY SOME PROOF OR SOMETH--

sorry what was that? Oh, he did? My bad.

You are correct, sir. Carry on.


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## MrWulf (May 18, 2016)

So Kiesel made these instrument with money fraud, but in their video they said they were stolen?

You know, the logic does not add up here. If this is really just a PR stunt, then people in here practically wasted their words defending Kiesel and against others who express skepticism about the whole thing.


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## Rev2010 (May 18, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> So Kiesel made these instrument with money fraud, but in their video they said they were stolen?



I watched the latest video first then the original one. Yeah the whole thing is weird. What's strange is in the original video he says, "if you know anyone that works in a pawn shop, Guitar Center, music store, get the word out" but now he's saying it was an international order fraud. Last I checked I don't believe there are Guitar Center's outside the USA correct? Also weird to use the word "robbed" if it was international wire fraud.


Rev.


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## Hollowway (May 18, 2016)

That's really good news! Why the heck didn't he just come out and say that before? Saying "robbed" implies someone came in. So he's got us all trawling ebay and CL to look for these things, when people who deal with shipping should have been the ones on alert. Maybe the FBI didn't want him to say anything to tip them off? If that's the case, I'm not sure why the video was made in the first place. Eh, I just don't really understand the Kiesel brand of thinking. I'm happy they got over a million views and are getting on the local news station, but it is starting to feel kind of like this is being parlayed into a publicity thing. I personally looked over ebay and socal CL ads, hoping to help them out cuz I felt bad. Now I kinda feel like a chump for wasting my time.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 18, 2016)

Guitars were bought fraudulently. Guitars were shipped out of country, where they do in fact have pawn shops, guitar shops, and can still be sent out to the USA where they can be dropped off at GC. Especially because Mexico and Canada are out of USA countries, and it wouldn't be unheard of guitars making their way back over the boarders. "international" doesn't have to mean "across the ocean."

Using the word "robbed" is weird, but not entirely unusual. Just like saying "coil tapped" when you mean "coil split," they just might have chosen the wrong word to use.


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## ferret (May 18, 2016)

I'm not sure how anyone can take away that Kiesel did money fraud or that its all a PR stunt.

These were instruments in the Guitars-In-Stock. Someone ordered them and committed money fraud (Stolen credit cards, whatever). The guitars were shipped out, then Kiesel was hit with the charge back or whatever, because the money was no good.

Kiesel is out guitar and money. That's theft to me.  We can nitpick terminology but it still sucks for them.


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## Hollowway (May 18, 2016)

ferret said:


> I'm not sure how anyone can take away that Kiesel did money fraud or that its all a PR stunt.
> 
> These were instruments in the Guitars-In-Stock. Someone ordered them and committed money fraud (Stolen credit cards, whatever). The guitars were shipped out, then Kiesel was hit with the charge back or whatever, because the money was no good.
> 
> Kiesel is out guitar and money. That's theft to me.  We can nitpick terminology but it still sucks for them.



Yeah, totally, but it just seems weird he would ask for help from people, but withhold salient facts like "overseas orders." I'm willing to be that literally every single person that saw that video assumed the pawn shops he was talking about were in so SoCal area. I mean, it's a super interesting case. But it's not "we were robbed. If you know of pawn shops, tip them off that they might get our guitars." It would be more, "we were scammed. These guys ordered guitars overseas, and now we're trying to track them down." Like I say, it's just really weird way of thinking and talking. No shade to Jeff, but I feel like everything he says comes out wrong and needs to be explained by others. And that causes a lot of debate and bad feelings online and irl.


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## MrWulf (May 18, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> I watched the latest video first then the original one. Yeah the whole thing is weird. What's strange is in the original video he says, "if you know anyone that works in a pawn shop, Guitar Center, music store, get the word out" but now he's saying it was an international order fraud. Last I checked I don't believe there are Guitar Center's outside the USA correct? Also weird to use the word "robbed" if it was international wire fraud.
> 
> 
> Rev.



It can be interpreted as stolen, as in "we mistakenly made these instruments and then ship out but realized that they are money fraud so in other words, it is stolen from us" which is quite a stretch of logic. And also, didn't Jeff said that the instruments were display items, not custom ones? So again, this does not add up to his words.


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## CapnForsaggio (May 18, 2016)

What responsibility do they have to vet incoming international orders? (not rhetorical, really interested....)


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## xzyryabx (May 18, 2016)

I am totally missing the point of issuing the first video?! 
They appear to have known from day 1 that they were scammed (probably notified by either the banks or the FBI initially).
They knew these were international orders and once they contacted the freight companies they would have known where these were destined.
The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to play dumb for the scammers to buy the FBI more time to track them down...but even that doesn't really make sense.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 18, 2016)

Say what you want, but within a day or two of releasing the video, they got six of the things back... Who knows if that is in part due to people being made aware or not, but I don't see the big deal in putting the info out there to begin with. I know I'd probably post about my stolen .... on here if it ever happened. 

The only thing Kiesel did wrong was use the word "robbed," which implies it happened locally.


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## beneharris (May 18, 2016)

Señor Voorhees;4585758 said:


> The only thing Kiesel did wrong was use the word "robbed," which implies it happened locally.




And the "boohoo, waaaa, buy our guitars plz."


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## Womb raider (May 18, 2016)

Who even knows what the real story is. First he made it seem like someone did a smash and grab from the warehouse/showroom. Now it's bank fraud. Next week the guitars will be found hiding on a misplaced pallet behind the dumpster. I don't have an axe to grind with kiesel, but get your story straight my man.


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## mniel8195 (May 18, 2016)

serious drama video if you ask me. I don't even know why people post this stuff it seems like private business issues. I could understand if it was a bunch of teenagers that probably had sso accounts!


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## big_aug (May 18, 2016)

And Kiesel once again pulls bull.... moves that justifies people being negative or skeptical. Everything in their initial video implied there was someone breaking into their showroom or warehouse.

Video was a BS marketing move. Hilarious actually. What the hell were they thinking?


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## Greenbrettiscool (May 18, 2016)

Robbed = Go check out the used Carvin/Kiesel market!!!


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## MattThePenguin (May 18, 2016)

I seriously can't imagine this to be a PR stunt, that really doesn't make any sense. Maybe at the time it wasn't clear that all of the guitars were stolen the same way through the same exploit, so he was just trying to get word out. He's not reading a script guys, probably just turned the camera on and talked. 

If you think this is a shady company and you think this is a PR stunt, then don't buy the guitars. I'm sure he couldn't care any less, because it doesn't seem like their business is hurting without you at all.


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## technomancer (May 18, 2016)

This whole situation


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## Hollowway (May 18, 2016)

MattThePenguin said:


> I seriously can't imagine this to be a PR stunt, that really doesn't make any sense. Maybe at the time it wasn't clear that all of the guitars were stolen the same way through the same exploit, so he was just trying to get word out. He's not reading a script guys, probably just turned the camera on and talked.
> 
> If you think this is a shady company and you think this is a PR stunt, then don't buy the guitars. I'm sure he couldn't care any less, because it doesn't seem like their business is hurting without you at all.



Ah, you're making a pretty big leap, there. No one is saying they staged this entire thing as a PR stunt. The question is why did they release the information the way they did, and ask people to check pawn shops and guitar centers, and say they were robbed, and decide to go on local news, etc. I mean, I don't think they're trying to be shady, but I DO think Jeff, as the face of a company that is losing a decades long run of almost unparalleled respect, should be more careful in what he says and how he says it. Every post he makes ends up with people criticizing and others saying, "that's not really what he meant. He's just not using the correct words." 

And regarding your assessment that, "if you don't like them, don't buy their guitars," as we usually say, if you don't like my opinion, don't read it, lol. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to state it. And for me, who really really likes Kiesel/Carvin, and have (and do) own a few, I specifically WANT to criticize, because I want them to get better, and to stay at the top of the semi-custom guitar heap. I'm kind of invested in the company, emotionally, so I'm not going to just "not order a guitar from them because they don't need" me to. Just like I get super critical of Apple about how Siri sucks. So if YOU are the type that never complains about any company, then that's great. But most of us are going to complain about things we don't like because we want them to become things we DO like. That's human nature. And it's most definitely human nature on the Internet.


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## shadowlife (May 18, 2016)

The saddest thing of all is that he felt the need to publicly post about this on FB. It should have been kept internal from the get-go.


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## yellowv (May 18, 2016)

Once again Jeff Kiesel is shady as hell. This was a BS PR stunt all the way. They knew exactly what happened to those guitars and spun this crap and tried to get more sales to offset their losses. So glad I no longer have anything to do with that company. He didn't imply that it was a local robbery. He flat out said their showroom was robbed. He shipped the god damn guitars!


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## jc986 (May 18, 2016)

Hollowway said:


> Ah, you're making a pretty big leap, there. No one is saying they staged this entire thing as a PR stunt. The question is why did they release the information the way they did, and ask people to check pawn shops and guitar centers, and say they were robbed, and decide to go on local news, etc. I mean, I don't think they're trying to be shady, but I DO think Jeff, as the face of a company that is losing a decades long run of almost unparalleled respect, should be more careful in what he says and how he says it. Every post he makes ends up with people criticizing and others saying, "that's not really what he meant. He's just not using the correct words."
> 
> And regarding your assessment that, "if you don't like them, don't buy their guitars," as we usually say, if you don't like my opinion, don't read it, lol. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to state it. And for me, who really really likes Kiesel/Carvin, and have (and do) own a few, I specifically WANT to criticize, because I want them to get better, and to stay at the top of the semi-custom guitar heap. I'm kind of invested in the company, emotionally, so I'm not going to just "not order a guitar from them because they don't need" me to. Just like I get super critical of Apple about how Siri sucks. So if YOU are the type that never complains about any company, then that's great. But most of us are going to complain about things we don't like because we want them to become things we DO like. That's human nature. And it's most definitely human nature on the Internet.



Well said. I feel the same way. I also really do like Kiesel/Carvin and have one on the way. I wouldn't go as far as suggesting this was all just a PR stunt, but I definitely think they used this event as a marketing opportunity, and I don't condemn them for doing so. However, the way they went about it certainly could have been handled more professionally and with more transparency. It's quite a jump to go from "We got robbed! Please tell everyone you know! Please buy some guitars, it will really help us at this time." to "The guitars were all purchased from us and shipped out as normal, but due to credit card fraud we got scammed and have a pretty good line on recovering at least some of the guitars." All in a 48 hour time period.


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## Rawkmann (May 18, 2016)

Wow, that really sheds light on how they were 'robbed' exactly. Not really sure what to think about Jeff K at this point, whole situation seems very strange and shady. Don't get me wrong the situation completely sucks but why the ambiguity over what happened initially? Definitely NOT helping their image.


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## feraledge (May 18, 2016)

Opportunism fail.

PR is going to kill this company. Damn shame too...


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## MattThePenguin (May 18, 2016)

Hollowway said:


> Ah, you're making a pretty big leap, there. No one is saying they staged this entire thing as a PR stunt. The question is why did they release the information the way they did, and ask people to check pawn shops and guitar centers, and say they were robbed, and decide to go on local news, etc. I mean, I don't think they're trying to be shady, but I DO think Jeff, as the face of a company that is losing a decades long run of almost unparalleled respect, should be more careful in what he says and how he says it. Every post he makes ends up with people criticizing and others saying, "that's not really what he meant. He's just not using the correct words."
> 
> And regarding your assessment that, "if you don't like them, don't buy their guitars," as we usually say, if you don't like my opinion, don't read it, lol. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to state it. And for me, who really really likes Kiesel/Carvin, and have (and do) own a few, I specifically WANT to criticize, because I want them to get better, and to stay at the top of the semi-custom guitar heap. I'm kind of invested in the company, emotionally, so I'm not going to just "not order a guitar from them because they don't need" me to. Just like I get super critical of Apple about how Siri sucks. So if YOU are the type that never complains about any company, then that's great. But most of us are going to complain about things we don't like because we want them to become things we DO like. That's human nature. And it's most definitely human nature on the Internet.



I see what you are saying. A lot of the comments in this thread do claim this to be a PR stunt, it's pretty silly. I'm more so speaking towards those people, and not to anyone who is on the fence. Complaining and critiquing is different than coming up with silly conspiracy theories and pelting this massive company with petty insults. 

I actually don't personally own a Kiesel/Carvin, but I appreciate the service they provide. It's pretty cool that the most expensive you can get with them is around the $3,000 mark with crazy specs, that's pretty awesome.


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## Alberto7 (May 18, 2016)

So.Much.POPCORN.

With that said, not sure myself. Sure, maybe they took advantage of the situation to further popularize the brand. While it's not an approach that makes me comfortable, I don't see them having taken it beyond the morally reasonable. I think Jeff is just being Jeff: sitting in front of a camera and just talking, (perhaps naively) neglecting to analyze and look into the possible consequences of what he might say.

Unless otherwise factually demonstrated, this whole thing doesn't really change my view of the company after their last couple of drama stories. In my eyes, they're a company that pumps out great guitars for an extremely reasonable buck, but with a rather annoying 'we-wanna-appear-casual' kind of PR that can evidently get them in trouble. There's a reason formality exists within businesses. I got a 2010 DC727 before they even stopped their overseas sales the first time, and I'm proud to still own it. I hope they're able to revive and retain the humility that made them stand out over the last few decades.


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## hardvalve (May 19, 2016)

The whole thing is pretty odd.


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## schantist (May 19, 2016)

Noone could've predicted that BS with all the tinfoil in the world, that "Kiesel social media genius" really knows how to f*ck up anything he touches rather sooner than later... I sincerely hope Kiesel finally swerved into the BRJ lane straight down the sh*tter


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## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

MattThePenguin said:


> I see what you are saying. A lot of the comments in this thread do claim this to be a PR stunt, it's pretty silly. I'm more so speaking towards those people, and not to anyone who is on the fence. Complaining and critiquing is different than coming up with silly conspiracy theories and pelting this massive company with petty insults.
> 
> I actually don't personally own a Kiesel/Carvin, but I appreciate the service they provide. It's pretty cool that the most expensive you can get with them is around the $3,000 mark with crazy specs, that's pretty awesome.



I don't read all those comments as saying the ENTIRE thing is a PR thing, just they took the opportunity to capitalize on a crappy situation, and turn it into sales. That is what everybody has a problem with. I have given these guys my money, and won't in the future. They/Jeff/hewhoshallnotbenamed, have proven to be shady and opportunistic. Plenty of other people deserve the money that don't want to turn these situations into, well, this.

Somebody, I think Holloway said that he probably just turned the camera on and started talking. But he is in charge of a pretty large company. I'm sure they do millions a year. He needs to not jump the gun. Sit down, think it out. I mean crap, they had time to add the graphics at the beginning. They couldn't have written out a framework for what to say so they aren't chasing their tails around trying to sound like they weren't making stuff up, or shedding a certain light on it?


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## hardvalve (May 19, 2016)

schantist said:


> Noone could've predicted that BS with all the tinfoil in the world, that "Kiesel social media genius" really knows how to f*ck up anything he touches rather sooner than later... I sincerely hope Kiesel finally swerved into the BRJ lane straight down the sh*tter



Smells like someone took a Khoury in here.


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## schantist (May 19, 2016)

hardvalve said:


> Smells like someone took a Khoury in here.



You probably can't even blame Jeff with that little devil on his shoulder, true that


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## MattThePenguin (May 19, 2016)

beneharris said:


> I don't read all those comments as saying the ENTIRE thing is a PR thing, just they took the opportunity to capitalize on a crappy situation, and turn it into sales. That is what everybody has a problem with. I have given these guys my money, and won't in the future. They/Jeff/hewhoshallnotbenamed, have proven to be shady and opportunistic. Plenty of other people deserve the money that don't want to turn these situations into, well, this.
> 
> Somebody, I think Holloway said that he probably just turned the camera on and started talking. But he is in charge of a pretty large company. I'm sure they do millions a year. He needs to not jump the gun. Sit down, think it out. I mean crap, they had time to add the graphics at the beginning. They couldn't have written out a framework for what to say so they aren't chasing their tails around trying to sound like they weren't making stuff up, or shedding a certain light on it?



I guess asking to buy their guitars this particular way would carry a bit more weight due to people feeling sympathetic for them, as opposed to their regular advertisements. It's just weird because in the video he also reiterated that the company is doing fine and they are not in trouble. 

I do want to go ahead and mention that I'm not trying to defend the Kiesel name or anything, and I have no intention of this getting dramatic. I'm just looking at it from a different perspective. 

There have been some threads on here that have made me question their customer service practices. They seem to not be able to communicate very well, which CLEARLY is showing here in this little fiasco.


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

MattThePenguin said:


> I guess asking to buy their guitars this particular way would carry a bit more weight due to people feeling sympathetic for them, as opposed to their regular advertisements. It's just weird because in the video he also reiterated that the company is doing fine and they are not in trouble.
> 
> I do want to go ahead and mention that I'm not trying to defend the Kiesel name or anything, and I have no intention of this getting dramatic. I'm just looking at it from a different perspective.
> 
> There have been some threads on here that have made me question their customer service practices. They seem to not be able to communicate very well, which CLEARLY is showing here in this little fiasco.



He flat out lies in the video and asks people to buy guitars to help make up the loss. He does say they're going to be fine, but his message was clearly making it seem like they could use some orders to help. The request would definitely carry more weight when people think some scum bags broke into their building and took $40,000 worth of guitars. They got ....ed on some orders and straight up lied about what happened to get people to place more orders. There isn't any ambiguity about what happened. They knew everything that occured when they made this video, and they twisted it to take advantage of people.

Read anyone's posts or comments on the subject after it was first announced. Every single person took it as there was a break in and things were stolen from their building. 

I wonder how many suckers they got to place an order that they were on the fence about.


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## Andromalia (May 19, 2016)

coreysMonster said:


> What I don't understand is why somebody would be so stupid as to steal 40 grand worth of easily identifiable custom-made guitars.
> 
> How are they going to sell them? Who would even buy them? Custom made instruments aren't exactly car stereos.



Professional burglars have fences. Those fences will buy the guitars from them, possibly for as little as 1000.It's still better than nothing and some of the best revenue you can get from simple burglaries. Going to steal 5 tons of oranges doesn't work. It is also way less dangerous than going after money, which is usually kept and requires an armed robbery, for which you can endup sitting in prison for a very long time, and for life if it goes badly and you shoot someone.
Labeling these people as "stupid" is the wrong way to go.
And about the recognisable guitars thing, yeah, so there are a few thousand people who will recognise them. Maybe. Because, Carvin has issued how many guitars in total ? The fence will sell them for 500 and people won't ask questions, ending up "wow I got this used guitar for cheap I made a really good deal"


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## jwade (May 19, 2016)

This whole thing is obnoxious. It's getting to be really tiring to see endless kiessel-related absurdity online these days. It sure seems like they tried to flip a bad situation into generating some additional sales. Whether it's a PR stunt, or just yet another case of 'why the hell is Jeff allowed to be online', it's all just getting old.


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## KieselGuitars (May 19, 2016)

Say whatever you want, as is obviously going on, but that "Bull.... marketing stunt video" or whatever else people are saying it is? Led to the tip that is helping the authorities get the guitars back.


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> Say whatever you want, as is obviously going on, but that "Bull.... marketing stunt video" or whatever else people are saying it is? Led to the tip that is helping the authorities get the guitars back.


So it's ok for you guys to just lie publicly to customers and possible future customers as long as you guys get your way?

I lost a lot of respect for your company with this latest episode.


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## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> Say whatever you want, as is obviously going on, but that "Bull.... marketing stunt video" or whatever else people are saying it is? Led to the tip that is helping the authorities get the guitars back.



You guys do realize there are ways of saying things that don't make you come off as a total jerk, right?


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## KieselGuitars (May 19, 2016)

You guys are arguing over the word "robbed". Sorry you don't like that. We did what we were told to do by the authorities, and that led to the tip sent in by a fellow guitarist that led right to one of the thieves. It's not a big conspiracy here guys. No one lied about anything, and if the entire situation wasn't an ongoing investigation and all the details could be released, it would make perfect sense. I'm sure Jeff will explain the entire situation as soon as we are allowed.


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## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> You guys are arguing over the word "robbed". Sorry you don't like that. We did what we were told to do by the authorities, and that led to the tip sent in by a fellow guitarist that led right to one of the thieves. It's not a big conspiracy here guys. No one lied about anything, and if the entire situation wasn't an ongoing investigation and all the details could be released, it would make perfect sense. I'm sure Jeff will explain the entire situation as soon as we are allowed.



How about a "hey guys, sorry if that is how it came across, it certainly wasn't intended that way."

A lot of us are your customers, and we feel, to use Jeff's own language, that you have "violated" our trust. Grow up, and take some responsibility. Stop acting like we are some lynch mob.


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## KieselGuitars (May 19, 2016)

If you read this thread, it certainly does seem like a lynch mob. The company was robbed, we did as we were told to do by authorities, which led directly to one of the individuals involved. We are unable to share all the details at this time, but as soon as we can, we will. The situation is a lot larger than anyone realized it was, I can tell you that.

