I've been spending a considerable amount of time, probably too much time reading some of the comments here and on the first video about this issue between me and ESP. A lot of support thrown my way and for that I appreciate it. I made a post in my group about this specific issue and about the backlash ESP has received from this.ESP custom shop ESP USA and some of the higher end LTD guitars are some of the best guitars you will ever put in your hands. And I can say that as a fact. I did this for a living for a lot of years I specialized in high-end custom shop metal guitars. And ESP was the pinnacle. For those of you who refuse to buy ESP guitars now for those of you that have them and can't play them due to this issue I think is irrational. I can't tell you how much the support that I've received how much it means to me. I also would hate to see people lose out on amazing guitars that they could buy or that they currently own because of this problem. This issue was caused by a couple of boneheads at ESP this is not a reflection on ESP as a whole. There's a lot of good people that still work in that building. I am not one to cancel a company or get behind canceling a company that's not how I roll. There's a lot of moving parts to every facet of a company and shit canning, in this instance ESP, I don't think is a right move. A lot of people suffer because of a few boneheads. That includes dealers that includes setup guys that includes QC guys guys guys who take orders outside sales reps. They don't deserve this. Just keep that in mind.
to say that those of us who refuse to buy esp because of this issue is somehow irrational, makes 0 sense. if a company pulls shady behavior, its in your best interest as a consumer to not support them. its that simple.
@@imoffendedthatyouareoffended you might be right. I could be the one who is off base here. But, I am the injured party here. And up until this happened, ESP had been amazing to deal with. Something tells me there is more to this story that Im not being told. Something tells me in my gut, something happened that forced them to do this, something they otherwise wouldn't do. Then again, I could be full of shit. I always try and see the good side of things.
Thanks for these comments. This case seems entirely settleable and its a shame its gotten this far. I've posted a comment about not jumping to conclusions myself.
We had to go through over 1000 orders from all of our brands, while also running the day to day, and shipping, tech work, normal shop business. I told ESP when we had our phone conversation, that it would be awhile before I sent them a finalized list. They OK with that. We had all of our customer info, but, in order to give ESP the list of guitars to keep and cancel, we needed to send them over order numbers that ESP generates. ESP does not send you a list of back orders unless you ask. In order to make sure all customer orders were going to be fulfilled we needed the most up to date back order sheet ESP had to confirm it matched what we had. That way no one was left behind. The issue about shutting down the shop as being a good excuse, that does not fly. Chondro Guitars cannot legally shut down and still conduct business. Chondro Guitar was and still is an operating business until all orders are in the hands of customers that ordered them. Us closing the store front also doesn't matter as I was a dealer with ESP while I was running the shop in my home. I didn't have a store front nor was one promised when I became a dealer.
I am sorry to hear that you have had to deal with this kind of stuff. Here in Japan the ESP folks would have gone out of their way to make things work out for everyone but it seems ESP USA is not to that same standard. I am pretty sure here in Japan that could have all been solved with a phone call. I hope it all gets solved smoothly and they live up to the standards of the main company.
Sucks dude. I once LOVED ESP , because of Metallica basically. I was a kid, they played ESP, I wanted to play, so naturally, I wanted an ESP. I can't support a company that fucks over fellow pickers like this. It's just not cool. I will be playing Schecter from now on. Keep your head up man. Please don't let ESP ruin your love of music and or guitars bro.
@@KairuofficialThe Japanese have a very different work ethic from the US, unfortunately. What you describe is certainly very commendable, and should apply in this case too, since ESP is a (very well established) Japanese manufacturer.
@@DrMurdercock funnily enough Schecter is owned by ESP haha. Just don't support the jokers at ESP USA if they are acting like this, ESP Japan is still great! Whether it is ESP,Schecter,Killer,Navigator,Edwards etc. they always have been great with everyone I know here in the biz.
@@claudevieaul1465 Yah man, honestly here in Japan if you got on the phone with them and gave it to 'em for a mistake they would apologize and get everything sorted quickly because it would be embarrassing not to fulfill such orders. If someone had not gotten back with info, a long time customer, you would go out of your way to get that info and have it all sorted. After care stuff? you would easily be able to direct the customers to other avenues for after care etc. These are just kind of common sense business practices to me after living my adult life here. Sad to see they were cutting corners.
ESP will likely fight it and try to prolong it as much as possible so Chrondro will give up due to increasing legal fees. They have the money to see him in court for a good long while, while Chondro probably does not. It's sad to see how these big companies bully small business into submission and try to look the other way.
At this rate ESP is not gonna have shit... they are neglecting QC, neglecting their sellers, etc... at this point both shops an customers are not gonna buy from ESP anymore and makes sense, their quality right now let too much to be desired even in 1000€ guitars and then you have this...
@@CarlosSaulRodriguezA I had to send an $3k E-II and a $1500 LTD back to Sweetwater because they simply cut too many corners. It's a shame because I really like ESP, and I've been a fan of them for decades.
