Rob C.

I've bought a Duesenberg guitar at Thomann.de, and the purchase process was just stellar. Unfortunately, my guitar had a minor fault, which Duesenberg later told me was due to the "slots of the nut being slightly too deep".

Thomann's customer service asked me to return the guitar for a full replacement, after all, I only had the guitar for a couple of days. I was reluctant to comply, but after checking that they still had units in stock, I sent it back.

They received the guitar, but went radio silent for almost a week (after receiving it), and after sending them 2 or 3 emails, I heard back:

"The guitar is unfortunately sold out and we expect to receive the next one by the end of August. Should you be interested in another model please let me knwo and I can make the change in the order for you."

To be clear, this was in May, and they were confirming my fear — they sold the last units even though I had a replacement request. And if you think this is bad, bear with me. There's much more to come.

If you're a customer, keep in mind that sending a product to a reseller for warranty or repair does not transfer the property to them. They can't just do whatever they want, but that's what they tried.

They kept pushing me for a refund several times, which I declined. I wanted that model of guitar, not another, and not after waiting several months. I was fine with a repair, but they didn't even try to send it to Duesenberg or their distributor in Germany, göldo music GmbH. I didn't understand why, but the reason would become clear later on.

After a month of not having my guitar, a different service representative started replying to my emails. That person just ignored the whole conversation (which at the time already had been looked at by Duesenberg, who were helping), and regardless of that, they just issued a credit note, and sent me the guitar back, saying:

"The service have advised that the guitar has been checked and no fault could be found, the frets sit higher on this guitar and due to preference some customers do not like this feature with this model of guitar."

This was just insane. By now Duesenberg had already checked and confirmed the issue. It was a fault that needed repair, but Thomann was throwing them under the bus and saying "hey, Duesenberg sucks, what can we say? Just get a refund and move on". If that doesn't show you the type of company Thomann is, then I don't know what will.

After giving up on making progress with emails to customer support, I was able to reach one of the folks who are in Thomann's top management. This person was willing to help, and got the customer service manager to review the case and continue looking into options, but remember, at this point the guitar was already being transported back to me (unrepaired).

Before receiving the guitar back, we were able to reach an agreement. They would repair the guitar with Duesenberg, and I would wait for a couple of more weeks. All I had to do was send it back once again, which was fine by me.

I received the guitar, but before sending it back, I figured "well, this has been with them for a month, so I better check to see if it's in the same exact condition that I have sent it". I've opened the guitar and well, it wasn't.

The guitar was scratched, and even worse, one of the pickups was completely loose with one of the screws popping off of its socket. Don't ask me how or why — I gave up trying to understand. It just looked like a sick joke, and still does.

It's been almost two months now, and, this is my situation:
The top management folk? Radio silent.
The customer service manager? Gone, washed their hands, and not even cc'd in the emails anymore.
The customer service rep (or reps)? Offered me 150€ (from a 2000€ guitar) to let this go, thinking that this would be a reasonable compromise after breaking my guitar which had a minor fault that could be easily repaired by the manufacturer in 3 days (yes, 3 days was the estimated repair time when I asked Duesenberg about it).

Long story short: Don't trust Thomann. Just don't. Look at the other reviews. Don't try to find this out for yourself. Buy somewhere else. They are a wolf in sheep's clothing. Their site is just a fancy package to a company rotten from the inside. A company that has no respect for anyone, not for their customers, and not even for a partner like Duesenberg which they tried to blame without batting an eye to cover their mistakes.