No one violated any trust, by any stretch of the imagination. No one lied about anything. The guitar community rallied and from that, it's helping get the instruments back, as well as making the community safer.

For that, we thank all of you. The music community is certainly a strong one!


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

beneharris said:


> How about a "hey guys, sorry if that is how it came across, it certainly wasn't intended that way."
> 
> A lot of us are your customers, and we feel, to use Jeff's own language, that you have "violated" our trust. Grow up, and take some responsibility. Stop acting like we are some lynch mob.


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## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> If you read this thread, it certainly does seem like a lynch mob. The company was robbed, we did as we were told to do by authorities, which led directly to one of the individuals involved. We are unable to share all the details at this time, but as soon as we can, we will. The situation is a lot larger than anyone realized it was, I can tell you that.
> 
> No one violated any trust, by any stretch of the imagination. No one lied about anything. The guitar community rallied and from that, it's helping get the instruments back, as well as making the community safer.
> 
> For that, we thank all of you. The music community is certainly a strong one!



Alright dude.


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## KieselGuitars (May 19, 2016)

Thanks to all that helped get the word out. It truly did help, as I am certain Jeff will explain as soon as he can. Just know that the support, sharing the video, posting it everywhere, etc, truly has helped with the recovery of these instruments thus far, and for that, we thank you all.


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## Chris (May 19, 2016)

I don't often post on my old forum, but when I do, I prefer to point out shady business practices and dishonest builders.

This is utter nonsense and a shameful marketing stunt, and having the audacity to call the "music community" a strong one while straight up exploiting their trust for the sake of PR is disgraceful.


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## hardvalve (May 19, 2016)

You have failed to Khoury any favor around here. Glad you got some back, glad 1 person has been caught. That said, the entire scenario seems a bit odd. I am sure we will eventually find out what eggZACKtly happened. Certainly seems like, someone in charge of PR dropped the ball. I wonder who?


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

Chris said:


> I don't often post on my old forum, but when I do, I prefer to point out shady business practices and dishonest builders.
> 
> This is utter nonsense and a shameful marketing stunt, and having the audacity to call the "music community" a strong one while straight up exploiting their trust for the sake of PR is disgraceful.




It's disgusting. And they double down on it.


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> Thanks to all that helped get the word out. It truly did help, as I am certain Jeff will explain as soon as he can. Just know that the support, sharing the video, posting it everywhere, etc, truly has helped with the recovery of these instruments thus far, and for that, we thank you all.


You guys keep diggin' that hole and you'll be too far below to even get guitars to the surface.


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## KieselGuitars (May 19, 2016)

Ok guys, whatever you say. 

Pretty sad that a horrible situation that might actually have a happy ending can get trashed for no reason.

Have a nice day.


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

"For no reason."


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## jaxadam (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> Led to the tip



Just the tip?


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## TheKindred (May 19, 2016)

jaxadam said:


> Just the tip?



They've been known to give the full shaft...


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> we did as we were told to do by authorities



Everyone else can ride the hate train all they want, but this is good enough for me. 

I'll give you that on the whole, Kiesel as a company hasn't been doing a phenomenal job communicating online lately, but they haven't done anything wrong- there's no need to pile on like this. People make mistakes, and guitar companies are made of people. We're forgetting that they're the victims in this scenario. Whether it was a break in or some kind of fraudulent orders or whatever else doesn't matter- they were the victim of some kind of malicious activity that resulted in their property leaving their hands, and their vaguely mis-worded social presence helped them get it back.


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## feraledge (May 19, 2016)

This ordeal really inspired me to dig deep in my pocket and pull out some cash to support a really solid cause: hoping to make SSO less dependent on ad revenue and more committed to the ability to be open and honest about companies and bad practices.


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> Everyone else can ride the hate train all they want, but this is good enough for me.
> 
> I'll give you that on the whole, Kiesel as a company hasn't been doing a phenomenal job communicating online lately, but they haven't done anything wrong- there's no need to pile on like this. People make mistakes, and guitar companies are made of people. We're forgetting that they're the victims in this scenario. Whether it was a break in or some kind of fraudulent orders or whatever else doesn't matter- they were the victim of some kind of malicious activity that resulted in their property leaving their hands, and their vaguely mis-worded social presence helped them get it back.


They knowingly deceived you, me, and the rest of us. Infact.......they....."violated" you.  hahahah


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

jerm said:


> They knowingly deceived you



They in no way deceived me. They said some guitars were stolen. Someone out there has guitars that don't belong to them. We're treating some communications mis-steps as if it was some kind of malicious attacks on us personally. If you don't like how they communicate, don't buy their products. If they had not recovered the instruments, they would have taken a loss, and it would have lessened their loss if more people ordered. You can call it shady if you want, but that's what a business is for- they don't exist to be your friend, they exist to fulfill a need, sell a product, make money, etc. Would a handful of missing guitars destroyed their business? Of course not, but asking the community for support when something sh*tty happens to them is not a deception. 

You're all angry because you want to be angry, not because Kielsel really did anything wrong.


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> They in no way deceived me. They said some guitars were stolen. Someone out there has guitars that don't belong to them. We're treating some communications mis-steps as if it was some kind of malicious attacks on us personally. If you don't like how they communicate, don't buy their products. If they had not recovered the instruments, they would have taken a loss, and it would have lessened their loss if more people ordered. You can call it shady if you want, but that's what a business is for- they don't exist to be your friend, they exist to fulfill a need, sell a product, make money, etc. Would a handful of missing guitars destroyed their business? Of course not, but asking the community for support when something sh*tty happens to them is not a deception.
> 
> You're all angry because you want to be angry, not because Kielsel really did anything wrong.


There are ways of doing business. There are business that don't care about their customers and there are those that do. Kiesel is becoming the former. That's my point.


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## Rawkmann (May 19, 2016)

I'm not really a Carvin/Kiesel fan admittedly but I'd feel manipulated if ANY of my preferred guitar brands handled a situation this way. So how are we expected to believe You when the 'real' story is finally brought to light?


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## dhgrind (May 19, 2016)

feraledge said:


> This ordeal really inspired me to dig deep in my pocket and pull out some cash to support a really solid cause: hoping to make SSO less dependent on ad revenue and more committed to the ability to be open and honest about companies and bad practices.



:hang:

after looking at their sub cost it doesn't sound ridiculous at all.


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## Hachetjoel (May 19, 2016)

feraledge said:


> This ordeal really inspired me to dig deep in my pocket and pull out some cash to support a really solid cause: hoping to make SSO less dependent on ad revenue and more committed to the ability to be open and honest about companies and bad practices.




I'm going to do the same thing. Carvin has left SSO so I became a contributor.


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## Rev2010 (May 19, 2016)

Just gave this whole thing another look. While I don't think it was a PR stunt at all I think the whole thing is still strange.

Between the video and Jeff's FB follow-up comments with customers he says,"

"Someone made off with 16 guitars"

"No customers guitars were taken"

and in addition uses the term robbed. We could all talk semantics here but if Carvin *shipped* the guitars out to an international "customer" that turned out to be committing wire fraud then how were the guitars "taken"? They were able to contact the shipping company and stop shipment before it went out of the country, so why then were they jumping to telling everyone to lookout now for the guitars in music stores and pawn shops? I mean think about it... the guitars were on their way out of the country and he's asking everyone to look for these guitars in stores here now.

He also says in the second video, "This had nothing to do with anything local or anybody in the United States". Well then why ask us to look for these guitars in shops here?

Again, I don't think it was a PR stunt. I think he just "knee jerk reacted" and jumped to the internet - poor decision IMO and I personally don't buy that the video post led to the tip.


Rev.


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## MattThePenguin (May 19, 2016)

I watched the two videos again and I have to agree. You would think more care would be taken with such a huge company like this.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

Guh... .... this thread, I'm out. A bunch of over sensitive babies whining about nothing.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

I don't see the possibility of a mistake being made, since they knew where the guitars went to begin with. But, they're saying they did exactly what the authorities told them to do..... So the FBI told them to tell people in the US to spread the story around and actively look for the stolen guitars, even though they knew the guitars left the country? I would bet big money that nothing of the sort happened. Just throwing my 2 cents in. Maybe we'll get a 3rd rewrite of the official story and it will make more sense.


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## Drew (May 19, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> Thanks to all that helped get the word out. It truly did help, as I am certain Jeff will explain as soon as he can. Just know that the support, sharing the video, posting it everywhere, etc, truly has helped with the recovery of these instruments thus far, and for that, we thank you all.



This is the part I'm trying to get my head around. 

These guitars were paid for, shipped internationally, and the wire transfer either failed, turned out to be fraudulent, or for some reason or other never materialized. Foul play of some sort, but for the most part the details *probably* don't matter. 

So, were these 16 guitars sent out of the country without a tracking number? Were they sent uninsured? Did you have no customer information on the party to which the guitars were shipped? 

I'm trying to get my head around how exactly a video telling Kiesel followers on their Facebook page to check pawn shops helped secure the return of the guitars, or would even tell the company something they didn't already know about the guilty parties. I mean, this was straight up wire transfer fraud, right? Not a break-in? 

Really, I'm trying to see how the first video was anything more than an "Oh, woe is me, maybe you guys could make it right by placing those orders you'd been thinking about" play. But, I can't think of a single thing that video would have actually helped, otherwise. 

Tell me what I'm missing.


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## High Plains Drifter (May 19, 2016)

I'd probably hate to know every "wrong, criminal, sneaky, bad, misinforming, dumb, publicity seeking, questionable" thing that every company has ever done... because if I passionately put my foot down and said "I will not support those businesses!" then I'll bet I'd be having to personally manufacture just about EVERYTHING that I need/ want. 

Every single company out there has at some point done something that most anyone would say "That wasn't cool." Most of them we don't hear about or care about or remember, but there is not one single company out there ( related to musical instruments or otherwise) that have 100% of the time acted with complete transparency or integrity. 

True... some companies seemingly make it a bit easier or harder to scrutinize, but damn... I really don't see any benefit to completely throw some individual or some company under the bus. To discuss it, to vent, to try to get answers, etc... absolutely is warranted. This is a forum and was created in the spirit of discussion. Those discussions are certainly expected to get heated at times and to create collateral drama or arguments, or even draw lines in the sand... So I'm not going to say that people don't deserve to have legitimate gripes and concerns... but the mob-mentality of forum communities can certainly be a bit pedantic and pointless at times. 

I'm not defending any company nor do I feel cheated or violated by any particular company. That type of thinking when left to fester, just creates too much animosity and resentment and life is simply too damned short for all of that. I hope that others will just move on from this and either reevaluate what is truly an important "cause" to get behind, or choose a more satisfying resolution to disassociate with these companies that cause such anger and hatred. 

Again... take a step back and consider how this whole thing really affects your life... Because I can almost rest assured that we ALL have more important things to be incensed about. This is just my unpopular opinion and I realize that my words will likely fall upon deaf ears and that's totally cool. I have the utmost respect for all you guys as a whole, so I do hope that what I've written here won't alienate me from the community. Y'all are pretty awesome in so many respects. Thanks for allowing me to throw this out there. Peace.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 19, 2016)

High Plains Drifter said:


> Again... take a step back and consider how this whole thing really affects your life... Because I can almost rest assured that we ALL have more important things to be incensed about.



I hate this argument. So much. 

Why do people only have to be pissed off at only certain things? Why is it when it's a brand you love, they should be pissed at something else? 

I wasn't around for when the BRJ fiasco started, but I wonder if people acted just like this just becuase BRJ had his history. If we learned anything about luthiers recently, it's that is usually doesn't matter if they have a solid history... It can take a few ....-ups to make a reputable company/luthier go from being one of the best custom builders out there, to another in a line of con artists.


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## High Plains Drifter (May 19, 2016)

I don't have a dog in the fight nor do I have an argument on one side or the other. Just a thought put into words. I came close to winding up on a hospital stretcher last week so maybe I'm just seeing things from a more prolific perspective. Heels are dug in here and I don't expect to change anyone's views as much as I'm just adding another opinion to the mix. Much respect.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 19, 2016)

I didn't want to sound too harsh to you in particular, but I just see that argument thrown around a lot. People tend to throw around the "well what about other things happening!?" to tip-toe around the issue at hand.


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## Drew (May 19, 2016)

High Plains Drifter said:


> Every single company out there has at some point done something that most anyone would say "That wasn't cool." Most of them we don't hear about or care about or remember, but there is not one single company out there ( related to musical instruments or otherwise) that have 100% of the time acted with complete transparency or integrity.



This is of course true, but Kiesel has been on a bit of a tear of late, and their credibility was a little stretched even before this happened. 

I'll be honest - they very well may come back with a totally rational explanation about how that first video actually DID help identify the perpetrators in some ways that simply looking at the sales slip and delivery address wouldn't... But, until that happens, well, it's pretty suspect, and I'm not gonna hold my breath.


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

High Plains Drifter said:


> I don't have a dog in the fight nor do I have an argument on one side or the other. Just a thought put into words. I came close to winding up on a hospital stretcher last week so maybe I'm just seeing things from a more prolific perspective. Heels are dug in here and I don't expect to change anyone's views as much as I'm just adding another opinion to the mix. Much respect.




I spent 3 months in the hospital and almost died. I'm still suffering. What does that have to do with this? 

They lied about what happened. The severity of it or who was harmed is separate. No one was really harmed at all. At the end of the day, even if someone placed an order they wouldn't have done but for the video, they just get a nice guitar they paid for. That doesn't make their tactics and twisting of information less sleazy. Yes, Kiesel was the victim of fraud. They chose to be shady about it and lie about what happened. Why would they do it? Who knows. Probably not malicious but they definitely made a conscious choice to change the narrative.

It's just dirty. It's a sleazy way to handle something like that. They still make great guitars, but their judgement and character might not be all the way there. They can do as they please, but they should be called out when they clearly lied about it. Then they doubled down on it instead of just saying they messed up or something.


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## Fathand (May 19, 2016)

The internet - It never fails to disappoint me, because sometimes it gives you the worst and most hilarious stuff in the same place 

- _Someone gets robbed/swindled_ - bash the victim (for reasons external to the case)
- _The victim makes a plea video and enters a small sales pitch, maybe whilst trying to make something positive out of a bad situation. Because, you know, they are in the business of selling stuff_ - put on tin foil hat and build a strong hunch about an inside job/dark devious marketing ploy, with all the juicy things hollywood puts in films for us.
- _Might be a case of identity theft and/or credit card fraud_ _in the end_ - hold on to that inside job/marketing plot idea and just run amok with it. Just because it's more juicy.
- _Instructed by authorities to keep the details out for the time being _- "See, I told you so! I told you so!" *runs crazily into the sunset*

Good for Kiesel they're getting their stuff back and the help they got in the end. Otherwise this topic =


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

^ Except that isn't an accurate recounting of the whole ordeal. I don't want to be unfair: sure, there are folks chomping at the bit, ready to pounce on this company for any reason they can think of (maybe for good reason, or maybe not), but this scenario doesn't play out like a totally honest one.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

They didn't lie. They used poor word choice. Get over yourselves. When somebody swindles something from you, a common phrase is to say you feel robbed. They weren't literally robbed, they were ripped off. People stole their product. 

They were instructed not to release too many details right away, so they didn't. There's absolutely nothing shady with how they handled it so far. Getting upset about poor customer service is one thing, but they didn't do anything wrong here.


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## High Plains Drifter (May 19, 2016)

big_aug said:


> I spent 3 months in the hospital and almost died. I'm still suffering. What does that have to do with this?
> 
> They lied about what happened. The severity of it or who was harmed is separate. No one was really harmed at all. At the end of the day, even if someone placed an order they wouldn't have done but for the video, they just get a nice guitar they paid for. That doesn't make their tactics and twisting of information less sleazy. Yes, Kiesel was the victim of fraud. They chose to be shady about it and lie about what happened. Why would they do it? Who knows. Probably not malicious but they definitely made a conscious choice to change the narrative.
> 
> It's just dirty. It's a sleazy way to handle something like that. They still make great guitars, but their judgement and character might not be all the way there. They can do as they please, but they should be called out when they clearly lied about it. Then they doubled down on it instead of just saying they messed up or something.



I didn't almost die but I did wind up counting my blessings and putting some things in perspective. Potentially life changing events can do that to a person. I said it already... I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be some questions being asked... nor am I suggesting that people should just ignore something that gets under their skin... nor that people aren't deserving of some answers that make sense. Honestly, I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I think that people wanting transparency and accountability are valid reasons for discussion. 

All I interjected was the thought that every single company out there has it's share of incidents that appear questionable in the eyes of the public. No one is exempt, but rarely do we wind up victorious since "victory" is quite subjective. 

Stand on whatever side you want. I couldn't honestly care less of what becomes of K/C. Some businesses thrive despite adversity... others fail. Time will tell how all of the recent negativity shakes out. I was simply offering up an opinion that [as human beings] we sometimes become a bit invested in things that aren't necessarily beneficial to our personal lives when considering the bigger picture... again, that life is short, and being consumed with anger towards an individual or company can often times be a fruitless venture. That's all. 

Time to go get some worthwhile things done. Have a good day, y'all.


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## jerm (May 19, 2016)

Chokey Chicken said:


> They didn't lie. They used poor word choice. Get over yourselves. When somebody swindles something from you, a common phrase is to say you feel robbed. They weren't literally robbed, they were ripped off. People stole their product.
> 
> They were instructed not to release too many details right away, so they didn't. There's absolutely nothing shady with how they handled it so far. Getting upset about poor customer service is one thing, but they didn't do anything wrong here.


So them telling people to check local pawn shops, instrument stores to look for them when they knowingly knew damn well they wouldn't be there, isn't a lie?


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## thrsher (May 19, 2016)

jerm said:


> So them telling people to check local pawn shops, instrument stores to look for them when they knowingly knew damn well they wouldn't be there, isn't a lie?



did they say the first batch was with a freight forwarder? we don't know the full details of this scam and only that the source was overseas, but that doesn't mean they didn't try to have a team stateside to help facilitate this scam.

they never said they shipped the guitars off internationally. what if a fake company came to pick them up locally or the guitars were shipped locally.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (May 19, 2016)

High Plains Drifter said:


> I'd probably hate to know every "wrong, criminal, sneaky, bad, misinforming, dumb, publicity seeking, questionable" thing that every company has ever done... because if I passionately put my foot down and said "I will not support those businesses!" then I'll bet I'd be having to personally manufacture just about EVERYTHING that I need/ want.



All shady BS aside I agree with this. Do any of you still shop at Walmart?


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

High Plains Drifter said:


> I didn't almost die but I did wind up counting my blessings and putting some things in perspective. Potentially life changing events can do that to a person. I said it already... I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be some questions being asked... nor am I suggesting that people should just ignore something that gets under their skin... nor that people aren't deserving of some answers that make sense. Honestly, I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I think that people wanting transparency and accountability are valid reasons for discussion.
> 
> All I interjected was the thought that every single company out there has it's share of incidents that appear questionable in the eyes of the public. No one is exempt, but rarely do we wind up victorious since "victory" is quite subjective.
> 
> ...



I get what you're saying. I'm not mad or anything. I'm not impacted. I'm not a customer and will now probably never be a customer even though I considered it in the past. I have no investment and don't care what happens. They definitely fabricated a story and used it in a less than honest way. I'll call that out when I see it regardless of the company.


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

jerm said:


> So them telling people to check local pawn shops, instrument stores to look for them when they knowingly knew damn well they wouldn't be there, isn't a lie?



Is nobody willing to consider that they maybe had limited information themselves at the time the first video was made?


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## jc986 (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> Is nobody willing to consider that they maybe had limited information themselves at the time the first video was made?



I'd consider that if they didn't pack the guitars up and ship them out themselves. Seems like they should have had a pretty good idea where the guitars were headed.


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## xwmucradiox (May 19, 2016)

The language precision fail is more annoying than any of the other bull..... Robbery is a direct theft of property from a person. There is explicit threat of violence in the term. "Paid with fake money" just doesn't have the same punch, unfortunately.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> All shady BS aside I agree with this. Do any of you still shop at Walmart?




No, actually - Walmart is the devil.

Just to put it into perspective, if I sold a guitar to somebody in Italy, and they did a credit card charge-back to rip me off after I sent them the guitar, then I put up a PSA asking everybody on the forums (mostly Americans) to check with pawn shops and local classified listings... only to later reveal that I knowingly sent the guitar out of the country... Wouldn't you scratch your head? There would be virtually ZERO advantage for me in misdirecting everybody. However, if during the whole process I asked that folks help me out by promoting my band, or buying some product of mine, you wouldn't trust that I had honest intentions going forward. This could be the result of stupidity + knee jerk (and mostly benign) opportunism, but it still isn't professional behavior, in my opinion.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> Is nobody willing to consider that they maybe had limited information themselves at the time the first video was made?




This would only make sense if they didn't keep track of when/if they shipped those guitars, which is very bad, but for different reasons, obviously.

I'm open to being wrong about all of this, and am not overtly accusing anybody of sleaziness, but given what I do know, it seems very off.


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

jc986 said:


> I'd consider that if they didn't pack the guitars up and ship them out themselves. Seems like they should have had a pretty good idea where the guitars were headed.



