"Don't trust this company. They will continue to charge you after you return your instruments. We've been dealing with monthly multiple charges adding up to over $2,000 from them over the past year. Each time we call to address the situation, they promise it won't occur again, but it continues. They don't keep records or notes, and each time we call to address the situation it's a complete hassle all over again. The wait time is horrible, they find every excuse to hang up or not address the problem. Look at all their other yelp reviews for individual stores and you'll see a pattern of this kind of mal-practice. I've never left a yelp review in my life. But at this point, I'll be blasting every review platform this company is posted on. "
"I am a parent of a child that loves to play clarinet and this was the only way to get one for him. Unfortunately as a single parent I have fallen behind on payments. DO not ever give these scumbags your debit card info. They run you card days before it is due and then when you fallen behind they start running any card you might of had on file with them and if that does not work they run smaller amounts with all the cards you have all file with them. Will all the craziness going on in the world right now, every company is working with people. Not these low lifes they are running all my cards right now without my permission. 2 Months ago they took 2 payments in one month and it took a week for me to get that back. I am in the process of writing to the better business bureau about them. I have read all the reviews and I am not the only one they do this to. I have not met one happy person using this company. Absolutely disgusting."
"I mistakenly trusted them because they rent at my child's school.The contract had too many vacant spots in it for their obligations.You pay to own a used instrument for new instrument prices .If you decide to end band and return instrument without paying in full,they can then rent same instrument again for new prices.They will make a fortune off parents who have little choice "
"They are one of the thief company, I bought a violin and returned it within 30days, I return it since first week of jan and now we are in April’s and I still haven’t got my money back
Don’t buy from this company at all and their customer services are the worst !! "
"I have 2 kids who rented violins through Music and Arts for use in their school orchestra from elementary through high school. The contract we chose was that whatever money was paid for the rental of the instrument over the years could be applied towards the purchase/ownership of an instrument of EQUAL VALUE to the renal money accrued. The goal was for us to purchase a nice, high end instrument as the girls will be continuing their violin studies and performances in college.
After years of rental, Music and Arts stated that they could not find our account, could not "find" how much money we had paid/invested in rental fees over the years and could not even find any evidence/tracking of their violins that we had in our possession based on the serial numbers inside the violin. They stated "the violins did not exist in their records" even though they were rented from their store and had their logo. In other words, everything was lost. This was only determined when we went into the store to get new violin strings or we would never have known the problem existed.
When I contacted customer service with the problem, their response was that we could "keep" the violins that we had as a trade off. These violins were appraised and found to be inexpensive, beginner, entry level violins worth $400 at best. So after accruing $3300 in rental credit over many years, Music and Arts solution was to give me $800 worth of cheap instruments. They stated that they would conduct an "internal audit" to see what happened but after months of trying to contact them back, they haven't responded. This seems to be the theme of many reviews that I have read, pump in your money in rentals for many years and then later told that you "own" your cheap instrument.
DO NOT RENT FROM MUSIC AND ARTS FOR YOUR KIDS SCHOOL INSTRUMENT NEEDS. YOU WILL SPEND THOUSANDS AND BE LEFT WITH A CHEAP INSTRUMENT AND NO RECOURSE. IT IS A PONZI SCHEME! VERY UNETHICAL AND DISAPPOINTING."
"This company is terrible at customer service or honoring their promotional rental offers, they will charge you full amount because the "computer said so"."
"I rented an instrument for 10-month trial. After 10 months, they started charging me ridiculously high amount of money from my credit cart without sending me any notification/bill for six months!"
"My son ordered reeds from them...they were both broken and they replaced them with 2 drum keys?????? I called and said I ordered reeds for my son who plays the saxophone...they said I had to wait to send the drum keys back until I received a shipping label...NEVER CAME! Then they had the nerve to report me to a collection agency because I didn't pay for the drum keys?????? I explained I ordered reeds and was told I had to wait to return the drum keys until I received the shipping label! Ugh I'm so angry with them for their nerve of getting a collection agency after me because I didn't return merchandise I never ordered nor received their label!!"
