So I bought a nice Prologue 16 from a seller in Italy, but unfortunately it looks like it was damaged during the shipment. It arrived with some broken keys: two keys are broken, one key is stuck, and another key also moves the key next to it (see also video)
I paid with paypal (not f&f), and also insured the shipment for 500 euros.
What would be my best course of action?
Should I open a controversy with paypal? Ask for a refund? Return the Prologue?
Should I initiate a claim with the shipping company?
In your opinion, these kind of damages are easy to fix?
I contacted the Korg distributor for Benelux and apparently they donât offer repairs for products outside warranty, but they asked me to send an email describing the problem, and they could potentially put me in contact with some other repair service. Waiting for an answer.
Itâs the sellerâs responsibility to stress about this, not you. Contact them with lots of pictures and theyâll do the rest. If they refuse to help, then log a dispute.
Weirdly enough, paypal does not allow me to contact the seller via their internal messaging system, so all the communication is going through telegram at the moment. The seller is as upset as me, I guess.
Yea itâs as @Claid says itâs the sellers issue to sort - the shipping company wonât even talk to you as youâre not their customer (I assume)
I would just return it for a refund personally, but the seller will need to collect photos etc, you might need to wait a couple weeks for it to get resolved before you can do anything with it.
Though I was the one booking and paying for the shipment. And I just had feedback from the shipping company that it is stated in their TOS that musical instruments are not covered by insurance. Ah, what a mess.
Should have bought a minilogue module instead
Was it a private sale or via a platform like eBay or Reverb? Iâm guessing private as you say it âwasnât PayPal F&Fâ. Speaking of which, if it wasnât F&F, does that mean it was G&S? That means insurance.
If you booked the shipping then yes, itâs your responsibility to deal with the courier Iâm afraid. However, I donât consider synthesisers to be âmusical instrumentsâ in the classic sense, ie a stringed instrument such as a guitar or violin. Or even a piano. A synthesiser I class as âDJ Equipmentâ, which should be covered by most couriers. Itâs basically a computer that makes sound, not an instrument.
Letâs hope those keys arenât too much trouble to replace then I guess!
Which shipping company? Good to know to avoid for others if booking directly.
I use PackLink (either through ebay or Reverb normally), and they cover instruments, used/new. The insurance is provided by PackLink, not the courier, so it doesnât matter who you use to ship. Doesnât help you now of course but hopefully helpful in the future for you or others.
Edit: This person is in the US but they sell individual keys - which implies to me that keys can themselves be replaced. Of course you might want to inspect that nothing else was damaged.
These kind of damages are mostly caused by bad packaging which is really the senderâs responsibility. Was it packed in its original box? Do you have pictures of how it was packed?
The seller used a third party service (Mailbox Etc) to have it packed. Unfortunately he didnât have the original box. The synth was packaged quite nicely but I guess the courier mishandled it, most likely by exerting pressure on that area.
Have you asked Korg to send you a couple of replacement keys? I would have thought it was a fairly easy fix. They are usually just held in with springs. I would personally much rather do that than go through the anguish of sending it to a service centre which could take a couple of months.
Seems like rubbing salt in the wounds if they donât cover instruments anyway haha
How was the packaging? If it was indeed insufficient then Iâd ask the seller to cover repair costs, see what they say.
Generally they say it needs to be able to happily fall off a 4 foot high conveyer belt, and then driven over by a forklift (the last part isnât in their guidance).
I contacted the Korg distributor for Benelux. Unfortunately they said the donât do repairs for out-of-warranty items, though this one should still be covered by Thomann 3-year warranty (not sure if itâs still valid if the item has be resold though). But they sent me a list of repair centres I could contact.
It doesnât look as simple as just replacing a couple of keys though, as one of them appears to be stuck and some other are moving all together when one of them is pushed.
Thatâs sad, I guess it must have had quite a serious bang. I wonder just what the hell these delivery companies are playing at⌠are they employing chimpanzees?
It was wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap, and then put in a double layer cardboard box. The box was layered with âFRAGILEâ tape all around. I mean, not a bad packaging job by all means, by evidently not sturdy enough
Something like that should be either double boxed or suspended inside polystyrene inserts in a large box, as bubble wrap and a single box will not prevent stress being passed through the packaging onto the contents.
And fragile tape is completely pointless, couriers canât see it.
As has been said, repairing a few keys isnât too big a deal, all youâll need is a couple of tools and spare keys, no soldering or messing about with PCBs.
Seller needs to get on to the packaging company, as that is inadequate packaging for such an item.
Youâre right, even though I have no doubts in the sellerâs good faith, this packaging job was clearly not up to the task. It puts me in a very unconformable position now as I will have to open a dispute with paypal and the seller wonât likely see his money just yet. He was, and still is, very nice and we had several calls and messages before finalising the deal. Heâs even an Elektron aficionado and sold the prologue to finance the purchase of an A4.