I don't know how big a company they are, but "they" can mean a lot of people. The reality is that with a lot of people working under one name, there's not just one big collective knowledge- everyone knows enough to do their part, and most people probably don't know much about what goes on outside of their little space at the company. This means that while "the company knows" something, it still can take time for the right people to piece everything together. We know so little about what really happened that it's not fair to make any assumptions about it, or claim we were lied to. It was a communications miss-step, that's it.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

^ While that's true, only an idiot would file a report with the police and the FBI without first accessing their own resources. That is to say that I am sure they at least knew how they were ripped off before making a public announcement about it.


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## jc986 (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> I don't know how big a company they are, but "they" can mean a lot of people. The reality is that with a lot of people working under one name, there's not just one big collective knowledge- everyone knows enough to do their part, and most people probably don't know much about what goes on outside of their little space at the company. This means that while "the company knows" something, it still can take time for the right people to piece everything together. We know so little about what really happened that it's not fair to make any assumptions about it, or claim we were lied to. It was a communications miss-step, that's it.



The thing is that they really aren't a huge company though. They have around 50 employees. I'd bet there are less than 4 or 5 people are in charge of shipping/receiving, if that. That said, even in a massive company, if you know that you got stiffed on even a single order, there should be tracking associated with the order. Pulling up the tracking info associated with the orders they got screwed on shouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes.


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

Adam Of Angels said:


> only an idiot



I never said they didn't initiate their own internal investigation before contacting authorities, but hey, any excuse to call Kiesel idiots again, amirite?


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## thrsher (May 19, 2016)

to me, it seems like the scammer played the, ship to my counterpart in state X. if they honestly did ship those guitars overseas themselves as per standard practices, then yes, i agree with all the hate that is commencing. i just feel like there was more of an elaborate scam going on.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

TedEH said:


> I never said they didn't initiate their own internal investigation before contacting authorities, but hey, any excuse to call Kiesel idiots again, amirite?



This would be you calling them idiots. I'm saying that I would fully expect them to know that they were victims of mail/order fraud, and not break-in/robbery, before posting the video. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that they're almost completely incompetent as a retail business.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

thrsher said:


> to me, it seems like the scammer played the, ship to my counterpart in state X. if they honestly did ship those guitars overseas themselves as per standard practices, then yes, i agree with all the hate that is commencing. i just feel like there was more of an elaborate scam going on.



While that would be acceptable, Jeff brought up the risks involved with International shipments, which this would not be an example of if they were sending the guitars to a state-side middle-man.

Again, I'm open to a plausible explanation. Granted, I'm not necessarily owed a plausible explanation, but I have ordered a few Carvins in the past, and have owned probably 30+ used ones. I'm not in any way jumping on the hate wagon, I'm just disappointed with some of the things I've been hearing. This company was one of my favorites growing up, and I'm not ready to accept that they're taking low roads, so I'm hoping this all cleans up.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (May 19, 2016)

Adam Of Angels said:


> No, actually - Walmart is the devil.
> 
> Just to put it into perspective, if I sold a guitar to somebody in Italy, and they did a credit card charge-back to rip me off after I sent them the guitar, then I put up a PSA asking everybody on the forums (mostly Americans) to check with pawn shops and local classified listings... only to later reveal that I knowingly sent the guitar out of the country... Wouldn't you scratch your head? There would be virtually ZERO advantage for me in misdirecting everybody. However, if during the whole process I asked that folks help me out by promoting my band, or buying some product of mine, you wouldn't trust that I had honest intentions going forward. This could be the result of stupidity + knee jerk (and mostly benign) opportunism, but it still isn't professional behavior, in my opinion.



Yeah I totally agree. I was just curious how many people there are that are giving Carvin a hard time but still support other fvcked companies.


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## potatohead (May 19, 2016)

Some of you guys are just flat out whacked. There are so many conclusions being drawn in here the thread needs about 700 jump to conclusions mats.


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## ramses (May 19, 2016)

Carmel Mountain guitar maker hit by thieves; social media, FBI help company in international scam - 10News.com KGTV ABC10 San Diego


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## Zado (May 19, 2016)

Adam Of Angels said:


> No, actually - Walmart is the devil.
> 
> Just to put it into perspective, if I sold a guitar to somebody in Italy, and they did a credit card charge-back to rip me off after I sent them the guitar,[...]



Hell, why has to be Italy always involved into fishy stuff


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

jerm said:


> So them telling people to check local pawn shops, instrument stores to look for them when they knowingly knew damn well they wouldn't be there, isn't a lie?



Nope. Telling somebody to do something isn't a lie. Me telling you to go buy a unicorn isn't lying. Its me trying to get you to do something impossible. Which isn't even comparable, since these guitars could easily find their way back stateside. And considering I don't ever recall them saying "only people in the US, check pawn shops" even that's pretty irrelevant. Again, they could still be fenced off back to the US so checking US stores and shops is not, in fact, unnecessary. 

Considering I'm familiar with how "ongoing investigations" are handled, nothing here is that far out of line. Legit, just the improper use of the word "robbed." Which I'm betting everyone would still be upset if they just said "stolen."


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

Zado said:


> Hell, why has to be Italy always involved into fishy stuff



I'm Italian, if that helps throw off any suspicion of bias. 

I'm not going to add any more conjecture to this whole thing. If this was a matter of opportunism, worse things could have been done, and it's really not a deal breaker... but I still hope to hear a good explanation for the confusion, whether it actually makes a difference to the sworn haters or not.


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## TedEH (May 19, 2016)

On a more positive note, the comments section for that article is amazing:




> police also noted that they were going to string up whoever commited this crime.
> 
> not a shred of evidence....
> 
> ...


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## marcwormjim (May 19, 2016)

I like how every side is accusing the others of conspiring - Even those rebuffing conspiracy.


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## Rev2010 (May 19, 2016)

Chokey Chicken said:


> Again, they could still be fenced off back to the US so checking US stores and shops is not, in fact, unnecessary.



Oh lord... any criminals operating with fence operations aren't going to be dealing with fencing 16 Carvin/Keisel guitars. We're talking 16 guitars here, not 2.5 million in bearer bonds 


Rev.


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## mnemonic (May 19, 2016)

I want to believe


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## Adam Of Angels (May 19, 2016)

marcwormjim said:


> I like how every side is accusing the others of conspiring - Even those rebuffing conspiracy.



I think its more like a few people are throwing out unfair accusations, while most of us are pointing out that the whole thing doesn't add up. There's no reason to throw out clear accusations with what's been given. I don't see Carvin/Kiesel tanking it or anything like that, but I do think they might be in high water with the massive increase in orders as of late.


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

I don't think anyone believes its a conspiracy.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> Oh lord... any criminals operating with fence operations aren't going to be dealing with fencing 16 Carvin/Keisel guitars. We're talking 16 guitars here, not 2.5 million in bearer bonds
> 
> 
> Rev.



Perhaps fencing was poor word choice? Apologies, but my point remains. There are dozens of ways the stolen goods could end up back in the states, but again that's mostly irrelevant as they never explicitly said for _only_ people in the US to check their stores.


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## Drew (May 19, 2016)

ramses said:


> Carmel Mountain guitar maker hit by thieves; social media, FBI help company in international scam - 10News.com KGTV ABC10 San Diego



That actually opens more questions than it answers. 

Jeff "became aware of the theft when he noticed an unusual spike in orders." Huh? These are custom guitars, and Jeff only noticed an "unusual spike" after they shipped, not at the time of order? Even if they were in-stock guitars built for inventory (does Kiesel even do this?), no one thought it was unusual until after they shipped? This is not a large company we're talking about. 

Also, one of the suspects _called_ Jeff and offered to return six guitars? It wasn't a tip-off from a Carvin fan or a musician somewhere, for all their talk about the "strength of the musician community," but one of the suspects _turned themselves in_?

And, back to my original question, they needed help from the online community to find _the very people they had shipped guitars to_? 

This story keeps getting weirder and weirder. Seriously.

EDIT - and, this took a second to sink in, but the absolute strangest thing - "one of the suspects actually called us" being the big success from posting the video - that means that when they posted that video, they actually HAD suspects, at least one of them was clearly actually involved, in which case it's a pretty safe bet that they knew where these guitars were being shipped to and who was receiving them the entire time. WT actual F?!?


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## Jonathan20022 (May 19, 2016)

It's not surprising that a few individuals are blasting Kiesel yet again for wording and the supposed terrible dishonesty they've caused them 

A lot of people are raising legitimate questions, and personally I was confused/weirded out when the international aspect of it was brought up. But end of the day, it's their loss and not mine, yours, or anyone else's. If they went through specific methods, and were told to do so by authorities (their words), then more power to them. It doesn't affect me, and if these guitars were ever lost completely, they would be feeling the burn not a single other person in this thread.

Also completely considering the case isn't 100% revealed, plenty of people are jumping the gun one way or the other.

Meanwhile there are dealers that are still being a shady .... and avoiding customers/not delivering guitars, *actively* to the point where people should be concerned for their money and potential loss in gear. But of course, the large company that pumps out thousands of instruments gets all the focus 

Kiesel isn't perfect, and no brand is. But if anyone denies the dog pile mentality that *a few* people are exhibiting should re-read this thread.


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

This is what happens when you don't just use the facts from the get go. When you start twisting stuff to sound better or be more impactful, it just becomes a messy web of lies and bull..... 

We've probably all told a lie that we tried to fix later with another lie. It rarely goes well. I just try to avoid doing it about my job, making videos of it, and posting it on social media


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## Rev2010 (May 19, 2016)

Drew said:


> That actually opens more questions than it answers.
> 
> Jeff "became aware of the theft when he noticed an unusual spike in orders." Huh? These are custom guitars, and Jeff only noticed an "unusual spike" after they shipped, not at the time of order? Even if they were in-stock guitars built for inventory (does Kiesel even do this?), no one thought it was unusual until after they shipped? This is not a large company we're talking about.
> 
> ...



Definitely getting weirder. He said his PSA helped nab one of the perpetrators and get some of the guitars back but in the news story they say one of the perps contacted _them_ and returned the guitars.

And to those defending Keisel's actions on this whole event, let's be honest here... can you honestly say the rational thing to do, when they knew the guitars were in shipping on the way to Indonesia, was to put out a video telling all of us to keep an eye out in the stores for these guitars and to share this with any friends working or owning pawn shops and music stores?


Rev.


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## 13la13la (May 19, 2016)

feraledge said:


> This ordeal really inspired me to dig deep in my pocket and pull out some cash to support a really solid cause: hoping to make SSO less dependent on ad revenue and more committed to the ability to be open and honest about companies and bad practices.



I agree and do the same.


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## Jonathan20022 (May 19, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> Definitely getting weirder. He said his PSA helped nab one of the perpetrators and get some of the guitars back but in the news story they say one of the perps contacted _them_ and returned the guitars.
> 
> And to those defending Keisel's actions on this whole event, let's be honest here... can you honestly say the rational thing to do, when they knew the guitars were in shipping on the way to Indonesia, was to put out a video telling all of us to keep an eye out in the stores for these guitars and to share this with any friends working or owning pawn shops and music stores?
> 
> ...



Definitely not rational, but I can't say I'd be perfectly rational when I realized what just happened if I was in their spot. It should definitely have been handled differently.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> Definitely getting weirder. He said his PSA helped nab one of the perpetrators and get some of the guitars back but in the news story they say one of the perps contacted _them_ and returned the guitars.
> 
> And to those defending Keisel's actions on this whole event, let's be honest here... can you honestly say the rational thing to do, when they knew the guitars were in shipping on the way to Indonesia, was to put out a video telling all of us to keep an eye out in the stores for these guitars and to share this with any friends working or owning pawn shops and music stores?
> 
> ...



Perhaps better to be ahead of the curve? Perhaps a desperate move? I do think it's best to make people aware as soon as possible that there are stolen goods floating about. Does Indonesia not have pawn shops/music shops? Were all of the guitars shipped to Indo, or just the ones they've recovered? There are a .... ton of questions that can be asked, and I just think it's way too soon to be crapping all over Kiesel at this point in time. 

Let's be real, they went like one day between the first video and the second one. If they really wanted to drum up all sorts of hype, would they not just let it hang in the air for a while?


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## big_aug (May 19, 2016)

This all reminds me of those friends who make .... up and you can't ever figure out why they do it. There is definitely some legitimate reason in their mind, but the rest of us are just like "WTF?"


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## potatohead (May 19, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> Definitely getting weirder. He said his PSA helped nab one of the perpetrators and get some of the guitars back but in the news story they say one of the perps contacted _them_ and returned the guitars.
> 
> And to those defending Keisel's actions on this whole event, let's be honest here... can you honestly say the rational thing to do, when they knew the guitars were in shipping on the way to Indonesia, was to put out a video telling all of us to keep an eye out in the stores for these guitars and to share this with any friends working or owning pawn shops and music stores?
> 
> ...



This is why you (not you specifically, but people in general) need to know all the facts before jumping around and pointing fingers and shouting out.

We don't even know if the guitars were shipped in the first place. They could have been purchased by different people with different credit cards/checks/money orders over the span of several days/weeks/months. This could explain why they thought the guitars were in town. If the authorities didn't inform them of anything until later, they could have no idea anything was destined for overseas. 

If they in fact were shipped, we don't know where. SoCal has a billion freight forwarders. Only a moron who has never heard the word "fraud" in his lifetime would actually accept and ship 16 new random orders for guitars shipping to the other side of the world... So I'd bet a good sum of money that didn't happen. In fact shipping 16 guitars anywhere to any new single customer at any given time is colossally dumb so I'm betting that didn't happen either.


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## feraledge (May 19, 2016)

big_aug said:


> I don't think anyone believes its a conspiracy.



Exactly, it's more like Jeff beveled the truth.


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## Rev2010 (May 19, 2016)

potatohead said:


> This is why you (not you specifically, but people in general) need to know all the facts before jumping around and pointing fingers and shouting out.



Well me, and those posting in the vein I have, are simply saying this whole fiasco is just getting more bizarre with the additional information coming out. I stated already that I don't believe it was a PR stunt as some have suggested, I simply think Jeff jumped the gun and posted that video as a knee jerk reaction having felt ripped off. That's all. But you can't ignore how strange thile whole thing comes off. If someone on here gets ripped off on a PayPal charge back they typically post naming the person and their online screen names warning people not to deal with said person. I don't ever recall someone shipping something oversees, getting ripped off, and telling us without any real details to alert everyone we may know working in music stores. I also really seriously cannot believe the FBI or any authority told them to do this. I don't even think the FBI's response time would be a day or two for 16 guitars. I mean come on, they have way more serious stuff in the queue. 


Rev.


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## Rev2010 (May 19, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Exactly, it's more like Jeff beveled the truth.



OK, now this is just plain clever! 


Rev.


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## potatohead (May 19, 2016)

Rev2010 said:


> Well me, and those posting in the vein I have, are simply saying this whole fiasco is just getting more bizarre with the additional information coming out. I stated already that I don't believe it was a PR stunt as some have suggested, I simply think Jeff jumped the gun and posted that video as a knee jerk reaction having felt ripped off. That's all. But you can't ignore how strange thile whole thing comes off. If someone on here gets ripped off on a PayPal charge back they typically post naming the person and their online screen names warning people not to deal with said person. I don't ever recall someone shipping something oversees, getting ripped off, and telling us without any real details to alert everyone we may know working in music stores. I also really seriously cannot believe the FBI or any authority told them to do this. I don't even think the FBI's response time would be a day or two for 16 guitars. I mean come on, they have way more serious stuff in the queue.
> 
> 
> Rev.



Typically I would agree but we just don't know. This could be part of a larger investigation they've (FBI) been tracking for some time, in fact it probably is. They could have been using these transactions as bait. I used to work in an industry that dealt with a lot of money fraud (online wheels and tires) I have seen it a lot, I am pretty/very good at sniffing it out. You can be assured every large retailer and especially online has people that do the same. In one instance when I was working in store, I took a deposit from someone that was obviously fraud, I told them the parts would be in a few hours later, called the cops who verified the fraudulent transaction, and they had the dude a few hours later. On the flip side I have been definitely been had before, not everyone is perfect, so it can happen... But to simply just ship 16 in stock guitars from orders that were placed in the course of say, even 48 hours when you typically sell one or two, it just would not happen. It is basically the biggest red flag there is, which is why I believe 100% there is more to this story. It's such a joke I wouldn't even contact the customer I would just close all the orders.


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## Splinterhead (May 19, 2016)

The fact is we don't know all the facts. Speculation and rumor only feed the trolls and fuel the hate wagon. How about we reserve judgement until the whole story comes out?


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## potatohead (May 19, 2016)

Splinterhead said:


> The fact is we don't know all the facts. Speculation and rumor only feed the trolls and fuel the hate wagon. How about we reserve judgement until the whole story comes out?



Agree


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## jaxadam (May 19, 2016)

Splinterhead said:


> The fact is we don't know all the facts. Speculation and rumor only feed the trolls and fuel the hate wagon. How about we reserve judgement until the whole story comes out?



How will we know the whole story when we see it? And how will we know it's not more spin?

Plenty of biased details are coming out, and that's the only way I expect it to proceed fully.


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## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

I'd feel much more comfortable if the guys at Keisel weren't Engaging in listening to their social media guy. (Okay, it wasn't as clever as Khoury any favor.)

The fact that a lot of this information is coming from him, I think, is what gives people such pause, and distrust of the whole thing.


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## feraledge (May 19, 2016)

I'm almost waiting for the "infamous" returned Kiesels to be sold on another site with an extra bump in the price...

Look, it's all pretty simple, nearly everyone here has been rooting for Kiesel and a lot of the changes they have made and options they have given. The bad customer service, horrible PR and inability to just be "open and transparent" while attempting to sweep the bad reviews or experiences under the carpet gets people pissed. So when Jeff posts a video that goes viral (over a million views in less than two days?!?) eliciting sympathy and uses that to pander for pity sales you have to expect that some people who were pissed would still be pissed. 
But those people got called out for conspiracy for suggesting that, at the very least, Kiesel wasn't being fully open or honest in that video about the whole situation and that they were using it. 
People want to call that, fine. BUT what doesn't help is when a second video comes up within 48 hours that basically proves all the people saying, "this seems a bit fishy" were right, then you can't continue to pile on them as naysayers. It might be unfortunate that they were right, but as others have said, knowing the situation, it's probably impossible that the video had anything to do with guitars getting returned or on their way back to Kiesel. 
As Jeff says in the second video, a part of this was to just "get some love" and they claim they did. 
But they didn't need to do all that. They do semi-customs with a relatively quick turn around and they have a ton of options. 
The problem with Kiesel is that they are an awesome option, but that they keep thinking they can or should present themselves as more than that. And it just highlights their issues when those moves fail as this one has.


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## Grand Moff Tim (May 19, 2016)

At this point I doubt anyone but the most ardent of hateboner-holders actually think this is some conspiracy set up by Jeff to get some PR. Even with the incomplete picture, it seems more just like PR bumbling in response to a sh!tty event. Honestly, though, it's that recurring PR bumbling that seems to be leaving a sour taste in some people's mouths around here.

The fanboys should take note that, apart from the usual suspects who come into_ every_ Kiesel thread frothing at the mouth, most of the people who have popped into this thread like "dafuq?" are people who hadn't ever really professed any opinion one way or the other about the brand, or in a couple cases, have actually been vocal proponents. That really should tell you something about the direction Carvin's public face has been going.

Does anyone remember Vik? Surely most of us do. He used to be an SSO darling because of his luthiery skills. Now he's mostly a punchline around here, and it sure isn't because his skills went away. If a company is going to insist on having a public face, they ought to make sure they keep that face clean and free of egg. For that matter, why do they even need a face? Was Carvin not doing well back when they were just "that shop with the affordable semi-custom options" and nobody knew who was doing anything? Why did that need to change?

It's PR that's causing the problems here. Not the quality of the products, not even the few bad dealings that might have popped up. It's just how they've publicly dealt with things that is turning people away. It's strange to me that some people don't see that and keep defending them. Well, not _too_ strange, because fanboys gonna fan, but still. 

Here's how I see it:

Releasing a video to let the public know about a sh!tty incident? Fine.
Throwing a sales pitch into said video? Oopsie daisy.

Using a poor choice of words when describing the incident? Honest mistake. Happens to the best of us.
Coming in here and being combative about it rather than just saying "yeah, we could've chosen our words better, sorry about that."? B-b-b-blunder.

Doing a questionable job on a color match Option 50? Nobody's perfect. Even Jackson forgets to count frets sometimes.
Refusing to acknowledge anything wrong and publicly telling the affected customer he's SOL? Ruh-roh, Raggy.

Being upset at the vitriol coming from a few members of a forum once considered one of your best sources for attracting ERG players to your brand? Understandable. Nobody likes piss in their cornflakes.
Pulling all advertising from said site because of the actions of a few haters, and openly smiling about it on your own forums (which shares some users with this one)? Come-right-the-f_u_ck-on. Nobody with an ounce of common sense could have possibly thought that was a good idea.




The TL;DR version: Jeff has no knack whatsoever for PR, and the people he has hired to cover that for him are doing a p!ss-poor job of things. Get that sorted and we can all move on.


