ABC Wearhouse lakeside sucks

[The Ghoul]

ABC Warehouse Lakeside has the worst car audio customer service ever!

Here is the story. In April I purchased a sony head unit, a pare of infinity reference series 6010cs components, a pair of infinity reference series 6012i two ways, a 300watt amp, and a wire kit for the amp.

Last week I started to hear what sounded like a faint rattle. It progressively got worse until I could not stand it any more. I pulled the speaker out and contacted infinity. They told me I needed to contact the dealer... No big deal.

I called the store and asked for the guy who's business card was stapled to the bill Joshua Sobeczak *remember the name it comes in down the road*. He told me to bring in the car and they will check it out... again no big deal.

I put the speaker back in the car and brought it down. There tech started to looked it over and then came back up front. Before the tech said any thing he said 'so it was wired wrong wasn't it'. The tech confirmed that I did, in fact, wire it correctly and that the amp wasn't powerful enough to cause harm to the woofers.

He looked at my bill and said 'well you didn't buy the extended warrantee'. I said 'Is it too much to ask that the new speakers I parched last more than 3 months?'. He than told me that the speakers warrantee is through the manufacture so he could do nothing for me. I told him that I contacted them and they had told me to take it to the place I purchased it and they are equipped to return it and get a replacement. 

He then demanded that one of the sales people get him a set from the back so he could read the warrantee. After looking at the warrantee card (which was the same that I had brough from home and given them at the beginning of the exchange). He then asked me who I talked to at infinity about it. I told him that I called there automated system and it told me to talk to them, and I also emailed infinity and they told me the same. I asked if he couldn't help me directly if he could call infinity on my behalf. He called the automated system number and said 'you will have to talk to one of there service centers'. I told him that there was no point to that because they will charge me to look at the speaker and tell me its blown and tell me to bring it to you for the exchange.

Then he tried to play the nice guy angle and said 'If my shop super visor was in he would be pissed and demand that you pay a tech fee for us to look at it'. He was the one that told me to put it back together so they could diagnose it. I could have just as easily brought them the speaker and had them check the resistance and they would have seen that it was reading 3.6 ohms rather than 4 like it should. 

By this time I was pissed, but I was not rising my voice and I was not swearing or insulting them. I simply wanted to exchange a defective product.

I told him that obviously the supplied phone numbers and e-mail that came with there was getting me no where *which he would have known had he paid attention when I first explained the situation*. I then asked him if they could contact the distributor or something because as the purchaser I have gotten no where. So instead of taking my information and calling his contacts for me he simply got on the store computer and looked up his representatives number and name and gave me that.

What a lazy prick. All he did was sat there on the other side of the counter and looked for reason after reason why I screwed up the product, then when he couldn't find one he simply passed the buck. This is the worst customer service experience I have ever seen. Because I didn't buy there stupid service plan, and I installed it my self they treated me like crap.

They lost a customer for life, and infinity almost did over this prick until I finally screwed with there automated system enough to get a real operator. After I explained the whole situation he apologized for there actions and said that a lot of there big retailers are sometimes unaware of there obligations. He told me to send him a fax with all of my info and a copy of the receipt, they will send out a shipping slip, I am to send in the bad woofer and if they have a replacement they will send it out, if not they will send me a whole new pair.

I cant believe we let big businesses act like this. If this were a private company they would have bent over backwards to keep me happy and I would have a new speaker in my car this minute. Monday morning I am going to call the store manager and there service rep and explain the situation to them. This whole thing is so ridicules and it all boils down to one lazy employee named Joshua Sobczak.

In fact I think I found a picture of him.

[dodge freak]

The one and only best place to buy your audio stuff from is Crutchfield.com , yes if its not on sale their prices are high, but their customer service can not be beat ! They will make you happy, I got a infinity subwoofer from them-on sale cheap- about 4 months later they had M B Quarts amps on sale half off, I got one 2 ch ,then a 4 ch, then ask how the mono amp would work with my subwoofer, they said its the wrong ohm to get the most out the new amp. Tech told me hey we give you your money back ship it back to us for free and we give you credit on another woofer. I called back 3 or four days later and said ok , I said I like the Rockford t1 buts its $399 an I had only $119 credit. He said well-tell you what I take the $119 off the $399 thats $280 and I cut that in half so it be $140 more can you pay that ? I said sure and 2 days later I had it. It was brand new, only 2 weeks old the packing sticker on the box said. That was a year ago, its been pounding away ever since I got it. Yes, Crutchfield blows everybody away.