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Post by marlem on Mar 27, 2022 21:47:26 GMT -6
Alactronics Inc.
If you need ANYTHING repaired don't even THINK of sending it to this business in Wellesley,MA. They have had a Urei/Teletronix LA3A of mine for over 8 months and refuse to return it to me or bill me. Bob Alach is the owner and has one excuse after another, said it was fixed Sept. 2021, still hasn't returned it.
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Post by jmoose on Mar 28, 2022 14:47:20 GMT -6
Buzzmer. I've had several dealings with Bob Alach and even went to his house once when I lived up that way.
One thing that's true is they've always taken a long time with repairs. Even 10-15 years ago it was several months but well worth the wait.
Unfortunately the same can be said of a few techs. There's a well known NYC guy I talked to in fall of 2019 about getting some vintage gear in his hands & patched up... he was willing to take the work if I was willing to wait two years. I passed. Probably should've done it though because my busted stuff is still in the pile of doom.
Lines of communication are still open? Hope it works out, I'm sure you'll get it back at some point frustrating as it is.
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Post by marlem on Mar 28, 2022 19:10:47 GMT -6
Buzzmer. I've had several dealings with Bob Alach and even went to his house once when I lived up that way. One thing that's true is they've always taken a long time with repairs. Even 10-15 years ago it was several months but well worth the wait. Unfortunately the same can be said of a few techs. There's a well known NYC guy I talked to in fall of 2019 about getting some vintage gear in his hands & patched up... he was willing to take the work if I was willing to wait two years. I passed. Probably should've done it though because my busted stuff is still in the pile of doom. Lines of communication are still open? Hope it works out, I'm sure you'll get it back at some point frustrating as it is. What I don't understand is that in Sept.2021 he said it was fixed, going to let it burn in "a few days" then get it back to me. A month to him is like a day. He has no concept of time or responsiblity for his actions and words. None. It's rude and immature to say the least, and not professional at all. How about if I was his car mechanic, said it was fixed and then never let him pick it up or get the keys after almost 9 months? At this point I consider it stolen.
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Post by bgrotto on Mar 28, 2022 22:04:30 GMT -6
As I said over on the purple site, the anecdotes my colleagues share with me about this company are generally not positive. I wish the OP well and the best of luck!
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Post by christopher on Mar 29, 2022 12:00:31 GMT -6
I’ve done customer service at a guitar/amp repair shop, what you are experiencing is sadly very standard in that line of work. Mostly it’s innocent in nature: they’d think they’ve solved the issue, happily tell me to let clients know it will be ready in a few days. Then client doesn’t hear anything, calls me wondering wtf, I check in.. oh he realized it needs more work. I think they don’t always know the best fix so they let it marinate on the back burner until they get inspired to figure out the solution. Eventually order parts, wait for those etc. The shop I worked at always had hundreds of projects sitting months to years and they’d walk by each and tell me what they are planning to do, what to let the clients know etc. unfortunately, paying for someone like me to provide service was expensive, already on tight budgets.
But do keep us posted! That is a highly collectible item, most guys would treat that as high priority
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Post by jmoose on Mar 29, 2022 15:49:48 GMT -6
I’ve done customer service at a guitar/amp repair shop, what you are experiencing is sadly very standard in that line of work. Mostly it’s innocent in nature: they’d think they’ve solved the issue, happily tell me to let clients know it will be ready in a few days. Then client doesn’t hear anything, calls me wondering wtf, I check in.. oh he realized it needs more work. I think they don’t always know the best fix so they let it marinate on the back burner until they get inspired to figure out the solution. Some of the great techs do that... put the time in to find & fix the actual problem. Some techs, and I ran into this with my Telefunken preamps is they put 'em on the bench... and when its an intermittent issue say they can't find anything wrong and punt it out of the shop. Sometimes charging $100 for the visit. But they couldn't find the noise because they put it on the bench for 15 minutes and it didn't do anything. Imagine a car that stalls randomly & taking it to the mechanic. It didn't stall here..? But 4 miles down the road? And then you might think your dealing with a crappy mechanic. Which might be true anyway. The other factor is with legit 'vintage' gear the good techs are really hesitant to start shotgunning parts. Its only original once & some parts can't be had anymore... or they think its an easy repair and then you pop the lid & there's a trail of kluged repairs to cut out. Dunno. Like I said hope it works out but I've never heard of anyone getting outright ripped off by Bob. Things taking forever and a lot of bitching? Absolutely. But I also haven't had a dealing with him for several years. I did ask, so once again are they still answering the phone & taking your calls? Or did they ghost 'ya? |
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Post by marlem on Mar 30, 2022 17:54:19 GMT -6
I’ve done customer service at a guitar/amp repair shop, what you are experiencing is sadly very standard in that line of work. Mostly it’s innocent in nature: they’d think they’ve solved the issue, happily tell me to let clients know it will be ready in a few days. Then client doesn’t hear anything, calls me wondering wtf, I check in.. oh he realized it needs more work. I think they don’t always know the best fix so they let it marinate on the back burner until they get inspired to figure out the solution. Some of the great techs do that... put the time in to find & fix the actual problem. Some techs, and I ran into this with my Telefunken preamps is they put 'em on the bench... and when its an intermittent issue say they can't find anything wrong and punt it out of the shop. Sometimes charging $100 for the visit. But they couldn't find the noise because they put it on the bench for 15 minutes and it didn't do anything. Imagine a car that stalls randomly & taking it to the mechanic. It didn't stall here..? But 4 miles down the road? And then you might think your dealing with a crappy mechanic. Which might be true anyway. The other factor is with legit 'vintage' gear the good techs are really hesitant to start shotgunning parts. Its only original once & some parts can't be had anymore... or they think its an easy repair and then you pop the lid & there's a trail of kluged repairs to cut out. Dunno. Like I said hope it works out but I've never heard of anyone getting outright ripped off by Bob. Things taking forever and a lot of bitching? Absolutely. But I also haven't had a dealing with him for several years. I did ask, so once again are they still answering the phone & taking your calls? Or did they ghost 'ya? I only email with him directly, and it goes weeks to months for a reply. I've never called the business, I'm sure any tech(s), if he actually has any, would plead the 5th or give me the runaraound. It's all on him at this point, I've BBB, Massachusetts Consumer Protection Agency connected to the Attorney General blah blah ,and he has ignored all calls, emails, snailmail from any of them. A real top notch douchebag as far as I'm concerned. Like I said, he told me it was fixed Sept/2021. |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,937 
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Post by ericn on Mar 31, 2022 17:02:22 GMT -6
Gear repair is like going to the doctor, OK we see rhe problem and we can treat the symptoms the problem is always what really caused them. Anybody who has spent any time around a decent tech has seen the frustration of someone who has worked their ass off to track down an issue fix it, only to upon burn in, QC check to find there is a deeper issue. Often that deeper issue is only found once you fix the obvious, these issues can have layers and the time and parts add up.
With the whole supply chain situation getting parts has only gotten worse, you think the repair guy buys enough to get any kind of special treatment from the find folks at say Vishay? Now think of the fun of quoting you a couple of parts on Voicemail and in 24 hours finding that what’s now on hand at the vendor costs twice as much ( so the tech down the street tells me).
While your tech of choice doesn’t have the best rep for speed or communications they do have a good rep for the quality of their work. God that sucks but having dealt with techs who are great at communicating and quick that don’t do quality work, personally I’ll take the wait.
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