----------



## ramses (May 19, 2016)

https://m.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kiesel/16-missing-guitars/867338623387972/?ref=bookmarks



> 16 Missing Guitars
> 
> 11 MINUTES AGO · PUBLIC
> 
> ...


----------



## beneharris (May 19, 2016)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> At this point I doubt anyone but the most ardent of hateboner-holders actually think this is some conspiracy set up by Jeff to get some PR. Even with the incomplete picture, it seems more just like PR bumbling in response to a sh!tty event. Honestly, though, it's that recurring PR bumbling that seems to be leaving a sour taste in some people's mouths around here.
> 
> The fanboys should take note that, apart from the usual suspects who come into_ every_ Kiesel thread frothing at the mouth, most of the people who have popped into this thread like "dafuq?" are people who hadn't ever really professed any opinion one way or the other about the brand, or in a couple cases, have actually been vocal proponents. That really should tell you something about the direction Carvin's public face has been going.
> 
> ...



Well said.


----------



## hardvalve (May 19, 2016)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> At this point I doubt anyone but the most ardent of hateboner-holders actually think this is some conspiracy set up by Jeff to get some PR. Even with the incomplete picture, it seems more just like PR bumbling in response to a sh!tty event. Honestly, though, it's that recurring PR bumbling that seems to be leaving a sour taste in some people's mouths around here.
> 
> The fanboys should take note that, apart from the usual suspects who come into_ every_ Kiesel thread frothing at the mouth, most of the people who have popped into this thread like "dafuq?" are people who hadn't ever really professed any opinion one way or the other about the brand, or in a couple cases, have actually been vocal proponents. That really should tell you something about the direction Carvin's public face has been going.
> 
> ...



This is it eggZACKtly. I was very interested in the direction they were headed, stuff nobody else was doing, and changing their image. Interaction with the "PR" people literally turned me off 100%. Behaviors, deleting anything not stellar, or genuine questions about the guitars. Never seen that happen to the extent it did. I do not trust them at all, mainly because of attitudes present when there is any friction, or difficulties. This scenario cements that. I hope all is recovered, and theft is bad no matter what form it takes. Perhaps Jeff, and the leaders can take this to heart, and get rid of bad elements tainting their entire brand. Get some real professionals who understand PR/Marketing, and how to interact with the public. Thoughtful, well planned answers, and a more balanced approach can go a long way towards turning things around. Attention to detail.


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## Splinterhead (May 19, 2016)

jaxadam said:


> How will we know the whole story when we see it? And how will we know it's not more spin?
> 
> Plenty of biased details are coming out, and that's the only way I expect it to proceed fully.



Great question. To be honest since, to my knowledge, none of us were there and none of us are directly involved with the FBI investigation we won't really have a totally accurate first hand account of what happened. But isn't it like that with any type of incident like this that occurs. Kiesel did put out an update page on FB which i think is a good start.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kiesel/16-missing-guitars/867338623387972


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## Chokey Chicken (May 19, 2016)

Fwiw, I'm only defending them in this case. That color match and how they handled it has me not ordering from them for a while. I'm not a fangirl by any stretch, I just hate the piling on this thread saw.


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## TheKindred (May 19, 2016)

If you have information that can help an ongoing FBI investigation, why would you be asked to send the info directly to Anthony at Kiesel?

Legit question. I feel like north of the border a similar news story would have you contact the investigating authority, not the victim. Is that just a USA thing?


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## Nag (May 19, 2016)

I can understand people smashing BRJ in that Black Friday thread, because it's their own money we're talking about, but this here ?

Someone said this is a PR stunt, and everyone just jumped on that. This is the magic of the internet, opinions get read like facts all the time. I guess most of the people went to this thread, read the word "conspiracy", then watched the original video Jeff made a second time, looking for clues. What's that called again, confirmation bias ? "justified" by the recent rant threads against Kiesel like the color match thing. Yeah, this is SSO, people jump on hype trains all the time. This thread got derailed like CRAZY for what reason ? Did anyone in here have a legit reason to be buttmad at Kiesel ? I don't think so. I will agree that the first video Jeff made was kinda weird, sales pitch, publicity, bad choice of words, "lying" or whatever you want to dislike about it. But then again, they had the FBI snooping around trying to find 40 grand worth of stuff, I have no idea what the FBI will or will not allow you to say on a video in such a case.

In the meantime, most of the guitars are still missing...


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## ThePIGI King (May 19, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Exactly, it's more like Jeff beveled the truth.



I hate to post in here without actually contributing, but feraledge, you won the best person on the internet award - 2016


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## feraledge (May 19, 2016)

ThePIGI King said:


> I hate to post in here without actually contributing, but feraledge, you won the best person on the internet award - 2016








/thread


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## Alex Kenivel (May 20, 2016)




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## Nlelith (May 20, 2016)

Okay, I'm on the fence about this whole situation, but I feel like I should add my experience with freight-forwarders to this thread:

I bought 2 guitars from USA through freight-forwarders, one of them is Carvin (when they didn't sell direct here). I also buy a lot of clothes/strings/gear the same way. Whenever I place an order through freight-forwarder, the store doesn't know that I'm overseas. Store employees think that I'm actually in US, because I'm ordering for my name, and freight-forwarder's personal or company names are never specified on these orders. I can use my credit card and specify US shipping/billing address, I can use PayPal or even freight-forwarder's credit card to make a purchase (latter option comes with much bigger commission). This applies to every freight-forwarder that I used (and I used several).

So, K/C most likely didn't know that guitars were supposed to head overseas. Freight-forwarders would appear to them as any US customer would. That's probably why K/C initially asked to check pawn shops and whatever.

That being said, it's still quite strange why K/C didn't tell about this before or why they didn't say "Oh, you know what? We just found out that guitars would head overseas , because they were ordered through freight-forwarders. We didn't know that, sorry for asking you guys to check local stores". A simple clarification like that would've save K/C from spawning conspiracies here. Yet, I'm not sure why there were no attempts to diffuse this situation.

So yeah, as I said, I'm still on the fence about it.


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## Fred the Shred (May 20, 2016)

This thread most definitely delivers. 

The whole situation is filled with inaccuracies, a tentative sales pitch and some rather poor decisions, and to be honest, it actually resulted in a very, very nasty PR situation for the company in addition to the whole unfortunate ordeal of a payment fraud scheme and valuable guitars gone.

A robbery implies the coercion, by use of force or fear, of the victim, with the intent of permanently depriving them of property for the gain of the robber. There was no robbery here in any way, shape or form. This isn't just semantics, it's a legal definition. I've seen many creative ways to perform payment fraud, but I am yet to see something like an ATM or laptop being coerced to wire money at gunpoint.

Even discounting the video being a kneejerk reaction to the whole ordeal, and not denying potential benefits of raising the red flag regarding stolen instruments, the whole "we are ok, but could totally use more orders" is pretty much free fuel for those who view Jeff as cynical and opportunistic, and then you have the TV video which adds confusion to the whole thing and leaves both tinfoil hat conspirationists and regular people seeing the situation unfold wondering what the hell is even going on to begin with.

I have to agree with whomever said that Kiesel would do well to review the whole hyperbolic online strategy's bounds, as it is basically leaving a trail of angry actual / prospective customers and adding fuel to the fire in terms of negative feedback, which WILL cost them business.


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## 13la13la (May 20, 2016)

If anything Kiesel should stop talking and let their products speak for them... There are many companies out there that are being successful with that type or "PR".


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## Zado (May 20, 2016)

13la13la said:


> If anything Kiesel should stop talking and let their products speak for them... There are many companies out there that are being successful with that type or "PR".



Yep, Suhr for example. AFAIK their social activities are very limited (aparts from pics posting of course), and I've yet to find someone that dislike their stuff.

But yeah, your products must be on their level as starting point.....


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## arielmarx1014 (May 20, 2016)

Help me understand something. For a custom order, you place a deposit and make payments over time right? These customs take at least 1/2/3 months, especially if highly customized. I can see how potentially the final payments didn't clear, but some if not most of the money would cleared throughout the process no? I'm confused and apologies if addressed already.


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## ferret (May 20, 2016)

arielmarx1014 said:


> Help me understand something. For a custom order, you place a deposit and make payments over time right? These customs take at least 1/2/3 months, especially if highly customized. I can see how potentially the final payments didn't clear, but some if not most of the money would cleared throughout the process no? I'm confused and apologies if addressed already.



These were models that had already been completed for the "guitars in stock" section and the showroom. So there's no deposit or wait, they typically ship within a day or two.


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## arielmarx1014 (May 20, 2016)

oh ok, thanks!


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## TedEH (May 20, 2016)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> [All the stuff said on the last page]



 /thread


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## Andromalia (May 20, 2016)

Well, that's what you get for getting you-know-who as a PR guy. It's a real job you know, with training and diplomas.


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## hardvalve (May 20, 2016)

Andromalia said:


> Well, that's what you get for getting you-know-who as a PR guy. It's a real job you know, with training and diplomas.



NAILED IT.


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## big_aug (May 20, 2016)

What's the story with this PR guy?


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## will_shred (May 20, 2016)

Electric Wizard said:


> _
> REALLY?
> 
> _Maybe the FBI is investigating because major retail theft is something that they're concerned with? Maybe they are investigating because they investigate cargo theft? Maybe Carvin was part of a large string of thefts?
> ...



Thank you. The FBI handles crimes that happen between states, and if someone went though the trouble to steal 16 high end custom guitars, they would probably know to sell them far away from where they got them. Like outside the state, or internationally. Both of which the FBI has the resources to handle.



> When the shady owner of a shady company gets robbed of a product that has no value to the thief (since they literally can't be sold or traded anywhere for even the lowest of profit) there's only one basic conclusion to come to if you exert a shred of common sense and it's not in tinfoil territory.



A. Carvin/Kiesel has been building guitars and audio equipment almost as long as Fender, they're not shady and have an extremely good track record. 

B. Carvin guitars might not have the best resale value, but it has been going up recently and there certainly is a relatively large market for used Carvins/Kiesels 

C. Yes it is.


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## schantist (May 20, 2016)

big_aug said:


> What's the story with this PR guy?



For the unfiltered truth ask this question on mg.org


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## technomancer (May 20, 2016)

schantist said:


> For the unfiltered truth ask this question on mg.org



Honestly the entire mod staff is tired of dealing with abuse from both sides of this... it's awesome getting abusive PMs from site sponsors every time somebody's name is mentioned and endless reported posts every time somebody says something about Carvin while at the same time getting .... from members because the site owner deleted a thread after a customer got his money back. 

It should be pretty obvious from this thread how heavy moderation is on this, but yes please go bitch on mg.org instead of here


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## Nag (May 20, 2016)

technomancer said:


> It should be pretty obvious from this thread how heavy moderation is on this, but yes please go bitch on mg.org instead of here




Say it, instead of bitchy PMs from sponsors, you'd rather get bitchy PMs from the mg.org mods


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## technomancer (May 20, 2016)

Nagash said:


> Say it, instead of bitchy PMs from sponsors, you'd rather get bitchy PMs from the mg.org mods



They don't care enough to PM  Not to mention I personally got fed up and turned PMs off  Though now that the account that was bothering me has been banned I guess I should turn them back on...


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## hardvalve (May 20, 2016)

What is mg.org?


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## TemjinStrife (May 20, 2016)

We really don't want to engage with your drama there


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## big_aug (May 20, 2016)

Well, Kiesel isn't a sponsor anymore, right? You don't have to worry about angry PMs from them now


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## Drew (May 20, 2016)

technomancer said:


> ...but yes please go bitch on mg.org instead of here



Hey!


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## technomancer (May 20, 2016)

Drew said:


> Hey!



Aw come on between the dick jokes and Dave height jokes you guys won't even notice


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## Drew (May 20, 2016)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Releasing a video to let the public know about a sh!tty incident? Fine.
> Throwing a sales pitch into said video? Oopsie daisy.
> 
> Using a poor choice of words when describing the incident? Honest mistake. Happens to the best of us.
> ...



Great post. Swap Jeff for Zach, though. 



Nlelith said:


> So, K/C most likely didn't know that guitars were supposed to head overseas. Freight-forwarders would appear to them as any US customer would. That's probably why K/C initially asked to check pawn shops and whatever.



Another great post - I actually didn't know that, and that's a plausible enough reason for Kiesel to not actually know the guitars weren't in the country at the time they posted the video. 

I STILL wonder how it was they had suspects, but then STILL posted the video asking for help - something about that still doesn't add up to me.


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## Drew (May 20, 2016)

technomancer said:


> Aw come on between the dick jokes and Dave height jokes you guys won't even notice



Please. You imply I'd even read it if it wasn't about carbon fiber bike parts.


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## Drew (May 20, 2016)

Nagash said:


> Say it, instead of bitchy PMs from sponsors, you'd rather get bitchy PMs from the mg.org mods



Nah, we'd just ban you without bothering to explain why.  Nothing personal.


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## technomancer (May 20, 2016)

Drew said:


> Please. You imply I'd even read it if it wasn't about carbon fiber bike parts.



Oh god has Chris got you hooked too?


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## beneharris (May 20, 2016)

Drew said:


> Please. You imply I'd even read it if it wasn't about carbon fiber bike parts.



It took a crap ton longer than it normally does, but this sure turned into an MG.org thread.


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## Alberto7 (May 20, 2016)

Drew said:


> I STILL wonder how it was they had suspects, but then STILL posted the video asking for help - something about that still doesn't add up to me.



I think Jeff might have used the word "suspect" in the same way the police will call everybody involved in a crime a "suspect" instead of "perpetrator" until a jury decides so, regardless of how much evidence they have. From what I understand, (and bearing in mind that I am no legal and/or criminal expert) even after a full confession, the subject is still just a suspect until deemed otherwise by a jury. If the FBI really is controlling the information output coming from Carvin/Kiesel, I can see why they'd use the word "suspect" instead of anything more incriminating.

... which makes me wonder: if they cared enough to call the guy a 'suspect', why didn't they care enough to be more accurate when using the term "robbery" instead of fraud or scam? 

Admittedly, the more I think about this, the more weirded out I get. As weird as it seems though, I still withhold judgement until we know more details.


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## schantist (May 20, 2016)

On a side note: KieselGuitars obviously got banned again
When will they finally dis_engage_ from their delusional "social media manager"?


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## big_aug (May 20, 2016)

The more I think about it and the more comments I read, the more I believe the video was entirely a PR move. The fraud itself obviously happened, but they made that video to blow it up. They already had the info they needed to move forward. I hate that I'm going tinfoil but it really doesn't feel that tinfoil


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## potatohead (May 20, 2016)

This thread (and website in general) has officially gone full retard


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## MFB (May 20, 2016)

potatohead said:


> This thread (and website in general) has officially gone full Kiesel



And how!


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## Drew (May 20, 2016)

big_aug said:


> The more I think about it and the more comments I read, the more I believe the video was entirely a PR move. The fraud itself obviously happened, but they made that video to blow it up. They already had the info they needed to move forward. I hate that I'm going tinfoil but it really doesn't feel that tinfoil



It's entirely possible it wasn't a calculated sales tactic on their part, but at a bare minimum, the whole "hey, if you wanna help us here, maybe you could order that guitar you were thinking of from us" bit was a REALLY stupid thing to do.


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## TheKindred (May 20, 2016)

potatohead said:


> This thread (and website in general) has officially gone full retard



I hear Harmony Central is taking applications....


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## Rev2010 (May 20, 2016)

potatohead said:


> This thread (and website in general) has officially gone full retard



We're just trying to make America great again. Get on board or get out!  


Rev.


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## wannabguitarist (May 20, 2016)

I miss the good old days when everyone just complained about Carvin's lack of options and Periphery hadn't released an album


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## big_aug (May 20, 2016)

This is why I use forums. If I wanted boring reality I'd just live my day to day life.


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## Inceptic (May 20, 2016)

TheKindred said:


> If you have information that can help an ongoing FBI investigation, why would you be asked to send the info directly to Anthony at Kiesel?
> 
> Legit question. I feel like north of the border a similar news story would have you contact the investigating authority, not the victim. Is that just a USA thing?



Calling Anthony gives them another sales pitch opportunity...


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## Rev2010 (May 20, 2016)

big_aug said:


> This is why I use forums. If I wanted boring reality I'd just live my day to day life.



^^^ See... this guy gets it!  


Rev.


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## Andromalia (May 20, 2016)

wannabguitarist said:


> I miss the good old days when everyone just complained about Carvin's lack of options and Periphery hadn't released an album



It hasn't changed that much, the next Necrophagist album still isn't there


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## hardvalve (May 20, 2016)

Andromalia said:


> It hasn't changed that much, the next Necrophagist album still isn't there


----------



## crg123 (May 20, 2016)

jerm said:


> They knowingly deceived you, me, and the rest of us. Infact.......they....."violated" you.  hahahah









lol


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## Mattykoda (May 20, 2016)

This is all I can think of reading this thread but with Jeff's face




On a serious note the mods were really receiving abusive Pm's from them concerning the threads that showed flaws? That really sucks. I get that they were a paid advertiser and they are trying to protect an investment but I'd applaud Kiesel if they dropped in the threads and said hey we did this and this and now it is take care of. I've seen builders do that here in threads such as OAF, ormsby and Julius but we all got the harsh reality from Kiesel with the color match thread. 

I have no problems with one the sale rep's at Kiesel but with everything happening its really questioned ever buying from them again.


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## 7JxN7 (May 20, 2016)

TedEH said:


> I don't know how big a company they are, but "they" can mean a lot of people. The reality is that with a lot of people working under one name, there's not just one big collective knowledge- everyone knows enough to do their part, and most people probably don't know much about what goes on outside of their little space at the company. This means that while "the company knows" something, it still can take time for the right people to piece everything together. We know so little about what really happened that it's not fair to make any assumptions about it, or claim we were lied to. It was a communications miss-step, that's it.



I work for a very large company in warehousing and shipping/transport. Between our warehouse management systems, tracking information from couriers/transport companies and customer ordering information, we can pin point with reasonable detail, the location of any items we have sent anywhere, even boxes full of different multiple small items spread across multiple shipments and containers worldwide.

The technology and how postage/courier companies work now there is simply no other way to do this on even a very basic level. Any company that is constantly freighting anything should be more than capable for keeping track of it's shipments, no matter how big or small, and I find it nearly impossible to believe otherwise. Either they keep absolutely no information on customers orders and have no idea what guitars they are sending to what customer in whatever part of the world, or they had a pretty good idea of where these guitars were at the time of the video. 

Any order once sent, would have a tracking number or Con note assigned to it, all they would simply have to do it check who it was sent to and then check the tracking information really.All the same info as when you order a new piece of gear and check the tracking info each day hoping it isn't stuck in customs or a depot somewhere haha


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## hardvalve (May 20, 2016)

Mattykoda said:


> This is all I can think of reading this thread but with Jeff's face
> 
> 
> 
> ...



When you have the finest PR Rep money can buy. Hard to ENGAGE your customers, getting the exZACKt service they need to resolve their KHOURYosity. This is a theme across many different forums, interactions, and what has become the face of Keisel. Sounds like a fresh voice/face is needed to revamp their image. Only seen negative reactions, except a few artists, when dealing with this facet of the company. Focusing on making products, having someone more humble, with actual personal skills and education to handle this position would do wonders. One side just handling the guitars, one side professionally handling customers/public relations. Until this happens, this will be repeated over, and over. Time for Kiesel to get serious.


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## feraledge (May 21, 2016)

schantist said:


> On a side note: KieselGuitars obviously got banned again
> When will they finally dis_engage_ from their delusional "social media manager"?



Maybe Jeff will listen to a change.org petition.


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## Xaios (May 21, 2016)

I'd say it's probably time to lock this thread. There's nothing more to be gained in discussing the theft (so-called) of the guitars in question, or Jeff's potentially questionable PR habits.


----------



## Lemons (May 21, 2016)

Xaios said:


> I'd say it's probably time to lock this thread. There's nothing more to be gained in discussing the theft (so-called) of the guitars in question, or Jeff's potentially questionable PR habits.



Don't lock it yet, I'm sure Feraledge still has a few more hilarious comments to make first.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia (May 21, 2016)

Drew said:


> It's entirely possible it wasn't a calculated sales tactic on their part, but at a bare minimum, the whole "hey, if you wanna help us here, maybe you could order that guitar you were thinking of from us" bit was a REALLY stupid thing to do.



Yeah, this was the part that rubbed me the wrong way.
Watching the first video, I totally felt for the Kiesel team, and thought the skeptics were in really poor taste. Even then though, the side remark of "Hey, now's a good time to buy a guitar" didn't sit well, it seemed like something that really didn't need to be said.

Jump forward a couple days and there actually was no robbery, and all kinds of questions about what's happening and the reasoning behind it...kinda just makes me feel like a punk. And I'm not sure if it was an intentional move to capitalize on getting screwed like that, or if it was just a thought running through his head once the camera started rolling and he just kinda yolo'd it in there, but either way, really leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 

Especially as someone that always kind of tried to look at things from the Kiesel perspective. Like someone else said, I do think it's time they just started letting their product speak for itself. Kiesel can crank out a mean guitar still, let that be your PR, Jeff. It works.


