The Bluegrass Mall

[craigmurray]

Please don't buy anything from the Bluegrass Mall. #Multiple Mandolin Cafe members, including myself, have paid Ron Malec (the owner) for product that we never recieved. #I have made multiple attempts to contact him through e-mail and telephone, and he will not return my e-mails or answer my calls. #Ron is a thief. #If you know of other message boards where the Bluegrass Mall has advertised, or where members might be interested in product from the Bluegrass Mall please let me know, so I can post a similar message on their board. #
Thanks
Craig

[Tim Saxton]

In order to inform us all a litte better, can you back your claims up with specific examples.

Tim Saxton

[Frank Russell]

Tim, check the previous thread about this vendor. He personally emailed me with the "family tragedy" story. If I was less technically challenged, I could copy the email verbatim. Frank

[frets1]

I purchased a tshirt from him. He sent me the wrong one. I emailed him and informed him of his mistake. After several weeks, he sent me another shirt. He sent the WRONG SHIRT AGAIN! He emailed me a gave me the "family tragedy" story also.

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[Scott Tichenor]

Please see my most recent post here (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=12&t=12345) on this subject.

[John Ely]

If you have a complaint against a merchant such as the one discussed here, I would advise you to make factual statements and to not make accusations or to express opinions. For example; "I ordered three widgets in January and they have not arrived yet. Mr. Smith has promised in two e-mails that they would be here soon, but they are not," are the sorts of things that are more difficult to contest. Saying; "Mr. Smith is committing fraud" is more difficult to defend.

[craigmurray]

I ordered two t-shirts from him on December 6th. #I e-mailed him in mid-January to see where my shirts where and he told me that he had a computer virus, and was therefor running behind on his orders. #Fair enough. #I then e-mailed the beginning of March. #And he told me that he had indeed shipped me my shirts, but they must have been lost in the mail. #He told me in that e-mail that he would send off a duplicate of my order, and trace my "lost" package. #I never recieved either package. #I finally posted here in a thread started by another mandolin cafer who was inquiring about the bluegrass mall. #After posting my story on the cafe I was contacted by another member of the cafe off-line, to inform me that he too was feed the "lost in the mail" line and the he also never recieved his "duplicate order". #Since then I have sent Ron Malec ~10 e-mails, and have called his house ~5 times. #He has never responded to my e-mails. #Only once have I gotten through to a person at his house. #Unfortunately he was out, so I left him a message, and told him that I was looking for my products. #All other times I have called his house I have left a detailed message on his answering machine and asked him to call me back. #On Monday I sent him an e-mail and told him that if he didn't contact me regarding this issue that I was going to start posting my story on message boards, and telling people not to buy from him. #So he was warned. #I am sorry that I didn't go into further detail in my previous post. #Scott I am also sorry if I led others to believe he "advertised" on your site. #That is certainly not the case. #I made contact with him through an ad that he placed in the classifieds. #I am not the only cafer who is owed product by the Bluegrass Mall. #I do not think it is unreasonable for me to recommend to other Cafers to not buy from him.

[Scott Tichenor]

John, my fact is that I've answered multiple complaints from more people than I can keep track of about this site. I'm not here to judge whether there's some type of circumstance that's causing this that's beyond the owner's control, but the fact is it's about a 30 second process to FTP or telnet in and remove a web site if you have the user ID and password. Continuing to take orders for 90-120+ days and generating these kind of complaints is more than enough smoke for me. My beef is that is even though I have no business relationship with the site owner I seem to be a magnet for "what can I do about this?" inquires. I'm not judging on what circumstances are causing this, but in fact it does need to cease. Honest people are losing money. There are some people that simply shouldn't be doing business on the web and I think this is one of those cases.

In addition I've received several emails and PM's from folks saying they've experienced the same but don't want to post anything.

I agree that there tends to be a lynch mob mentality of #sorts on some issues like this, particularly when it relates to eBay sellers, and it's one of the things I dislike most about the web. However, in this case I've never been much more sure of something needing to cease operation. Not going after you personally about this. I do wish statements like this about all vendors were more factual and I do support what you said. Thanks for clarifying what I should have said in the first place.

[Talon]

Thanks for advising us! I had broused the site. Again, Thanks for warning us!

[Amandalyn]

I too had a bad business deal with Mr. Ron Malec. He advertised a mandolin for sale which he never had possesion of. Long story short- I had to put a stop payment on a check, and when he promised to return my check, he claims he did but I never recieved it.

[sailaway]

Under most state laws, when a seller accepts a payment for an item and fails to deliver it according to the sales contract, it is at the least a breach of contract and possibly a crime of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds. Example: I send X a check marked ' in payment for mando and shipping costs .' then no mando arrives --- X must return the $ or send the mando. X could be criminally prosecuted if he makes a habit of cashing checks or credit card orders and never sending the goods. And if X has used the mails to defraud , it is a federal crime handled by the FBI office in the area where X lives. It sounds like bluegrass musicians need to unite and contact the authorities on this guy... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[John Ely]

My advice was intended to protect anyone who voices complaints. True factual statements are the way to go. I am not attempting to defend this merchant, and I mean no criticism of Scott's banning him from advertising here.

[Scott Tichenor]

My advice was intended to protect anyone who voices complaints. True factual statements are the way to go. #I am not attempting to defend this merchant, and I mean no criticism of Scott's banning him from advertising here.
There does seem to be some confusion about that site that exists and I want this to be clear, that's all. The only thing I've banned them from is posting in the classifieds, plus I've removed all links to that site which is really the best thing that can happen since they appear to be unable to reliably deliver merchandise that has been paid for. They've never offered to advertise here nor would I accept if they did, even if they could deliver product. Their merchandise just isn't a good match for this site IMO. BTW, I've received no response to my inquiry of last Friday.

Here's a list of sites still linking to them from Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebluegrassmall.com) using their link feature. JustStrings.com removed their link already at my request. SoundArt amazingly refuses to so far and it's a graphical link on the bottom of their home page.

[Scott Tichenor]

Update - they've taken the site (http://www.thebluegrassmall.com/) off-line and there's a note with an email to inquire about merchandise that hasn't been delivered. I'd suggest those of you who do to be polite and state your inquiry and don't judge too quickly. Time to get on with other things.