A Review of SchneiderMusik - Caution

[Thane Glenn]

[I believe that this post is in keeping with the Café forum guidelines which say that, "For example, a concern about a manufacturer's warranty policy or a reseller's return policy is permissible."]

In case it might be valuable for any members of the Café, I wanted to post a review of a recent experience I had with the German company SchneiderMusik. I ordered a number of Wolle picks from them (since these picks are not available in the U.S.). Their shipping costs to the U.S. are quite steep, so I threw a pack of strings into the order in an effort to justify the shipping expense; even so, the shipping cost was as much as the cost of the entire order. They sent me the right strings, but the wrong picks (they sent me the softer, blue Wolle picks, when I had ordered the stiffer white picks). When I asked them to rectify the situation, they first offered me a small store credit (about 20% of the cost of the order). After a number of emails back and forth, they reluctantly agreed to refund the cost of the picks, but not the cost of the shipping. I explained to them that I never would have paid that shipping cost for a single set of strings, but they wouldn't budge. I offered to return any part or the whole of the order if they would cover the shipping and send the correct order in its place, but for obvious reasons they weren't interested in doing that.

The bottom line is that they were polite, but nevertheless, I believe they wrongly took money from me and did not adequately correct their mistake. I would recommend against doing business with them.

By the way, after this experience, I did some deeper poking online and found another German company that carries Wolle picks - Musikhaus Markstein. They are not set up to handle orders outside of Europe online, but I contacted them, and they were happy to ship me some picks. Not only are their prices cheaper, but their shipping costs are less than a third of those of SchneiderMusik.

[AgentKooper]

I don't see any justification for them to refuse to send you the merchandise you ordered.

[Peter Barnett]

I have never ordered from Germany. However, I have ordered from the U.K. from several stores and found the service to be quick and shipping costs to be relatively inexpensive.

Your experience is unfortunate but it is good to get it out. Honest actual experiences are important.

[LadysSolo]

I ordered some music from Germany (don't remember which company) but they shipped promptly and the order was correct. I paid by PayPal, so had there been a problem there would have been some recourse.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Thane, as far as I understand, SchneiderMusik did wrong. They are responsible for a wrong delivery ("Falschlieferung"), which is a defect ("Sachmangel"). Hence, according to § 434 Abs. 3 BGB, SchneiderMusik must cover the shipping.

[Ray(T)]

Not sure about buying from the EU in the USA but us in England are protected - https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rig...ts-regulations

[Polecat]

[I believe that this post is in keeping with the Café forum guidelines which say that, "For example, a concern about a manufacturer's warranty policy or a reseller's return policy is permissible."]
I offered to return any part or the whole of the order if they would cover the shipping and send the correct order in its place, but for obvious reasons they weren't interested in doing that.

The bottom line is that they were polite, but nevertheless, I believe they wrongly took money from me and did not adequately correct their mistake. I would recommend against doing business with them.
.

I have often bought strings from SchneiderMusik, and never had an issue. Their handling of your problem was shoddy, but does not surprise me, someone half way around the world is hardly likely to threaten them with legal action if they fail to keep their part of the bargain, given the sum of money involved, and I imagine they decided that the goodwill factor was not important for them. Of course this is not right or moral, but it is sadly becoming more and more the norm. It's probably not such a good idea to order from them if you live outside Europe.
Transatlantic shipping costs are often horrifying, I recently wanted to buy Hanneke Cassel's book of original fiddle tunes, only to find that the postage exceeded the cost of the book by quite a lot. I emailed her about it and recieved a very gracious reply, but I'm still looking for a solution...

[Beanzy]

As a contrast I ordered three sets of Dogal Calace strings from Thomann & they only sent one set. As soon as I explained the situation to hem they rectified it without any quibbling and I had the rest of the order by the following week.How I could have proved only receiving the single set without waiting for a stock-take on their part I have no idea. but their system enabled the person dealing with it to make that call and rectify things promptly and without any quibbling. It's not whether the mistake is made that ever matters to me, rather how it is handled. Sure enough I just bought two sets of mandoloncello strings from Thomann last week which is another £100 of business within a couple of months as I had confidence in them.

[HoGo]

These are moral decisions of the companies. The law says something (same/similar laws apply in whole EU) but the companies sometimes count pennies over trust of customers not realizing how fast and easily bad word of unsatisfied customer spreads.
I had similar hassle few years ago with company that sent wrong item (1.5 EUR worth, shipping was more) and after contacting them they sent another - wrong again after that they refused to reply any communication. They were in Czech Republic so they counted that I'm not a threat to them...
Sad thing was they they were the only company carrying that replacement part I could find locally or in neighboring countries.
I once ordered parts from axiom and asked if they could add the tap for correct thread for bridge posts which they agreed (it was not offered in their shop) but sent wrong one. They sent me a replacement with no hassle (I'm in EU so shipping cost was almost as much as the tap). They were nice and didn't ask to return the wrong one so I sent it back at my expenses.