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## M3CHK1LLA (May 21, 2016)

Xaios said:


> I'd say it's probably time to lock this thread. There's nothing more to be gained in discussing the theft (so-called) of the guitars in question, or Jeff's potentially questionable PR habits.




this thread has so many people amped up on both sides and has been a great source of entertainment for the last few days. you cant lock this thread until we find out what really happened and how things turned out.


----------



## spudmunkey (May 21, 2016)

7JxN7 said:


> I work for a very large company in warehousing and shipping/transport. Between our warehouse management systems, tracking information from couriers/transport companies and customer ordering information, we can pin point with reasonable detail, the location of any items we have sent anywhere, even boxes full of different multiple small items spread across multiple shipments and containers worldwide.
> 
> The technology and how postage/courier companies work now there is simply no other way to do this on even a very basic level. Any company that is constantly freighting anything should be more than capable for keeping track of it's shipments, no matter how big or small, and I find it nearly impossible to believe otherwise. Either they keep absolutely no information on customers orders and have no idea what guitars they are sending to what customer in whatever part of the world, or they had a pretty good idea of where these guitars were at the time of the video.
> 
> Any order once sent, would have a tracking number or Con note assigned to it, all they would simply have to do it check who it was sent to and then check the tracking information really.All the same info as when you order a new piece of gear and check the tracking info each day hoping it isn't stuck in customs or a depot somewhere haha



Well, if *I* were going to be ordering guitars with the intension of ripping someone off, I'd have the guitars sent to a freight forwarder. Kiesel would only have tracking to the "ship to" address, which would be a freight company's receiving warehouse. I mention it, because this is an exact scenario I came across years ago at a previous job...and sounds like what happened here.


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## I hail from Funkytown (May 21, 2016)

Fred the Shred said:


> This thread most definitely delivers.
> 
> I have to agree with whomever said that Kiesel would do well to review the whole hyperbolic online strategy's bounds, as it is basically leaving a trail of angry actual / prospective customers and adding fuel to the fire in terms of negative feedback, which WILL cost them business.



You know what also causes companies to lose potential customers? Endorsing/sponsoring an artist who continually joins the trolls who are dog piling on a company. That's pretty much all you've been doing on here for the last couple of months. Which is very irresponsible and unprofessional. You're not only making yourself look bad, you're making your sponsors look bad and when people see an artist getting in on the witch hunt, it makes some people want in on it even more because Fred Brum's talking trash too.

Congratulations, your actions have cost all of your sponsors a potential customer.


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## metale (May 21, 2016)

^You've been here for a whole month. Grab a chair and settle down.


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## I hail from Funkytown (May 21, 2016)

metale said:


> ^You've been here for a whole month. Grab a chair and settle down.



New account pumpkin, been here for a few years


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## jc986 (May 21, 2016)

Edit....took the post out of context due to posts that were deleted and have now been restored.


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## big_aug (May 21, 2016)

Did a post get deleted? Damn it!


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## Demiurge (May 21, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Did a post get deleted? Damn it!



Yeah... the one between metale & spudmunkey's posts, right? EDIT: And the poster's response to metale as well.


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## technomancer (May 21, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Did a post get deleted? Damn it!



Yes it did. Just to keep the usual pains in the ass from throwing a social justice fit, I undeleted them.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 21, 2016)

I've got you guys covered.







Clearly this individual (probably a kid) doesn't know Fred. Nothing in Fred's post could even be deemed as dogpiling. Also, this individual probably doesn't even know the companies that have endorsed Fred as an artist.


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## MrWulf (May 21, 2016)

Any bet on the account being just another of Kiesel's "PR guy" account? I don't want to be rude, but that's literally the only possibility.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 21, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> Any bet on the account being just another of Kiesel's "PR guy" account? I don't want to be rude, but that's literally the only possibility.


Naw. The grammar and sentence structure don't match up with previous posts from said individual's account(s).

Also, "Naptown" is typically a nickname for Annapolis, Maryland or for Indianapolis, Indiana. Said individual has zero association with either one.

Whomever owned that account had a Kiesel Vader 7 listed as his/her guitar though.


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## Fred the Shred (May 21, 2016)

I hail from Funkytown said:


> You know what also causes companies to lose potential customers? Endorsing/sponsoring an artist who continually joins the trolls who are dog piling on a company. That's pretty much all you've been doing on here for the last couple of months. Which is very irresponsible and unprofessional. You're not only making yourself look bad, you're making your sponsors look bad and when people see an artist getting in on the witch hunt, it makes some people want in on it even more because Fred Brum's talking trash too.
> 
> Congratulations, your actions have cost all of your sponsors a potential customer.



The inaction and fear of stepping on toes from well known artists when confronted with stuff that goes wrong is precisely what leads people to squander money on some companies that made the rounds here. I have known from too many industry horrors that never made it onto forums, and I've seen endorsers keep quiet while their own guitars were turds. If that is your view of "professionalism", I'll be as unprofessional as it gets. That is besides the point: this story starts with a claim of robbery, has shifting details here and there, takes a swerve in attempting to gain sales leverage (that is something I don't see as wrong in itself, by the way), and concludes in being actually a fraud as opposed to a robbery. I cited facts, and I was and am genuinely amused by the extreme opinions in either camp. If that offends you, tough.

You are also a troll, given how my latest posts include one single occurrence of negative opinion, which happened to be the photo match gone wrong, also by Kiesel, but could be anything else as far as I care. Rest was down to congratulating peeps for cool guitars, and actually defending less techhical guitarists in a thread about endorsements and sig guitars, reading my own profile real quick. Some of the stuff I cheered for are actually competitors with my fave companies, so don't even try to say I'm trying to push those at any expense, which I haven't done at any point in time.

Shilling will get you nowhere, and the ban in place denotes a familiar face around here - I think that does the talking for me better than I could.

EDIT - dudes, don't go saying it's Zack. If he had perceived it was something negative from me, he'd have messaged me, or so I hope!


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 21, 2016)

Thanks technomancer (or whichever mod) for restoring the two posts that "I hail From Funkytown" made.

I'm laughing at the stupidity 



I hail from Funkytown said:


> New account pumpkin, been here for a few years


Post one -> post two -> .....banned.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 21, 2016)

It wasn't _that_ funny.


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## Alex Kenivel (May 21, 2016)

And funkytown was being truthful, as I remember the account from before, but with different membership start time and post count.. Idk about him working for K/C. That assumption implies some tin foil


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## Fred the Shred (May 21, 2016)

While I disagree with how Kiesel present themselves on occasion (this being one of them), mostly due to some over-aggressive defensiveness, I can't think of anyone there that would go out of their way to try and take a jab at me. The people I know there are quite cordial in nature and don't really tend to get involved in this sort of thing at all, or to confuse stating facts or personal opinion with some sort of evil plan to denigrate the brand, which couldn't be further from the truth.


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## Semi-pro (May 21, 2016)

I love how Fred keeps modding the threads like a boss though he isn't one 

If we focus on the facts:
- did Jeff lie? We don't know for sure. Maybe he was told by the authorities to keep certain things to himself and just said what he could. (insert Louis CK "but maybe" here )
- Did he did say some stuff that any (rather aggressive) salesman would say. Yes. Now everyone who thinks it's a surprise from Kiesel lately, shut up! 

Anyway,

this thread has been entertaining yet paranoid as f000 sccording to the usual SSrg standard. But I assume it's due to the marketing strategy. But why all the attitude?

My main guitar is a Kiesel atm, but don't think I'm a fanboy. Thanks to my vegetable brain not minding working like a dog, I could afford choosing any other brand I want in the blink of an eye. Yet I fight to stay with my Kiesel though there are plenty of threads and comments that would suggest me to move on. Why? Because for once I did receive a superb instrument worth its money. I can tell you, I've owned a bunch of more expensive guitars by brands that would win the SSrg hype-love any day, but they just aren't/weren't worth it. Even though I've tried to force myself to love them, but in vain.

I don't know, the whole internet has been a bit tough on the gut feeling lately. A few duds from a company that's growing fast and everyone hates them. If you think about the real major brands, I'm sure you can't even imagine the amount of sh** all the salesmen around the world have to take every day. People compain about a scratch on their Korean 900&#8364; LTD's and Deans all the time. Nobody knows enough about the numbers to compare the ratio of flawless & defective products. Or does someone? This is nowhere near the black-list companies that start with S, V, B, E or R anyway...


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 21, 2016)

^The problem a lot of people have isn't just with the duds, it's the company's reaction to the duds. First one was solved with some hassle, but eventually came to a decent conclusion. 

2nd time was the color match, an the customer was straight-up told to screw off and was blacklisted by the company. That's bull...., IMO.


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## Fred the Shred (May 21, 2016)

Not really into the "now guys, let's behave" mindset, but I am not into throwing people's names in the pit without something far more tangible to substantiate it. That and, to be honest, not being too interested in whomever it was that decided to take a jab, I simply replied accordingly.

As for Kiesel itself, I still think they represent great bang for the buck in the US if you maintain specs ata reasonable level, and it's hardly the first time I've said it. The car salesman pitch is a bit much for me, though. 



HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> ^The problem a lot of people have isn't just with the duds, it's the company's reaction to the duds. First one was solved with some hassle, but eventually came to a decent conclusion.
> 
> 2nd time was the color match, an the customer was straight-up told to screw off and was blacklisted by the company. That's bull...., IMO.





And that very same hostility is what led me to say what I did on that thread. Mass production is stressful and you can have duds making it past QC, and you can turn those into very positive or very negative feedback depending on how you handle things.


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## Jonathan20022 (May 21, 2016)

Anyone who wants to question Fred's opinions and presence here needs to take some time and educate themselves on him. He's always been level headed extremely reasonable and his responses are always well thought out. Just because you're endorsed by another company doesn't mean you have to keep hush hush online.


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## feraledge (May 21, 2016)

spudmunkey said:


> Well, if *I* were going to be ordering guitars with the intension of ripping someone off, I'd have the guitars sent to a freight forwarder. Kiesel would only have tracking to the "ship to" address, which would be a freight company's receiving warehouse. I mention it, because this is an exact scenario I came across years ago at a previous job...and sounds like what happened here.



"If I Did It" by Spudmunkey


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 21, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> ^The problem a lot of people have isn't just with the duds, it's the company's reaction to the duds. First one was solved with some hassle, but eventually came to a decent conclusion.
> 
> 2nd time was the color match, an the customer was straight-up told to screw off and was blacklisted by the company. That's bull...., IMO.


Man, you're missing a WHOLE TON of other instances of flawed guitars from Kiesel then.



Jonathan20022 said:


> Anyone who wants to question Fred's opinions and presence here needs to take some time and educate themselves on him. He's always been level headed extremely reasonable and his responses are always well thought out. Just because you're endorsed by another company doesn't mean you have to keep hush hush online.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 21, 2016)

I know there's been more duds with both Carvin and Kiesel, but those were the 2 big ones that got a lot of attention.


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## Semi-pro (May 21, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> ^The problem a lot of people have isn't just with the duds, it's the company's reaction to the duds. First one was solved with some hassle, but eventually came to a decent conclusion.
> 
> 2nd time was the color match, an the customer was straight-up told to screw off and was blacklisted by the company. That's bull...., IMO.



Valid points, but that's 2 duds out of how many orders? As I said we don't know the numbers*. I admit that the way they handled the color match thing is jutifiably a topic on its own.

My point is, all companies will have duds and then they handle them either well or badly. When badly, some people cry about them on the forums, some don't. And which brands are getting dirt on their name based on these experiences, is solely based on the randomness of who happen to choose to post about it and who not. And I dare to say that the majority of the cases end up on the shops than forums, *yet in Kiesel's case mostly on the forums due to them selling directly to the customer, which creates a very biased view to their disadvantage on the forums. Ok, the internet is retarded and they chose it to be their main marketing area, but anyway.

I've got bad experiences of dealing with certain European and US high-end builders, and I've tried to solve the cases directly with them with no results. But I chose to shut up about them and move on because eventually some customers just will be dealt with better than others. That's just a fact. Nobody can be equally pleased, and even less so in customer service. Good for them who have bought a high end shredder that does intonate better than a chibanez, but that was not my case. If they won't agree to fix it what can I do? Throw dirt over internet? Not my style, I rather spread the word among my friends because that will be a more likely way to affect than than ending up being a crap shooting monkey on the forums. What I mean is that there are probably more people too who could "choose" which companies to opently hate with a reason, but they just wont.

Maybe Kiesel's using too much of the word "love" and people instinctively counter-react to it with hate?


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## Alberto7 (May 21, 2016)

^ Carvin have been around for a long time, and they have always put out lemons every now and again. However, they were almost always dealt with to more or less satisfactory levels and not much noise. This includes the period where they sold directly on an international level before they stopped in 2010. This is what earned them the immense respect they've had until now.

It's really only after the 2015 facelift that things began to escalate on all sides. A good deal of said facelift was the implementation of a brand new PR model and Jeff's 'rise to power'. Evidently, those two haven't been able to handle the same complaints in as professional a manner as Carvin did under its old model, and it has come back to kick them in the ass.

I think that's the biggest reason why technical build mistakes that are not much different from the ones they used to make before get so much more attention. They just don't know how to handle it peacefully anymore and don't know when to compromise**. They've been killing their own reputation.

Also, I don't think the internet has changed much since then. The Kiesel company has. If anything, from a PR perspective, they seem to be failing at catering to their old market. Either the new people in charge don't really know how to merge the old and new business models (pre and post facelift), or they just don't care much if their old customers go away, so long as they keep the new ones they've reached via social media. The problem is, their long-time fans that they've upset seem to be an influential group that isn't afraid to call them out. They're burning a bridge they shouldn't burn.

... I wonder what Mark Kiesel makes out of all this.

These are just some thoughts that have popped into my head while following this thread.

Never really thought I'd see Carvin acquire this kind of fame.

** Amending this post because I'd rather have that sentence be: "They haven't handled some key cases in a more silent fashion and they haven't compromised when they should have." It's a lot less general that way, since, as Voorhees said, statistically, they do get their orders right for the most part, they do make a mean guitar, and most small mistakes are indeed taken care of. When things have gotten out of hand though, they haven't been able to handle it very well.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 21, 2016)

The vast majority of guitars that come from Kiesel are decent. The ones with deal-breaking flaws tend to be relatively few and far between. I've only seen a handful of them come through here that had really messed up stuff wrong with them, and a lot of the time they handle it well. When they don't, though, it's a real sh_i_t show. Perhaps it's when Jeff is directly involved, perhaps it's because they're already behind schedule and don't want to be taking/refinishing guitars or whatever, but I see no reason that that dude shouldn't have at least gotten a refund for his "color match." It was an awful attempt, and they should have owned up to it. Instead they black listed the buyer, and said he was nagging them... Of course he was "nagging" them, he paid them $300 to do something that they blatantly failed to do.

My point being, which got lost in that little bit of a rant, is that Kiesel makes a .... ton of guitars. Very few of them have deal breaking errors. We own two of them, and I've played a few others, all of the ones I've played were leaps and bounds better than most other guitars I've tried. (or at least on par with them.) Kiesel still makes good guitars, but their PR needs some massive restructuring. As JazzHands said, it's not the fact that there are duds, but how they deal with it.


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## hardvalve (May 21, 2016)

Señor Voorhees;4587364 said:


> The vast majority of guitars that come from Kiesel are decent. The ones with deal-breaking flaws tend to be relatively few and far between. I've only seen a handful of them come through here that had really messed up stuff wrong with them, and a lot of the time they handle it well. When they don't, though, it's a real sh_i_t show. Perhaps it's when Jeff is directly involved, perhaps it's because they're already behind schedule and don't want to be taking/refinishing guitars or whatever, but I see no reason that that dude shouldn't have at least gotten a refund for his "color match." It was an awful attempt, and they should have owned up to it. Instead they black listed the buyer, and said he was nagging them... Of course he was "nagging" them, he paid them $300 to do something that they blatantly failed to do.
> 
> My point being, which got lost in that little bit of a rant, is that Kiesel makes a .... ton of guitars. Very few of them have deal breaking errors. We own two of them, and I've played a few others, all of the ones I've played were leaps and bounds better than most other guitars I've tried. (or at least on par with them.) Kiesel still makes good guitars, but their PR needs some massive restructuring. As JazzHands said, it's not the fact that there are duds, but how they deal with it.



This. The PR people have literally run customers, and potential customers off. If they don't turn that around, things will get worse.


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## 7JxN7 (May 21, 2016)

spudmunkey said:


> Well, if *I* were going to be ordering guitars with the intension of ripping someone off, I'd have the guitars sent to a freight forwarder. Kiesel would only have tracking to the "ship to" address, which would be a freight company's receiving warehouse. I mention it, because this is an exact scenario I came across years ago at a previous job...and sounds like what happened here.



Most of what I said still applies, unless you can find a really dodgy freight forwarder that is willing to change the specifics on each carton, give it a different tracking number/Con note. No different then having a third party courier handle something on behalf of another freight company. And if the info is changed in the way you are saying, I believe customs or anyone else that handled multiple packages that suddenly have no prior information as to where they came from, may start questioning why there is no paper trail.


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## feraledge (May 21, 2016)

So according to Kiesel's FB, PRS and Knaggs Guitars were a part of this fraud ordeal and yet no "FBI requested" diversion videos nor suggestions to call their sales people with hot leads...
So, yeah, there's that.


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## big_aug (May 22, 2016)

Wow, I saw a thread on the Kiesel forums where they are bragging about droppong advertising from SSO and then .... talking the community here. Not Kiesel customers. Kiesel employees are doing it. So weird to see Kiesel employees basically getting into a .... talking match on their forum with another forum. What kind of legitimate business does that? It blows my mind.

I saw it in the off topic forum and went over there. Its crazy. The employees completely skew what people here were even questioning.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 22, 2016)

inb4 auto-blacklist for SSO/MG.org users.


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## MFB (May 22, 2016)

> The employees completely skew what people here were even questioning.



Who would have _ever_ thought they would do something so heinous?


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## big_aug (May 22, 2016)

MFB said:


> Who would have _ever_ thought they would do something so heinous?



Its just so strange to see a company publicly do this kind of stuff. We always make fun of customers and .... at work, but that's private behind the scenes stuff. It's completely unacceptable to do it publicly. We'd be fired. We could politely disagree with a well worded or spoken statement but not stuff like this.

I was just a bit stunned to see it.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 22, 2016)

I sorta skimmed the thread and I didn't see that much out of line. The vast majority of this thread is a bunch of people being whiny about nothing. It started straight out the gate even. 

The only thing I didn't agree with was their thinly veiled attempt at defending that abortion of a color match. Otherwise, most people in this thread overreacted and it's not surprising that Kiesel pulled advertising. Fwiw, I never paid attention to the ads and got most of my gas from NGD's. I do find it funny that even though they didn't name names, I know who they were talking about. 

When all is said and done though, that thread is anything but surprising.


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## BuckarooBanzai (May 22, 2016)

I can say one thing with absolute certainty: I won't be buying a Kiesel/Carvin instrument any time in the near future. Whether or not the recent customer service SNAFUs are indicative of business as usual for them the PR team's actions are inexcusable and the fact that their staff is now busy sh*tting on SS.org is just sad. I also can't help but feel that Jeff is also just an opportunistic asshole a lot of the time. First it was the factory video where he repeatedly called into question the quality and consistency of small-volume luthiers. Then it was a series of refusals to implement various features on instruments because they're pointless (admittedly editorializing/paraphrasing on my part, but he basically said as much) only to turn around and do it after the fact. Then it was customizing a headstock and removing material to "make it stronger." Now it's this. Maybe he should have, y'know, kept his mouth shut like the other affected parties instead of grossly mischaracterizing the situation and begging customers for sales. And yes, regardless of whether you take the colloquial or dictionary definition of "robbed" K/C was only robbed in the most metaphorical sense of the word.

FWIW My family business was _literally_ robbed and we didn't behave remotely like Jeff did. Dude has straight diarrhea of the mouth, and coming from somebody like ME that's saying something .


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## hardvalve (May 22, 2016)

Mo Jiggity said:


> I can say one thing with absolute certainty: I won't be buying a Kiesel/Carvin instrument any time in the near future. Whether or not the recent customer service SNAFUs are indicative of business as usual for them the PR team's actions are inexcusable and the fact that their staff is now busy sh*tting on SS.org is just sad. I also can't help but feel that Jeff is also just an opportunistic asshole a lot of the time. First it was the factory video where he repeatedly called into question the quality and consistency of small-volume luthiers. Then it was a series of refusals to implement various features on instruments because they're pointless (admittedly editorializing/paraphrasing on my part, but he basically said as much) only to turn around and do it after the fact. Then it was customizing a headstock and removing material to "make it stronger." Now it's this. Maybe he should have, y'know, kept his mouth shut like the other affected parties instead of grossly mischaracterizing the situation and begging customers for sales. And yes, regardless of whether you take the colloquial or dictionary definition of "robbed" K/C was only robbed in the most metaphorical sense of the word.
> 
> FWIW My family business was _literally_ robbed and we didn't behave remotely like Jeff did. Dude has straight diarrhea of the mouth, and coming from somebody like ME that's saying something .