"Through the website, I made a "purchase online / pick up in store" purchase, in amount of approximately $1800, and paid with my credit card. The payment was properly authorized and posted to my credit card account. Upon receiving the email receipt showing the transaction was complete, I called the local store to make sure the item was ready to pick up and they confirmed it was. As I was driving to the store, I received a call from the company asking me to confirm a shipping address. I told them that it was not to be shipped, but rather was a pick-up at the store, per the options / instructions on the website. I further told her that I had already paid for the item and had talked to the store, and that I was enroute to pick it up. Upon arrival at the store, I was told that they were on the phone with their corporate office, who was telling them not to release the item. The reason given was that I had not confirmed a valid shipping address, and something about the shipping address I had provided (I hadn't provided a shipping address, of course) wasn't a valid address, so the transaction was being handled by the fraud department!!! The guy at the store told them that no shipping was involved, the item was in stock at the store, etc, and that I had valid ID. At that point in time, of course, there had taken place a fully consummated transaction, and the store was in possession of an item that was fully owned by me, but they refused to give it to me. Remember, payment had been properly made and I had a receipt. Pickup was only subject to proper ID, which was not in question. No one at the corporate office could tell the store when the item was going to be "released". Finally, I asked the store to just cancel the order, which they tried to do, then, to get the item, I had to purchase it AGAIN at the store as a regular purchase. By then, of course, the company had my money twice, and after I called them to tell them to cancel the earlier charge / authorization, they said that maybe in 5 business days they might be able to do a refund, but only after the charge posted, even though everyone was aware that it was a cancelled sale and that I had bought the item as a regular point-of-sale transaction. Even when I had the telephone discussion on that point, I was told that there was an irregularity with the shipping address, so I had to go through all that again. The icing on the cake was that the"irregularity" was in the address that THEY had on THEIR store, and they told me that they didn't have a store that fit that address!!! I told that to the people at the store who were obviously surprised to learn that. At this date, they still have 2X as much of my money as they're supposed to have, and they have not processed any refund of the initial order. This was undoubtedly the worst and certainly the most bizarre customer service experience of my life, and the depth of incompetence of the people at this company in dealing with customers is truly stunning. I even tried to give them a chance to respond through their contact form and got back from them - unsurprisingly - exactly zero response. Look at the reviews of this place - no one should ever do business here! "
"They do not deliver online orders. They do not let you know the expected time of delivery. Customer service does not answer emails. When you call them, they cannot answer anything but promise to find out and call back. Of course, they never do."
"You never get the same answer twice. I received an invoice for an instrument I had paid on for five years. My debit card had been stolen, so I had cancelled it. I paid the invoice. It cleared my account on the 29th yet they did not post my payment for a week! Then, they tried to charge me a late fee. When I called their “customer service” I have never been spoken to so rudely by anyone. No one could tell me why it took so long to post my payment. The awful woman started yelling at me when I asked her to double check the charge. They are TERRIBLE. Look elsewhere to rent. "
"They bought out the original company that my contract was. Could not find my payment history or original contract. So I asked how to return the instrument and was told someone would call me back. 8 months later I still have no clue how to return instrument and now getting a letter demanding payment. "
"Stay away! these guys are so unethical, the individual store said word for word that calling the corporate office will give you wrong information, and they are so right! they sent promotion in the mail to renew the instrument rental and so we called to take on this offer, then 5 months later we notice that they didn't honor the renewal we called up about, so instead of paying $165 today, we are now stuck paying $41 per month which will cost us over $400 for the school year. When I called the corporate back at ***-***-**** to address this the supervisor didn't even bother to get on the phone and just had the rep tell me that they never ran such a promotion, I then emailed them the copy of their own promotion and asked them to take another look, the rep said she would escalate to her supervisor, but I asked to wait for her to get on the call, when the supervisor got on the call she started trying to sell me an instrument and being very very rude and short, I asked for her name she said Devon, I asked for her last name she said "I'm the only Devon here, I don't give out my last name" . long story short they will note honor their rep's promise.
I'm totally screwed out of hundreds of dollars , I can't believe companies like this are still in business in this day and age.
Stay away! "
"I've never had such an awful customer service experience before. I believe speaking softly and respectful will resolve any issue, not here. if you want friendly help when there's a problem or question, don't go here. "
"I brought in my Buffet R13 clarinet for repadding. I was first told that it would take 2 to 3 weeks. I even expedited the process by allowing them to start any repairs up to $300 without my consent. Anything over that amount would require consent on my part. Four weeks later I’ve visited the store still hearing no word on my clarinet or its status. Long story short the estimate was raised to four weeks with some additional time possibly required and then later to eight weeks. It has been five weeks and I still have no status updates. I decided to request my clarinet back immediately. I went into the store and shared my frustration with the clerk. I was already upset with being lied to and became even more frustrated when the clerk kept repeating that the time frames were just an estimate. Still at five weeks I had not heard a peep. What is the point of customer service if they cannot inform the customer that thenservice is taking longer than expected? The clerk informed me that they cannot email or contact everyone all the time with updates. I wondered if I should have waited a year before inquiring about the status? how am I supposed to trust a company that provides little information to the customer and even that information is inaccurate? Customer service is part of the job especially when you’re taking hundreds of dollars from people for a service you provide or at least claim to provide. "