I WANT to buy a Kiesel. Vader especially. Until the current PR department is removed, I will NEVER consider one. The "PR/Artist relations guy" must be removed from the company, or they will never, ever get my money. I have never seen a guitar company, trying to revamp their image, allow someone so incompetent to front their public image. Almost a joke, if it didn't happen. Redo your PR, get rid of the cancer, and build up with people who know what they are doing. Your current PR/artist relations is an absolute disgrace to your company, and name. Total shame, so much potential.


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## Alex Kenivel (May 22, 2016)

I miss Carvin. I have one of their old Mastertube series amp and a couple of cabinets. They used to be such a humble company. I was sad when their Sacramento storefront closed down. 

I'm more saddened by their current antics. But I am really happy not to see that damn Born Of Osiris ad ever again!


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## Xaios (May 23, 2016)

While some of the criticism against Carvin regarding how they've handled this recent episode is warranted (I especially think Drew made some excellent points about how Kiesel comported itself during this most recent episode), they way everyone has piled on the condemnation is not something we as a community should be proud of. It started early, in only the 4th post of the thread, and never ended. I'll warrant that Jeff kept shooting himself in the foot whenever he replied, but we in turn took every opportunity to cast stones.

And just so the record is clear, I neither currently nor have ever owned a Carvin/Keisel. Nor do I plan to acquire one.


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## big_aug (May 23, 2016)

My post was a joke. Anyone who knows Kiesels knows their resale value sucks so a thief wouldn't have made much money. That's the joke.


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## Mattykoda (May 23, 2016)

For what it's worth when I sold my vader 6 I think I only took $100 hit from what I originally paid and up until when I decided to keep my DC7X I had some really, really good offers. They've had the best resale value from anything I've sold guitar wise thus far other than my old OAF. Just my


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 23, 2016)

big_aug said:


> My post was a joke. Anyone who knows Kiesels knows their resale value sucks so a thief wouldn't have made much money. That's the joke.








I thought it was kinda funny, at least 
A little too soon though, maybe. 

Really though, I don't think I'd call it a pile on. You're making it sound like everybody is each individually picking some new aspect to complain about, which isn't the case. Most of these people are all saying the same thing. Which is fair in my book, because people want their voice to be heard. You shouldn't stifle your own thoughts and opinions because someone else already shared them.


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## Fred the Shred (May 23, 2016)

Xaios said:


> While some of the criticism against Carvin regarding how they've handled this recent episode is warranted (I especially think Drew made some excellent points about how Kiesel comported itself during this most recent episode), they way everyone has piled on the condemnation is not something we as a community should be proud of. It started early, in only the 4th post of the thread, and never ended. I'll warrant that Jeff kept shooting himself in the foot whenever he replied, but we in turn took every opportunity to cast stones.
> 
> And just so the record is clear, I neither currently nor have ever owned a Carvin/Keisel. Nor do I plan to acquire one.



I agree some of the claims on either side were quite excessive. I think the whole thing is a very unfortunate situation turned into something worse due to the way the situation ended up being handled, and that's is. Some of the decisions regarding how the case was approached are quite mind boggling and, at times, rather questionable, that's for sure, but that won't mean the whole thing is a very elaborate hoax for extra publicity or something along those lines.

I didn't see the conspiracy theories really taking off, to be honest, and I'd hope them not to. This community has been quite excellent at identifying shady practices of all kinds, and diluting factual information to help potential buyers with all sorts of tinfoil hat theories tends to devalue it.

To an extent, I see the community's sometimes over zealous remarks as a result of some of the previous events, like magically disappearing threads or the whole photo match going .... up and the company's response to that in particular, but I do see your point regarding the overall behaviour, reading the thread again.

Honestly, I'd just like to see Kiesel be more like Carvin was before - perhaps some more marketing flare was warranted, but there's a tough line to manage between being passionate for one's work and becoming too aggressive in stance. The product is fine, the variety in offer continues to be great and was compounded further by the efforts to cater for the new market, and I doubt the amount of duds is that significant, as the level of consistency was actually pretty good before, so there's plenty of "pros" to capitalize on to begin with.


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## QuantumCybin (May 23, 2016)

I am in the same boat as a lot of people, sort of just watching the interesting forum antics unfold and eating popcorn. Sooner or later it sounds like people might get too fed up with Kiesel and demand change...maybe a #bringbackcarvin hashtag or something


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## Señor Voorhees (May 23, 2016)

There are maybe ten people around here who outright dislike Kiesel. I see tons of people who haven't joined in on this thread who are placing orders or receiving them. The people pitching a fit in this thread are in fact the vocal minority, so don't expect much change. Remember that Kiesel has a ton of orders right now, and that the loss from this theft wouldn't have hurt them all that much. I have a feeling that Kiesel really doesn't give a .... what the people around here say since it's a drop in their already full bucket.


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## Fred the Shred (May 23, 2016)

Oh, don't get me wrong (assuming you are replying to me, that is) - to me, an optimal scenario is really a crapton of brands on top of their game, selling well, and with very high levels of customer satisfaction - that creates stiffer competition and the buying public wins.

I'd never wish Kiesel wrong nor have I ever stated anything along those lines, hence my surprise at the out of nowhere jab earlier on by the now defunct account, and to be honest my gripe with this sort of placement is about some ethical matters that have no relation to the quality of the instruments per se. I'm not demanding anything nor I expect it in light of their latest sales success, to be honest, but one can hope.


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## cwhitey2 (May 23, 2016)

The 2 things I have learned out of this ordeal:

#1 - I will not buy a new Carvin/Kiesel now

#2 - They literally take it personally when a customer is not happy with what they have produced, and that they handle it like a 15 girl who was just dumped.


This is a business, correct? Not some guitar making club 


You will not please every customer you have/had, fact...but handling like a child is completely uncalled for. 

Could you imagine is Mesa acted this way?


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## MrWulf (May 23, 2016)

cwhitey2 said:


> The 2 things I have learned out of this ordeal:
> 
> #1 - I will not buy a new Carvin/Kiesel now
> 
> ...



You clearly havent seen the case of Mesa and their CabClone bull....


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## Fiction (May 23, 2016)

cwhitey2 said:


> The 2 things I have learned out of *this ordeal*:
> 
> #1 - I will not buy a new Carvin/Kiesel now
> 
> *#2 - They literally take it personally when a customer is not happy with what they have produced, and that they handle it like a 15 girl who was just dumped.*



Is this statement actually related to this ordeal, or are we just adding fuel to the fire?


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## cwhitey2 (May 23, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> You clearly havent seen the case of Mesa and their CabClone bull....



Links?


But IMO you also proved my point...I haven't heard about that issue. 

Where as Carvin/Kiesel went as far as removing ads and bashing customer on this forum.


I work in customer service. Just admit you screwed up, cut your losses and make the customer happy.


I sell things a little more expensive than a custom guitar


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 23, 2016)

Fred the Shred said:


> I'd never wish Kiesel wrong nor have I ever stated anything along those lines, hence my surprise at the out of nowhere jab earlier on by the now defunct account, and to be honest my gripe with this sort of placement is about some ethical matters that have *no relation to the quality of the instruments* per se. I'm not demanding anything nor I expect it in light of their latest sales success, to be honest, but one can hope.



A lot of people seem to gloss over this, too. 
Almost all of us can agree that Kiesel makes great guitars, especially for their pricepoint. I'd love to have a guitar on par with a nice Kiesel. The issues that we 'dog-pile' on are the PR ones. A theft is not a good time to pitch your guitars, for example. It isn't exactly tactful.


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## Emperor Guillotine (May 23, 2016)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> A theft is not a good time to pitch your guitars, for example. It isn't exactly tactful.


And there is never a good time to be immature a*sholes to your customers, potential customers, and members of a forum who at one time made up a nice chunk of your customer base (so much so that you threw sponsorship up on said forum).


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## dhgrind (May 23, 2016)

I broke the quote function : cwhitey2

"#2 - They literally take it personally when a customer is not happy with what they have produced, and that they handle it like a 15 girl who was just dumped."


I've been feeling this way after seeing the way they react to their unhappy customers and the sso forums.

I'm glad I decided to return mine while I still had the chance. I'm doubting that they'd do much to assist me if I ever needed to cash in on the warrantee.


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## MrWulf (May 23, 2016)

cwhitey2 said:


> Links?
> 
> 
> But IMO you also proved my point...I haven't heard about that issue.
> ...



I don't know if there's a story link, but the gist of it is that Mesa censors their instagram when people were complaining about the ....tiness of CabClone, and forced the lads over at Anderton UK to redo one of their videos when they were going over it. These three videos probably helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGo9d2W7N-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mhTdXCrhx8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_bQvifIcw4


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## cwhitey2 (May 23, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> I don't know if there's a story link, but the gist of it is that Mesa censors their instagram when people were complaining about the ....tiness of CabClone, and forced the lads over at Anderton UK to redo one of their videos when they were going over it. These three videos probably helps.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGo9d2W7N-8
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mhTdXCrhx8
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_bQvifIcw4





Tone is more subjective, does it sound great? No, but its also only $250 vs $2,000+.


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## MrWulf (May 23, 2016)

cwhitey2 said:


> Tone is more subjective, does it sound great? No, but its also only $250 vs $2,000+.



the Cabclone doesn't sound great, but people were mad because Mesa censored their instagram and also forced the Anderton lads to do another video of their ....box, as i said above. It is not about the subjectiveness of its sound, it is about Mesa being dicks to their customers.


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## Fred the Shred (May 23, 2016)

I completely missed the whole ordeal with Mesa, but it's the same sort of principle in nature. If someone loved the product, great, but that isn't to say that people should be banned from social media accounts for disliking a given product. Considering Mesa has a decades old tradition of products that are both excellent and massively successful, I fail to see how a less accomplished effort could harm them in any significant way.


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## cwhitey2 (May 23, 2016)

Fred the Shred said:


> I completely missed the whole ordeal with Mesa, but it's the same sort of principle in nature. If someone loved the product, great, but that isn't to say that people should be banned from social media accounts for disliking a given product. Considering Mesa has a decades old tradition of products that are both excellent and massively successful, I fail to see how a less accomplished effort could harm them in any significant way.


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## SDMFVan (May 23, 2016)

feraledge said:


> So according to Kiesel's FB, PRS and Knaggs Guitars were a part of this fraud ordeal and yet no "FBI requested" diversion videos nor suggestions to call their sales people with hot leads...
> So, yeah, there's that.



I'm not even sure how it would be possible for PRS and Knaggs to both get scammed the same way, since they only sell to dealers and not directly to consumers. Even at the PRS Experience, if you want to buy a guitar you need to get a dealer to process the transaction.


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## Captain Butterscotch (May 23, 2016)

This ordeal has been blown a little out of proportion (imo) but I think we can all agree that we liked Carvin/Kiesel more when we never actually heard from them and only saw excellent NGD posts.


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## mnemonic (May 23, 2016)

big_aug said:


> Wow, I saw a thread on the Kiesel forums where they are bragging about droppong advertising from SSO and then .... talking the community here. Not Kiesel customers. Kiesel employees are doing it. So weird to see Kiesel employees basically getting into a .... talking match on their forum with another forum. What kind of legitimate business does that? It blows my mind.
> 
> I saw it in the off topic forum and went over there. Its crazy. The employees completely skew what people here were even questioning.



&#9745; Mad hype
&#9745; Increased lead times
&#9745; QC issues with increasing frequency
&#9745; Decline in customer service
&#9745; .... talking customers 
&#9723; Rant videos on youtube 
&#9723; Refusal to ship guitars to some customers


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## asher (May 23, 2016)




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## hardvalve (May 23, 2016)

mnemonic said:


> &#9745; Mad hype
> &#9745; Increased lead times
> &#9745; QC issues with increasing frequency
> &#9745; Decline in customer service
> ...


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## Chokey Chicken (May 23, 2016)

mnemonic said:


> &#9745; Mad hype
> &#9745; Increased lead times
> &#9745; QC issues with increasing frequency
> &#9745; Decline in customer service
> ...



This is why despite defending them in this thread, I'm a little hesitant to order another guitar. I'm waiting to see how it pans out before I buy anything else from them.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 23, 2016)

That's pretty much why a lot of people are wary about the brand right now and calling them out on it. Happened with S7, Siggery, BRJ, DAR... It's history repeating itself.


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## cg138 (May 23, 2016)

Now that's a leap, placing these guys in the same brackets as scammers like that is pretty uncalled for..


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## technomancer (May 23, 2016)

cg138 said:


> Now that's a leap, placing these guys in the same brackets as scammers like that is pretty uncalled for..



Yeah that's definitely stretching things a bit far.


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## Nour Ayasso (May 23, 2016)

Just jumping in for a quick questions guys, I read somewhere on here that Kiesel was getting a lot of flock on FB and Instagram too, but I didn't see anything but positive support on there posts. Is all this just on SSO or am I literally blind?


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## hardvalve (May 23, 2016)

Nour Ayasso said:


> Just jumping in for a quick questions guys, I read somewhere on here that Kiesel was getting a lot of flock on FB and Instagram too, but I didn't see anything but positive support on there posts. Is all this just on SSO or am I literally blind?



They just delete negative comments. So yea, nothing negative on there. That awesome PR department.


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## Nour Ayasso (May 23, 2016)

That's what I assumed... Thanks fam!


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## Edika (May 23, 2016)

I haven't been paying attention to this thread and it seems that the issue has really evolved a lot. Before reading the 8+ pages added I was still under the impression that a heist took place in the Carvin headquarters.
Anyway I don't have anything else to add as we don't have all the information of what went down, even though there were some quite logical points made for the insurance and freight situation. The main thing that bugged me in this whole situation is the snarky tone from whoever was posting with the Kiesel account. I assume that's one of the reasons that account was banned.


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## jwade (May 23, 2016)

I really miss the days when Carvin was just 'that reliable company that does excellent semi-custom work for a good price'. It seems like regardless of the specific situation, anytime the public face is involved, there's a fairly noticeable level of ego involved, coupled with what seems to be really thin skin and a desire to attempt to spit fire immediately online at anyone that says anything even vaguely negative/unsupportive of the Kiessel brand. 

It's a bummer that they got scammed, but at the same time, it gave them an opportunity to really stick their foot in their mouth again, and until they resolve their very serious PR/online presence issues, it's perhaps a positive outcome in that it let more people here see their current mindset.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 23, 2016)

That's what bums me out about Carvin/Kiesel having a "face" now. When they had something else new, they just announced it. When they have something cool to show off, they just... did. 

Now, Jeff has to be included to show off "his" new prouduct, new feature, etc etc. Everything related to Kiesel is "his". I started noticing that during the first NAMM show when Kiesel was the new brand name. Jeff referred it to as "his" booth. 

You're spot on when you mention egos being involved. I miss it when it was just Carvin, not "Jeff Kiesel presents..."


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## beneharris (May 23, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> That's what bums me out about Carvin/Kiesel having a "face" now. When they had something else new, they just announced it. When they have something cool to show off, they just... did.
> 
> Now, Jeff has to be included to show off "his" new prouduct, new feature, etc etc. Everything related to Kiesel is "his". I started noticing that during the first NAMM show when Kiesel was the new brand name. Jeff referred it to as "his" booth.
> 
> You're spot on when you mention egos being involved. I miss it when it was just Carvin, not "Jeff Kiesel presents..."



Totally. Did you see his Christmas picture where he made his whole family hold guitars?


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## A-Branger (May 23, 2016)

With the whole Kiesel drama and them pulling out their adds in here and everything that happened I found this to be pretty funny:

Look at the add I got lol







not only now I still have Kiesel adds in here, but the most funny part of it is that one of those 3 guitars just happens to be the one with the photo matching top going wrong drama

LOL

its like if Kiesel were trying to get back at us hahahaha

*Disclaimer*
I know, this is just A JOKE. Relax!!, Im not acusing anyone to have done anything.. This is a big coincidence due to my recent browser history. Thats what it is, so stop now before you all get your tin foil hats on


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## yellowv (May 23, 2016)

beneharris said:


> Totally. Did you see his Christmas picture where he made his whole family hold guitars?



If I see one more picture of a guitar with Jeff Kiesels forearm tattoo in it I'm going to kill myself.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 23, 2016)

cg138 said:


> Now that's a leap, placing these guys in the same brackets as scammers like that is pretty uncalled for..



While they're not quite on the same level of .... as the guys they were eluding to, you can't just ignore a lot of the red flags.

It's exactly as they said. Excessive hype, longer and longer lead times, more frequent errors in construction, and the decline in customer service/sh_i_t talking customers outright. 

These are things that have actually happened, and we've seen it happen many times before. I won't go ahead and say I think Kiesel is on it's way out the door, but I'd like to see a bit of dust settle before I consider sending them more of my money, because it's a little scary how repetitive history is with this sort of thing.

Fwiw, I don't think the errors are _that_ frequent, and longer lead times are part of a growing business. Still, Jeff's attitude is not too far off from the likes of S7G or something of the like. He really is full of himself. I even remember someone saying that the fade from one color to another color on a guitar was a little abrupt, and Jeff proceeded to say that if he had personally done it, it would have come out much better, though he still stuck by the work of "his guy." It really rubs me the wrong way, and he should look into hiring a new face/PR guy or something.

Eh, I feel like I'm going a bit too far with all this. Basically, the long of the short is that the company and personalities involved are looking a little familiar. It's not unreasonable for people to be concerned with what might come next. I hope they can chill out and power on because I really do like their guitars.


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## jc986 (May 23, 2016)

Most of the issues that you guys are citing as similarities to those other companies are being driven by simply having a lot more orders than they are used to handling. Do you guys really not expect the lead times to increase with a lot larger volume of orders coming in? When companies grow too fast they aren't able to hire quickly enough (or if they are then they can't ramp the new employees up quickly enough). They are taking in more orders than they ever did under the Carvin brand. The spec errors and quality errors are occurring for the same reason. Decline in customer service? I would have to believe it's due to a lot higher volume of contacts from customers (due to more orders and the growing pains causing more issues for customer service to handle). These things should be corrected once Kiesel gets settled into their new facility and hires more employees. 

The defensiveness over the errors, black listing customers because they weren't happy with the product they paid for, and the general attitude in their public responses definitely does need to change though.


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## Forkface (May 24, 2016)

feraledge said:


> Exactly, it's more like Jeff beveled the truth.



This thread peaked here guys, we can close shop and go home.


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## oneblackened (May 24, 2016)

jc986 said:


> Most of the issues that you guys are citing as similarities to those other companies are being driven by simply having a lot more orders than they are used to handling. Do you guys really not expect the lead times to increase with a lot larger volume of orders coming in? When companies grow too fast they aren't able to hire quickly enough (or if they are then they can't ramp the new employees up quickly enough). They are taking in more orders than they ever did under the Carvin brand. The spec errors and quality errors are occurring for the same reason. Decline in customer service? I would have to believe it's due to a lot higher volume of contacts from customers (due to more orders and the growing pains causing more issues for customer service to handle). These things should be corrected once Kiesel gets settled into their new facility and hires more employees.



This is true. Carvin isn't the first custom brand we've seen have this problem in the last few years. Skervesen went through the same issues when they had the "Bulb effect" happen to them (that is, Misha bought a guitar and then a whole ton of people bought them and they couldn't keep up).



jc986 said:


> The defensiveness over the errors, black listing customers because they weren't happy with the product they paid for, and the general attitude in their public responses definitely does need to change though.



This is very true. It's the most basic bit of PR, you make things right when you make a fault, not blame the customer.


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 24, 2016)

Chokey Chicken said:


> While they're not quite on the same level of .... as the guys they were eluding to, you can't just ignore a lot of the red flags.
> 
> It's exactly as they said. Excessive hype, longer and longer lead times, *more frequent errors in construction*, and the decline in customer service/sh_i_t talking customers outright.



I keep seeing this mentioned, and I don't want to come off as someone taking sides, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way. 
How bad are these 'errors,' exactly? Because from what I've seen, the flaws coming out of the Kiesel shop (minus everyone's favorite paint job, that was a train wreck) have all been pretty minor, stuff that's easily fixable.

When you say 'error in construction,' I tend to think of the work that Etherial, Rico, etc put out where there were parts that flat out didn't fit. There were structural errors. Guitars were shipped with incorrect hardware, specs were off, etc. That's the kind of thing that would concern me, not so much things like a shoddy fret job or a mis-aligned logo. Sure, that type of thing is a pain in the ass and I'd certainly be pissed if my brand new $2k+ guitar needed a fret job out of the gate, but it could be much, much worse.
So I've got to agree with technomancer and his hypnotic avatar that drawing those lines is a bit of a stretch at this point. 
If we start seeing some serious issues like this becoming more than a 'once in a blue moon' occurrence, maybe. But as for right now, I think all that they really need is an attitude adjustment and their problems will start to disappear.


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## big_aug (May 24, 2016)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> That's the kind of thing that would concern me, not so much things like a shoddy fret job or a mis-aligned logo. Sure, that type of thing is a pain in the ass and I'd certainly be pissed if my brand new $2k+ guitar needed a fret job out of the gate, but it could be much, much worse.



This kind of complacency is exactly what we don't need. If you spend $2000 on a guitar, it should be perfect in every way. That doesn't mean it will have all the best features or exotic woods. It means that every thing that is included on that guitar is flawless. Anything less from a "custom shop" like Kiesel is unacceptable. There is no excuse for it. It doesn't matter the brand on the headstock. Once "custom shop" comes up and we're spending thousands, it has to be perfection. Even a tiny cosmetic flaw is an epic failure at that point. It's not like we're buying used guitars from some guy in the classifieds.


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 24, 2016)

It's not complacency, it's taking a step back and looking at scope.
I agree, a $2000 guitar should be perfect. But of course, that will never always be the case.
In the event that something goes wrong and you have a shop churning out product with errors, what type of errors are more severe? One that costs you a couple hundred bucks and a week of inconvenience, or one that renders your entire purchase more or less useless? 

I'm not saying #KieselDidNothingWrong. I'm saying that comparing Kiesel to BRJ and the like is overkill. Saying that a janky logo = a tweaked neck is like saying that assault is the same as murder. Both are wrong, both are bad, both shouldn't be happening, but comparing one to another is really overdoing it.

That type of attitude is the line of thinking that gets your legitimate criticisms discarded. If I were Jeff Kiesel and I saw people comparing me to Bernie Rico I'd call you guys a bunch of jokers too, and that aspect of truth in there wouldn't get recognized. It's good that people are speaking out about their flaws and making their qualms with the company known so that nobody gets blindsided, but nobody's getting Rico'd yet, not by a long shot.


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## flint757 (May 24, 2016)

It's ultimately semantics. The point of the comparison was that there are similarities to some companies that went down hill fast and they all had a solid beginning. It's not likely they'll go down that path, but their compass is definitely pointing in that general direction.

The growing pains you spoke of are exactly what caused all the problems in those other companies so it is something to keep an eye on either way.


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## Chokey Chicken (May 24, 2016)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> I keep seeing this mentioned, and I don't want to come off as someone taking sides, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way.
> How bad are these 'errors,' exactly? Because from what I've seen, the flaws coming out of the Kiesel shop (minus everyone's favorite paint job, that was a train wreck) have all been pretty minor, stuff that's easily fixable.
> 
> When you say 'error in construction,' I tend to think of the work that Etherial, Rico, etc put out where there were parts that flat out didn't fit. There were structural errors. Guitars were shipped with incorrect hardware, specs were off, etc. That's the kind of thing that would concern me, not so much things like a shoddy fret job or a mis-aligned logo. Sure, that type of thing is a pain in the ass and I'd certainly be pissed if my brand new $2k+ guitar needed a fret job out of the gate, but it could be much, much worse.
> ...



Perhaps I wasn't clear and I apologize. More frequent errors, with peeling paint and the like, and longer lead times is just going to happen. More orders means more opportunities to mess something up, no biggie. Compound that with their ....ty attitude though, and its not unreasonable for people to be weary. It's not unwise for people to sit aside and see how they handle their current hype. All it takes is enough ....ty customer service or word of mouth for people to just ditch their guitars in the 10 day window to the point they start losing money.

Will that happen? I dunno, that's why I'm waiting. I doubt it'll happen soon if it does. I think the one thing to keep in mind though is that all of the past failed luthiers were also doing well right up until they were overworked and crumbled under their own size. Kiesel, as a long standing business can handle much more, but who knows just how much, especially when they're alienating customers like they are.


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## StevenC (May 24, 2016)

Speaking of errors, does anyone have the picture of the lefty Carvin from years ago with the righty fretboard? I think it was a green Holdsworth, or something.


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 24, 2016)

Didn't mean to sound like I was calling out you specifically, that quote was just recent and worked very well. 

But yeah, I do think their main problem is the attitude. If they addressed that, their public image would be overwhelmingly better.


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## Rev2010 (May 24, 2016)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> I'm not saying #KieselDidNothingWrong



Just had to post to give you kudos, _that_ is a hilarious hash tag!!   


Rev.


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## Drew (May 24, 2016)

Chokey Chicken said:


> Perhaps I wasn't clear and I apologize. More frequent errors, with peeling paint and the like, and longer lead times is just going to happen. More orders means more opportunities to mess something up, no biggie. Compound that with their ....ty attitude though, and its not unreasonable for people to be weary. It's not unwise for people to sit aside and see how they handle their current hype. All it takes is enough ....ty customer service or word of mouth for people to just ditch their guitars in the 10 day window to the point they start losing money.
> 
> Will that happen? I dunno, that's why I'm waiting. I doubt it'll happen soon if it does. I think the one thing to keep in mind though is that all of the past failed luthiers were also doing well right up until they were overworked and crumbled under their own size. Kiesel, as a long standing business can handle much more, but who knows just how much, especially when they're alienating customers like they are.



This is the part I'm struggling with too. 

I've never owned a Carvin, but I've played a whole bunch over the years. They've always ranged form "competent, but not exiting" to, occasionally, "effing awesome" (a buddy has a black 6 string singlecut that just owns face, way more than a guitar that price has any right to). They've been good enough, on the average, though, that I'd always kept them at the back of my mind as a goood option if I wanted to buy a stripped down 8-string to try to work up some clean tapping stuff, or something like those lines; it'd likely be a higher quality axe than an Ibanez RGA8, and if for whatever reason it was a dud they had a pretty good return policy. 

But, under Jeff Kiesel they've gone from a somewhat boring but serviceable company to this high-drama, high-hype behemoth that's been treating their customers poorly, and then whatever the final story turns out to be here, there's no denying that they kind of bungled the PR campaign around this "theft" and if they didn't actually embarrass themselves, well, they've given themselves plenty of cause TO be embarrassed. 

Even aside from Jeff's somewhat gaudy taste, it's getting increasingly tough to consider ever placing an order there - I hadn't heard about lengthening wait times, but I'd be worried about what I HAVE heard about QC slipping, and if there was ever a need to return the guitar, I'd be worried that even without an Option 50 they'd find some way to turn it into a hassle. I don't think I could do it. 

And, I'm already at the point where I wouldn't want to own one unless the headstock read "Carvin," simply because of the bad associations with the Kiesel name.


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## Drew (May 24, 2016)

Xaios said:


> While some of the criticism against Carvin regarding how they've handled this recent episode is warranted (I especially think Drew made some excellent points about how Kiesel comported itself during this most recent episode), they way everyone has piled on the condemnation is not something we as a community should be proud of. It started early, in only the 4th post of the thread, and never ended. I'll warrant that Jeff kept shooting himself in the foot whenever he replied, but we in turn took every opportunity to cast stones.
> 
> And just so the record is clear, I neither currently nor have ever owned a Carvin/Keisel. Nor do I plan to acquire one.



1) Thanks, dude.  

2) Really, the problem here is we ALL lose, regardless of what happens here. Carvin used to be a pretty viable option if you wanted something a little unusual. I don't think that's the case anymore. Jeff keeps making an arse out of himself, and on the other side, the last thing the guitar community needs is ANOTHER witch-hunt with things getting blown out of proportion, if somehow Kiesel is more in the clear than it seems he is.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 24, 2016)

I think it's worth noting that the suspicion surrounding this ordeal isn't unique to SS.org - there are other forums and groups, unrelated to this one, that are drawing the same conclusions (in some cases they're even outright nasty about it). I can understand withholding information so as to allow an effective official investigation. However, if the story doesn't add up as a result of withholding details, then don't tell it. The fact is, if the story didn't have holes in it, then people wouldn't jump to these kinds of conclusions. Instead of turning it around on the people calling BS, disregarding them and/or calling them names, Kiesel should just offer _some_ kind of explanation. I don't think the official investigation would be interfered with if a few simple clarificactions were made, without going into specific details (for example: "we didn't know the guitars were leaving the country"). A lot of this would have been avoided if that were the case. 

Stated another way: I would never come forward with a public announcement about being robbed, then ask for help, when the story doesn't make sense under scrutiny, and I certainly wouldn't put my nose in the air when people asked me for details, as that would be the best way to raise red flags. Why even run the risk of needless backlash? This is _not_ to say that anything dishonest was done by Kiesel in the slightest, but the situation is obviously not being handled properly, whether that's due to negligence, or just being tired of criticism.

Edit: in fairness, there are some people that will offer their criticism and accusations no matter what happens, good or bad, but the majority of people in this case are voicing reasonable concerns.


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## bostjan (May 24, 2016)

I've been watching this thread and chose not to post until now. I appreciate this is a sensitive topic for some.

I think the fairest statement to make is that the company does not understand the difference between good publicity and bad publicity. In a day and age when Donald Trump wins elections just by being louder and more obnoxious than the other guys and gals, maybe they are smarter than we think. But I think it's safe to say that Fender and Gibson didn't get to be the hottest brands for electric guitars from bad publicity in the 40's and 50's, nor did Carvin become what it became in the 80's and 90's through bad publicity. Maybe this kind of stuff will get them a huge boost in sales, but my fear is, that if this sort of thing continues, whatever boost happens will be short lived.

Either way, it makes me sad.


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## Floppystrings (May 24, 2016)

I'm just glad this forum exists where we can talk about companies and let each other know what is going on with them.

Quality control, customer service, all of that stuff is really important and with some companies things change. It's good to know because guitars and not cheap, some people are spending $2k-$4k in their dream instrument. And for that to go wrong is just sad.

Now I kind of get now why someone would spend $8k on a custom ESP or PRS. Most of it is peace of mind...


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## Sermo Lupi (May 24, 2016)

Floppystrings said:


> Now I kind of get now why someone would spend $8k on a custom ESP or PRS. Most of it is peace of mind...



Nah, that's not the right way of looking at it either. Heftier price tags may correlate with more trustworthy companies, but it's no guarantee. If either of those companies start behaving like Kiesel, the only difference is that you're out more money. It's not like part of the 8k pricetag is for a clause that says 'we guarantee you'll love it, or your second instrument free!'  

It's like anything else, really. Whether it's lining up a good vet before you get an animal, or insuring your car before you drive it, you have to plan for the worst when you're making decisions like that. Obviously you don't want to plan for having a sick animal, a wrecked car, or a lemon guitar, but sometimes it happens anyway and if you didn't plan beforehand, now what? 

That's why customer service is everything. Even if you never have to use it and end up paying extra for it anyway, always go with the company that has better CS. And as many have already said, it's the nonsense going on with Kiesel's PR and CS tactics that's doing the damage here. It really undermines the company's integrity, and therefore also your faith in them as a customer.

As for forums being a great place to discuss stuff like this, absolutely. As long as people keep level heads and don't bandwagon, we can look out for each other's backs. That goes for the opposite of the Kiesel situation too: overhyping a particular brand has caused just as many problems around here in the past.


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## cg138 (May 24, 2016)

The comparison is still extremely disjointed and really indicative of the nature some people have to chase brands and luthiers they dislike out of their view. Carvin never stopped being a great value regardless of what happens lately with their questionable antics. I played a friend of mine's SH550 and I A/B'd it with my 335, the guitar was really awesome and it looked the part for a great price, in comparison to my Studio Satin ES335 that cost me more than he spent. After spending some time reading all of this thread I hit him up and asked him if he ever had problems with his guitar, he said he had fret sprout on the edges. And even out of warranty they covered the entire repair and the fret job, he just had to cover shipping. Their staff hasn't changed I wouldn't think, the same people building this .... 5 years ago are still there doing the same thing they always have I'm sure. If you spend enough time on Google you can probably uncover just as much .... and unresolved customer stories from just about any brand.

Some guys keep changing their stance on why this company is "failing" but I'd like to entertain some actual knowledge on the matter rather than just assume they're failing. Then seem to be delivering instruments pretty frequently according to their Facebook pages, so it seems really far out of made up left field to throw around rumors of the brand turning into a lemon.

Maybe some of you guys should distance the face of the company from it's workers and products? CEO's aren't always the most likable people no matter what company you're talking about..


----------



## Hywel (May 24, 2016)

(Edit - Accidentally thought I was posting this a few pages ago so my points have already been made but I'm just going to leave them here)

If you can get $365 Squier/Epiphone that has proper logo placement and straight side dots then a $1000+ guitar of any make better be damn sure of having them otherwise what's to point of paying more?

I wasn't that bothered about Jeffs video. I thought the sales pitch was more of a weird way of saying "if you have a build in progress or were going to order a build anyway, then this situation won't affect your guitar. This isn't going to make us close down overnight". What did bother me was the poor attitude of whoever's handling PR and CS for Kiesel/Carvin. 

I'm amazed they haven't apparently thought to try and see why large parts of the online guitar community have suddenly decided that Carvin/Kiesel should go from being the go to reasonably priced semi custom option to a ....show people want to avoid in a couple of months. Even just a bog standard PR apology or statement from someone who's not an ass would go a long way to fixing their reputation around here and other forums. Companies and people make mistakes. What differentiates them is how they handle it and recently Kiesel/Carvin has been failing at that part spectacularly.

At least they still have the 10 day return thing. Just for the love of god don't get anything option 50 and things will probably turn out ok.


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## russmuller (May 24, 2016)

Wow, I go out of the country for a week and this place turns into a lynch mob in tin foil hats?! I was wondering why their account was now banned, but this thread illuminated things for me.

I just want to chime in with my two cents here.

Forget about about the poor choice of vocabulary for a moment (robbed vs. defrauded, suspect vs. person in possession). When fraud happens, especially with merchandise, it's not uncommon that the end buyer does not know the goods they're buying were not acquired legally in good faith. I think it's entirely reasonable that some of these guitars were shipped and changed hands quickly, and Jeff's controversial video somehow managed to make its way to one of those end buyers. Perhaps a friend or colleague sent the video to that buyer and, being a person who didn't know they'd taken part in a scam, they got in touch with Kiesel and are returning the guitars in good faith as well as cooperating with the investigation.

I know I'm just creating this narrative to connect the dots, but that doesn't seem so far-fetched. When the facts and details aren't fully known, it's really easy to pick apart things that don't align and to paint a picture any way you like. Jeff has spent years practicing and training himself to sell, sell, sell in every video. I'd have been shocked if he DIDN'T make a plug for more orders.

And when the company is your baby and you get swindled, emotions run high and the word "robbed" feels right (even though technically it's a different thing than defrauding). Just like how big_aug is convinced that Jeff LIED, because he's emotionally charged about the topic and that's what resonates for him even though it's not technically right.

I've praised Kiesel, and I've also been critical of them when I think they're doing the wrong thing. Like them or hate them, they didn't deserve to be cheated and I hope they're able to recover all the instruments. I'll be interested to see the outcome once the case is closed and the details are made available (if they ever are).

It's a shame though to see a company that makes some great products and presents great value is making so many bad moves on the social media and customer support front. It's nothing that a little restraint, professionalism, and time can't fix. I hope they choose to go down that road.


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## beneharris (May 24, 2016)

russmuller said:


> Wow, I go out of the country for a week and this place turns into a lynch mob in tin foil hats?! I was wondering why their account was now banned, but this thread illuminated things for me.
> 
> I just want to chime in with my two cents here.
> 
> ...



I can't think of one person here who thinks they deserved what happened. Everybody's problem is with the way it was handled by jeff, and the volatile, unceasing fire hose of a mouth that their Social Media Manager has. That is egzackhoury what people are having issue with. People have spent money, good money with Kiesel, yet they don't have the respect for their customers to just shoot them straight.

I'm sure it wasn't hard to do, but the fact that the video "seemed" to be thought out, with graphics and super intense music, yet the content was so thrown together and haphazard that it has sparked this much of an issue, is what people have the problem with. You can't be the head of a company that has such a HUGE online presence and not think through your words carefully. That along with the way they've handled things lately, is what is getting them in hot water. There is no denying there is plenty of justification for being pissed at them.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 24, 2016)

The graphics and music are all part of a template, and it's something they started sort of recently. You load up the project with the intro and outro, plop in the off-the-cuff statement video in between, then render to youtube.

I don't think Kiesel did anything wrong in this whole ordeal, save for maybe being a bit too confrontational. My concerns are just how big they've gotten and how quickly they got there. Smart mouthing customers doesn't help, but I stand by the fact that the original video and statement were a-ok.


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## beneharris (May 24, 2016)

Señor Voorhees;4589080 said:


> The graphics and music are all part of a template, and it's something they started sort of recently. You load up the project with the intro and outro, plop in the off-the-cuff statement video in between, then render to youtube.
> 
> I don't think Kiesel did anything wrong in this whole ordeal, save for maybe being a bit too confrontational. My concerns are just how big they've gotten and how quickly they got there. Smart mouthing customers doesn't help, but I stand by the fact that the original video and statement were a-ok.



No, I get that they're a template. The didn't create it for the video. But if it was official enough to bookmark with cheesy music and flames, it was official enough to watch what they say.


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## big_aug (May 24, 2016)

I'm not and have never been emotionally charged about this topic. I literally could not care any less about Kiesel Guitars. I have never and will never purchase a Kiesel from Kiesel based purely on the cost new vs used. I just called out bull.... when I saw it.

I'll spend my money with businesses who make me feel good about doing business with them.


Edit: Maybe a smidge


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## Fred the Shred (May 25, 2016)

Honestly, if one discounts the exacerbated hate posts or conspiracy theories that appeared in the thread (which, let's face it, aren't really the bulk of the posts here), I see nothing that implies people wish to see the company go down in flames, or that somehow the products magically became subpar.

The major point of contention is related to public image and how the company presents itself and relates to the customers, and a number of other things mentioned are logical consequences of something else (example: if I have a baseline 1% QC error tolerance and ramp up my production from 1000 to 10000 guitars a month, there are 10 times more duds in reality, but they are still just 1% anyway, and there isn't any concrete data regarding an increased defect rate).

Using myself as an example here, I like the product and I find that it is a very competitive semi-custom manufacturer with a price point that is incredibly hard to beat and an established, many decades old tradition - in the US, it's very hard to beat that in the price segment, assuming anyone can. What I feel is lacking is the quality of communication, and one can't forget it's often how you convey the message, rather than the message itself, that will determine whether feedback is positive or negative regarding a given interaction. 

I understand the gamble of going balls out to create hype and a relentless marketing snowball to drive orders through the roof, and I understand the logistic challenges the success of such an endeavour will bring, even though I am personally not too keen on the OTT approach to marketing, but in no point of such a tough process, for the good of your own company, you are to respond to customer feedback as if everything is a personal attack to the love of your life, and it's often best to take the finger away from the Enter key and wonder if how you conveying your point of view, which is now the company's point of view, is the best way to do it.

tl;dr - I and many others here are expressing concern more than anything else, and certainly not fulfilling the ultimate goal of the Kiesel Eradication Cult after taking our blood oath. Both extremes on the thread are either on the "burn, destroy!" or excessively apologetic camps, but neither appears to be the norm IMO.


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## Stuck_in_a_dream (May 25, 2016)

that short guy said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but don't thefts over a certain amount automatically get handled by the FBI? I may be remembering incorrectly but I think the number is something like 10K



Also, we don't know all the details, but if the stolen goods crossed state lines, FBI involvement could be just a consequence of that. 

Didn't Carvin have an embedded RFID circuit that you could swipe to know guitar was stolen? Snagg, I think it was, is it still installed in Kiesel guitars?


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## thrsher (May 25, 2016)

Stuck_in_a_dream said:


> Also, we don't know all the details, but if the stolen goods crossed state lines, FBI involvement could be just a consequence of that.
> 
> Didn't Carvin have an embedded RFID circuit that you could swipe to know guitar was stolen? Snagg, I think it was, is it still installed in Kiesel guitars?



they stopped the RFID a few years ago


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## bostjan (May 25, 2016)

Stuck_in_a_dream said:


> Also, we don't know all the details, but if the stolen goods crossed state lines, FBI involvement could be just a consequence of that.
> 
> Didn't Carvin have an embedded RFID circuit that you could swipe to know guitar was stolen? Snagg, I think it was, is it still installed in Kiesel guitars?



I don't think those were ever stock. Also, not that anything is necessarily true, but it was stated that the guitars were headed to Indonesia.


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## cwhitey2 (May 25, 2016)

Fred the Shred said:


> Honestly, if one discounts the exacerbated hate posts or conspiracy theories that appeared in the thread (which, let's face it, aren't really the bulk of the posts here), I see nothing that implies people wish to see the company go down in flames, or that somehow the products magically became subpar.
> 
> The major point of contention is related to public image and how the company presents itself and relates to the customers, and a number of other things mentioned are logical consequences of something else (example: if I have a baseline 1% QC error tolerance and ramp up my production from 1000 to 10000 guitars a month, there are 10 times more duds in reality, but they are still just 1% anyway, and there isn't any concrete data regarding an increased defect rate).
> 
> ...





I want to start a slow clap for Fred.


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## TheKindred (May 25, 2016)

cwhitey2 said:


> I want to start a slow clap for Fred.


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## Drew (May 25, 2016)

russmuller said:


> It's a shame though to see a company that makes some great products and presents great value is making so many bad moves on the social media and customer support front. It's nothing that a little restraint, professionalism, and time can't fix. I hope they choose to go down that road.



You know, this in a nutshell is the problem - it's not that I'm so concerned with the quality of the *product* reading this thread (though, there have been enough QC issues raised of late that I am), it's that this situation makes me concerned about the quality of the *management.*

I'm not sure how much ownership/control Carvin still has over Kiesel, but assuming they have the authority to do so, I'd be thinking long and hard about whether Jeff Kiesel was really the right guy to be running this company.


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## jc986 (May 25, 2016)

Drew said:


> You know, this in a nutshell is the problem - it's not that I'm so concerned with the quality of the *product* reading this thread (though, there have been enough QC issues raised of late that I am), it's that this situation makes me concerned about the quality of the *management.*
> 
> I'm not sure how much ownership/control Carvin still has over Kiesel, but assuming they have the authority to do so, I'd be thinking long and hard about whether Jeff Kiesel was really the right guy to be running this company.



Carvin and Kiesel are now completely separate business entities, so Carvin has absolutely zero control or affiliation with Kiesel at this point. If I had to guess, I would imagine Kiesel was given limited rights to continue the use of the Carvin name brand during a transition period. I feel like that transition period is likely pretty short, and that would help explain the aggressive, hype filled Kiesel campaign they've been running. They want to make sure as many people as possible know about the Kiesel brand prior to them no longer to be able to use the Carvin name. They have begun making it so the Carvin logos are no longer available, even on some older models that were introduced when they were still under the Carvin banner. And of course any new models are Kiesel only logos.


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## ferret (May 25, 2016)

Note that Mark Kiesel is the president of the company, Jeff is VP.


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## Alberto7 (May 25, 2016)

jc986 said:


> Carvin and Kiesel are now completely separate business entities, so Carvin has absolutely zero control or affiliation with Kiesel at this point. If I had to guess, I would imagine Kiesel was given limited rights to continue the use of the Carvin name brand during a transition period. I feel like that transition period is likely pretty short, and that would help explain the aggressive, hype filled Kiesel campaign they've been running. They want to make sure as many people as possible know about the Kiesel brand prior to them no longer to be able to use the Carvin name. They have begun making it so the Carvin logos are no longer available, even on some older models that were introduced when they were still under the Carvin banner. And of course any new models are Kiesel only logos.



Wait, what?! They don't offer the Carvin logo anymore? Not that branding matters to how well an instrument plays, but it certainly holds some sentimental value to some customers, (myself included) especially now that the Kiesel name is somewhat tainted in some people's eyes.

I guess it'd be like changing Jackson to, idk, Ferguson, (??) and not being able to order anything with the Jackson logo ever again. Still the same guitar, but a different name.



ferret said:


> Note that Mark Kiesel is the president of the company, Jeff is VP.



That's what keeps going through my head. Mark was always in charge of the company, and it ran pretty smoothly under his management, even if it sometimes went a little under the radar. I wonder what he thinks of all this now, given how conservative he is.


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## jc986 (May 25, 2016)

Alberto7 said:


> Wait, what?! They don't offer the Carvin logo anymore? Not that branding matters to how well an instrument plays, but it certainly holds some sentimental value to some customers, (myself included) especially now that the Kiesel name is somewhat tainted in some people's eyes.
> 
> I guess it'd be like changing Jackson to, idk, Ferguson, (??) and not being able to order anything with the Jackson logo ever again. Still the same guitar, but a different name.



Any models that have been released since their breakaway from Carvin can only be ordered with the Kiesel logo. Also they are doing only the Kiesel logo now on multiple of their other models including the carved tops, DC7X, I think the DC800, possibly others. There are still several of their older models that can be ordered with the Carvin logo, but seeing that they are kind of stepping through the older models and one by one revoking the ability to order with the Carvin logo I'd say a complete phasing out of the Carvin brand over the next couple of years. 

I could be completely wrong here, but it definitely seems like that's the direction their heading.


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## Electric Wizard (May 25, 2016)

All of their carved top models are only available with the Kiesel branding now.

KieselGuitars.com Newsletter 05/01/16


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## Stuck_in_a_dream (May 26, 2016)

Sorry if this has been posted before in the thread, but it's (almost) over now: 
https://www.facebook.com/notes/jeff-kiesel/16-missing-guitars/867338623387972?hc_location=ufi

Here, quoted from FB post:


> 16 Missing Guitars
> JEFF KIESEL·THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2016
> I am going to keep this Note page going to keep you all updated on the ongoing 16 missing guitars here at Kiesel Guitars.
> 
> ...





*EDIT:*

As was pointed out by Edika, the one guitar that got delivered in Indonesia is still missing, but it seems all the other are now accounted for, and on their way back to Kiesel Guitars.


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## Edika (May 26, 2016)

^Good news that it seems only one guitar might be lost. Unless they catch the guy and that is returned to Kiesel/Carvin.



Alberto7 said:


> I guess it'd be like changing Jackson to, idk, Ferguson, (??) and not being able to order anything with the Jackson logo ever again. Still the same guitar, but a different name.



Just to sidetrack the discussion a bit, didn't this happen back in the day with Charvel and Jackson? Jackson started as a budget line for Charvel, putting out Charvel models with the Jackson name and then Jackson became more popular thus flipping the tables? If I remember correctly the original soloist and dinky was a Charvel model but now it's only Jackson that makes them. Some more experienced Jackson aficionados can correct me if I'm mistaken.


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## Lemons (May 26, 2016)

You'd think he'd take out the all the parts about the "really shady" freight forwarding company after they'd gotten in touch with him and organised to send the guitars back.


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## Grand Moff Tim (May 26, 2016)

Edika said:


> Just to sidetrack the discussion a bit, didn't this happen back in the day with Charvel and Jackson? Jackson started as a budget line for Charvel, putting out Charvel models with the Jackson name and then Jackson became more popular thus flipping the tables? If I remember correctly the original soloist and dinky was a Charvel model but now it's only Jackson that makes them. Some more experienced Jackson aficionados can correct me if I'm mistaken.




Not quite, no. They were born from Charvel, yes, but not because they were a new budget line. What actually happened was Randy Rhoads approached them with an idea for a new model (the guitar that would become the Rhoads V), but it was such a radical departure from Charvel's usual models that Jackson decided to give it a different branding. It ended up being a hit, of course, and the brand grew from there.


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## schantist (May 26, 2016)

Kiesel calling a freight forwarder shady? Takes one to know one, I guess...


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## marcwormjim (May 26, 2016)

Ban-worthy, corny joke:

There are no shades with Kiesel - Only bevels.


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## frahmans (May 26, 2016)

why did it have to be someone from Indonesia being the root cause of the fraud? giving a bad name..


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## bostjan (May 26, 2016)

frahmans said:


> why did it have to be someone from Indonesia being the root cause of the fraud? giving a bad name..



1. Bad people live everywhere people live.

2. I have a coworker who lived in Jakarta, and he said it's like the Detroit of Indonesia. I lived in Detroit, so I looked up statistics on theft:

Jakarta: 61.03/5000
Detroit: 83.93/5000

Hmm, looks like Jakarta's a lot safer than Detroit, actually. Detroit's theft statistics are closer to Port Moresby's.


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## MrWulf (May 27, 2016)

Meanwhile, over at the Gear Page.
I love the sterling customer interaction of whoever is behind this and Kiesel's other accounts.


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## Ordacleaphobia (May 27, 2016)

The thread that keeps on giving.


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## Adam Of Angels (May 27, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> Meanwhile, over at the Gear Page.
> I love the sterling customer interaction of whoever is behind this and Kiesel's other accounts.




I wonder if he actually believes that? Because that doesn't make any sense.


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## flint757 (May 27, 2016)

Adam Of Angels said:


> I wonder if he actually believes that? Because that doesn't make any sense.



Is he referring to his input in this thread or his abuse of the report button though?


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 27, 2016)

"That forum likes to attack everyone."

You ....ing kidding me? This site was sucking you guys off for the longest time until Jeff started to blunder everything with the color mismatch and the PR disaster with this recent fraud.


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## oracles (May 27, 2016)

Adam Of Angels said:


> I wonder if he actually believes that?



ZK lies so much and so frequently, I'm not even sure he knows what's true anymore.


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## Mattykoda (May 27, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> "That forum likes to attack everyone."
> 
> You ....ing kidding me? This site was sucking you guys off for the longest time until Jeff started to blunder everything with the color mismatch and the PR disaster with this recent fraud.


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## cwhitey2 (May 27, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> "That forum likes to attack everyone."
> 
> You ....ing kidding me? This site was sucking you guys off for the longest time until Jeff started to blunder everything with the color mismatch and the PR disaster with this recent fraud.









The more I read I'm actually starting wonder how Kiesel has been in business for as long as they have. 

If that was my company, I would fire someone over that forum post. It does not matter who posted it or on what forum, they are using a Kiesel Guitars account and are representing the company.

How a business handles criticism ultimately decide whether people want to purchase items from that company. Why would you buy from a company that is not trying their best to make the paying customer happy?


This WHOLE (everything from color matches to now) situation has turned a crap show


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 27, 2016)

Hell, SBMM's PR guy was banned from here, and to my knowledge I didn't see him go on TGP or the EBMM forum going hog wild and claiming this site hates Music Man guitars and everything else.


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## oracles (May 27, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Hell, SBMM's PR guy was banned from here, and to my knowledge I didn't see him go on TGP or the EBMM forum going hog wild and claiming this site hates Music Man guitars and everything else.



Most PR people employed by other companies have actual qualifications to do PR and are smart enough to realise when they're helping vs hurting their brand


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## bostjan (May 27, 2016)

KieselGuitars said:


> That forum likes to attack everyone.



That statement coming from that account makes me sad that I ever stuck up for the company. 

Do they realize how many potential customers they have on this site?

I really hope they can turn things around. I used a lot of Carvin Pro Audio gear in the 90's and early 2000's, and had very pleasant dealings with the company. Our bass player then played a Carvin bass and loved it. I loved that they stood by their seven string guitars when other guitar manufacturers gave up on ERG, and I love that they offered an eight string fairly early on. This rebranding thing should have been going much smoother than this.


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## technomancer (May 27, 2016)

MrWulf said:


> Meanwhile, over at the Gear Page.
> I love the sterling customer interaction of whoever is behind this and Kiesel's other accounts.





Sometimes I wonder if he actually believes his own crap. Not that he ever had problems with making things up, but it's clearly stated in the ban reason that it was because at this point they are no longer a sponsor and the account is primarily a duplicate for a banned member that was using it to try to get mention of his name removed from the site. We don't need a reported post every time somebody refers to Zack, much less posts getting re-reported every hour or two if we didn't immediately deal with them to his satisfaction.


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## shadowlife (May 27, 2016)

It's only May, but i think we have a winner for thread of the year.


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## asher (May 27, 2016)




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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

When Kiesel makes these posts, it makes me do the Jet.com head explosion thing.


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## Alberto7 (May 27, 2016)

What the actual f*ck?!?! How does any reputable brand allow itself to have that kind of public face?! If they don't do anything about that post and that PR representative, then that'll speak volumes of what this new management stands for. (Jeff included.) Thank f*ck I bought my Carvin many years before they began poking at turds.

As someone who has always loved Carvin and who has been trying his damn hardest to be lenient and understanding with Kiesel, this makes me royally angry.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

As someone who has no emotional investment in this unlike a few other guys, the problem seems to be the moron who handles the forum work Zack Khoury. Which is who that account is if you look at the Kiesel BBS.

Really ....ing dumb, they should fire Zack for even going anywhere with their company profile.


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## TedEH (May 27, 2016)

I find the sad bit is that all of this drama is happening around a company that makes some pretty sweet looking instruments. Every NGD:Carvin/Kiesel thread I see lately seems to show some pretty classy instruments, and I'd still like to own one eventually- in that sense, I really hope they make it past all the drama and keep making cool stuff.


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## schwiz (May 27, 2016)

Some of the responses and band wagon hating in this thread are just plain idiotic, which makes it apparent that guitar isn't enough of a hobby for some people. Step away from your keyboard, and do something with your life that actually matters.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

I'd hope people have enough sense to not associate what I hope is an employee being close to fired to the brand's instruments and rest of their employees. Maybe we should speak up to get this employee reprimanded/punished for what he's doing, potentially even lose the ability to use brand accounts on forums?


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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

It isn't our job to get someone fired. That's their responsibility. Bottom line is that is the Kiesel account. That IS Kiesel. They allow it to continue. It's been going on for a while now. They let their employee behave this way. They can do as they please. I think it's bad business but they clearly do not.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

So you're not going to do something and instead just bitch online? The company Kiesel isn't a single entity, if there's a problem and you can report it you should. You're so interested in complaining about everything they do in here but reporting it or complaining about it where it matters is something you're not willing to do?


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## TedEH (May 27, 2016)

^ I think it's safe to say that someone at Kiesel other than the one PR guy is aware there's something up. Past that, I'm not a big fan of actively campaigning/trying to get someone fired either- it's on them as a company to decide what to do with the situation. Opinions will vary of course.


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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

What are you talking about? I'm not "complaining." I don't care what they do. I'm simply stating that is bad for business and blows my mind a bit. They run their business how they want. I won't complain. I'll just not do business with them.

Edit: I am complaining


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

I don't know about that? I'm not certain you can even say that without confirming it. People over there are building guitars not monitoring every forum on the planet to keep an employee from doing something really stupid.

big_aug, the .... that's happening is stupid I think we can both agree on that, but every comment you've made in this thread has been bitching to some extent  I read the entire thing to get caught up on it.


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## beneharris (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> I'd hope people have enough sense to not associate what I hope is an employee being close to fired to the brand's instruments and rest of their employees. Maybe we should speak up to get this employee reprimanded/punished for what he's doing, potentially even lose the ability to use brand accounts on forums?



So, we should be okay with them either:

1. Not knowing. Which means the management is complacent enough to not care this is how they are being perceived.
2. They don't care.

Both of those are really bad, and definitely do represent the entire company.


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## xzacx (May 27, 2016)

Glad they were recovered, but it's just shameful way for a company, or there spokesperson, to act.


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## beneharris (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> I don't know about that? I'm not certain you can even say that without confirming it. People over there are building guitars not monitoring every forum on the planet to keep an employee from doing something really stupid.



They fricking should know what their online presence looks like, dude. Shame on them, otherwise.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

I completely agree? I never said it was right that it wasn't happening in the first place, I think I'm being very clear about it. But don't see how my suggestion of bringing it up to the company and their CS wouldn't help in the case that they don't know this is happening?


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## beneharris (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> I completely agree? I never said it was right that it wasn't happening in the first place, I think I'm being very clear about it. But don't see how my suggestion of bringing it up to the company and their CS wouldn't help in the case that they don't know this is happening?



Yeah but you're saying that "anybody with any sense", should think it doesn't represent the company. It does. And there is plenty of sense to go around.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

That's directed at specific people who think Zack's blathering means their instruments are now ..... Which is a ridiculous assumption to make about any company if they were in this situation.


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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> I don't know about that? I'm not certain you can even say that without confirming it. People over there are building guitars not monitoring every forum on the planet to keep an employee from doing something really stupid.
> 
> big_aug, the .... that's happening is stupid I think we can both agree on that, but every comment you've made in this thread has been bitching to some extent  I read the entire thing to get caught up on it.



complain
[kuh m-pleyn] 
verb
1.
to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault:

I suppose I am complaining. So what? I find fault with the way Kiesel operates.


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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> That's directed at specific people who think Zack's blathering means their instruments are now ..... Which is a ridiculous assumption to make about any company if they were in this situation.



And no one has said that. Who are you even referring to? Have you been hanging out with Kiesel? Just make stuff up now? (a joke)


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 27, 2016)

cg138 said:


> That's directed at specific people who think Zack's blathering means their instruments are now ..... Which is a ridiculous assumption to make about any company if they were in this situation.



I don't see anyone that has said that  if anything it's the recent hype train which means a huge new load of orders. Zack is responsible for the ....ty PR ever since Kiesel became a thing.


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## cg138 (May 27, 2016)

That's anything but recent, they've been having traction for quite sometime. But I'm all for placing any social media blunders on Zack, I'd even venture to say that response by "Jeff Kiesel" on the photo match thing could even be forged by Zack at that point


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## metale (May 27, 2016)

ZackKhoury said:


> LOL. Those guys still think I do social media and that we have a "PR guy". One of them is just on a crusade and the others have joined. No one takes them seriously, I mean, lets face it, They are arguing over the vernacular in a YouTube video and blaming the company for saying "Robbed" instead of "Stolen from". It's Kiesel's fault they were ripped off earlier in the thread. Literally, they are saying it's fake..
> 
> Suddenly that entire forum became English Professors and Detectives..
> 
> ...



On the Kiesel forum thread called "Stop advertising on SS.org".


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## technomancer (May 27, 2016)

metale said:


> On the Kiesel forum thread called "Stop advertising on SS.org".



Same old same old... if you haven't noticed whenever he gets criticized the persecution schtick comes out to generate sympathy. Honestly I find it absolutely hilarious if he's talking about me when he says one guy on a crusade since I honestly couldn't care less about him or Kiesel while he continues to go out of his way to create drama on various forums and Facebook.

About the only thing worthwhile in his comment is the advice to move on... now if only he would take it and stop posting crap about this forum  Got to keep that spin and damage control going I guess.


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## big_aug (May 27, 2016)

I have to question Kiesel's character overall to have someone like this representing them out here.


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## feraledge (May 27, 2016)

douche said:


> Someone could behead Jeff and 10 people on that forum would say it was his own fault for wearing gray on a Saturday at 5:22 PM and that "Their Social Media Guy Zack" (LOL) is just trying to turn it into a publicity stunt. 2 more would say he isn't really dead.



This example seems oddly specific, right??


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## QuantumCybin (May 28, 2016)

feraledge said:


> This example seems oddly specific, right??



Dude I was thinking the same thing lol. Like, what? Why choose that of all things


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## Edika (May 28, 2016)

I wonder if this specific guy and other three associates of him take care all of the PR and media correspondence/exposure then how do you go about complaining about them as some members suggested?
The only thing I can think of is contacting Kiesel by phone and I wonder if the complaint department is run by those guys. Facebook messages will be deleted, emails most probably will be answered (and deleted) by these guys and maybe posting on the Kiesel/Carvin forums will get only grief from them trying to come on top. I don't know how biased the admins are there. That is if Jeff is unaware of all of this and isn't/wouldn't support these guys.


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## MrWulf (May 28, 2016)

Man, this saga is keep on giving. 
The last page there was my screenshot of a reply from KieselGuitar account over at a TGP thread, where he lied about what happened, and then people from sevenstring was quickly to correct him. Now, I just checked the thread and all of the replies from the people from sevenstring (or had read this thread and saw what happened) gone. To TGP's defense, they seems also wiped KieselGuitar's assinine post too. 

Since when trying to silence online opinions using censorship have ever work, anyway? People in Kiesel really need a course in PR, and here I was tempting to buy one of their Carvin DC7X that is still in stock. Maginificent blue maple top with only 800 bucks or so. But I guess I will take my business to Agile then, lol.


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## technomancer (May 28, 2016)

The whole thread on TGP is gone by the look of it. I completely understand them not wanting the drama over there and removing it.


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## big_aug (May 28, 2016)

The sick thing is if they ever release an Explorer model, I'd probably have to cave and order one even after all of the .....


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## cg138 (May 28, 2016)

I emailed them and mentioned the thread on TGP as well as the other antics that have been happening. And the gentleman who I will not name was surprised and didn't know this was going on as Zack had lost the privilege of using the company account on forums after his stints here. He mentioned he would talk to Jeff about it so that could also have been a byproduct of them being told that the jackass is running amock using their name.


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## ArtDecade (May 28, 2016)

I just took the time to read this whole thread and the one over at Kiesel. I wish I could get that time back.


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## drmosh (May 28, 2016)

ArtDecade said:


> I just took the time to read this whole thread and the one over at Kiesel. I wish I could get that time back.



haha, right. so out of proportion, people need to chill


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## big_aug (May 28, 2016)

We are so chill.


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## ikarus (May 28, 2016)

from the Kiesel in stock page:



> _*Notes: *_Custom Option: 3 Single-Coil Pickups One of the 16 guitars that were involved in the international fraud attempt.


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## Señor Voorhees (May 28, 2016)

ikarus said:


> from the Kiesel in stock page:



Fwiw, I saw countless comments on their facebook page saying how they should advertise them as the stolen guitars as if that meant anything. Pretty dumb, I agree, but whatever.

This whole thing was just dumb. I feel like a piece of my brain has rotted away for having been a part of it at all.


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## Randy (May 28, 2016)

Regardless of if Kiesel keeps up their anti-SSO campaign on other websites, I'd say the relevance of this thread has ran it's course. 

This isn't the first time people have been unhappy about how we handle things over here and gone elsewhere to complain. Not even close. 

It might bruise our egos but ultimately, we're responsible for what goes on here and what goes on somewhere else is their own problem. If we wanted to hear what someone who's banned here wants to say, they wouldn't be banned here. 

Theres no sense in keeping this open to visit and revisit all the angry things "other places" have to say about us over here without being active members of THIS community to know and appreciate what we're about.

Let them worry about what happens on their site, let us worry about what happens on our site and let the dead stay buried.


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