@@spoonerluv Yikes! I must have lucked out on my two LTD guitars. One was sold as B-stock, though, so I knew what I was buying. Main problem with that one was the nut was improperly cut. A replacement nut fixed that and it's all good. However, had that same guitar been "A-stock", I wouldn't be happy with all the minor finish flaws -- specks under the clear coat, runs in the clear coat, etc. Since I got the guitar for $800, I can look past these things.
@@spoonerluv I've been also a big fan, and had some ltd's and esp's borrowed, never owned... now after seeing the state of the one i sent back i think i will not get any ESP any time soon.
@@nckhed The E-II was a white finish with a bunch of black specks and dust under the clearcoat. The side of the fretboard was also cracked on the bass side. Unfortunately just not stuff I can overlook at that price range, and to be fair nobody should. The LTD was also a white guitar with an insane amount of finish defects, be it black specks and dust under the clearcoat, chips in the satin neck finish. Just stuff I think anyone shouldn't put up with.
The message I get from this, as a potential customer, is: do not ever order a guitar that will take a year or more to be ready. Not from ESP, not from anybody.
They should be held accountable for bad business tactics. Settlements are a way for big companies to sweep their bad business decisions under the rug without reprocussions. Sending a cease and disist letter because a guy spoke up, and brought their wrong doings to light is even worse. Its sad too, because I really love their guitars.
@sole__doubt No, but large companies giving a settlement because they messed up is the equivalent to a government giving hush money. It's a shady thing to slide someone some money because you made a bad business decision. Especially when you start handing out cease and disist letters because someone's speaking the truth about your wrong doings.
My assumption is that ESP will say that Chandro terminated the agreement when they notified them that the store was closing, which is very hard to dispute. Without that, almost all the other arguments fall away, because they're based on ESP not properly terminating the agreement - which is irrelevant if Chandro terminated it.
@@robinr22What ever happened to pleasing the customer no matter what? That attitude can create lifelong relationships, meaning future sales.I don't get it, would it cost ESP much to satisfy the customers?Good public relations goes far.
@@kevmac1230It would be interesting to see exactly when ESP asked Chondro for the list of guitars on order. First, you'd think that ESP would have that at their fingertips, but still, was that list requested prior to the shop closing? If so, that's a point in ESP's favor. Still, it would have been "cheap and easy" for ESP to simply fulfill the orders, with the caveat that Chondro would have to eat some of the cost of after-sale support.
That order is NOT from the court, which means it's unenforcable. It's just lawyers engaging in bullying and intimidation. And it's not slander to say ESP cancelled orders then re-tried to re-sell them at a higher price if he has the records to show that's exactly what they did.
@@EmsXGuitar Do you really need to have legal qualifications to have an opinion? I mean, I could look into this and see if it actually is true, but nobody needs legal qualifications to understand that lawyers speak legalese in order to scare people and intimidate them into giving up. It only scares people who are ignorant to the deception, though. Cops do this crap, too, and the only people who instantly submit are those who do not know their own rights. When cops bark their garbage at someone who actually knows their rights, you'll see those cops leave so fast.
@@EmsXGuitar "li·bel /ˈlīb(ə)l/ noun 1. LAW a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation." The TRUTH is not Libel. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can look up legal definitions. Also, My family owns a HUGE law firm. Come at me bro.
@@the_algorithmYou're correct on your dictionary "copy and paste" libel definition, but legal definitions often vary from dictionary definitions. Consult your very large family law firm, and you'll find this out. I'm not saying that anything else you said is incorrect, but to simply use a dictionary definition of a word and say that this is the courts application of the perceived wrongdoing is flawed.
@@m00hk00h Yeah but isnt the ESP business themselves based in Japan? even though they have a U.S. factory? Regardless, I hope Chondro gets what is owed to him and then some, He is a really cool dude and was so friendly.
I'm on chondro' side, I got 3 delays and even a 9+ month longer wait on top of the already year and a half long wait on my ESP SD2. It was what I wanted as my last guitar and I ended up canceling, it wasn't worth being told it's being delayed a month before it ships out just to get another delay and rinse and repeat for a forth time.
I waited like 8 months for a guitar that came out for a second time right this year and they still managed to send me a guitar with tons of QC issues.... def not a cheap instrument for sure... i don't know what is, but ESP better start working on their shit and put it together...
@CarlosSaulRodriguezA that sucks dude I know my first LTD was one of the newer budget models to the Black metal type and like you said it was pretty bad for Indonesia but that's a mixed bag, sometimes Indonesia guitars are good and sometimes not.
@zerothehero448 and that's what I began to do after the second delay, but the part that bothered me the most is I had to do my own investigation for updates, cause as good as Sweetwater is my sales rep has a questionable intelligence he's just...off. so at the third delay after hearing directly from ESP/LTD for if my guitar is still coming around April on its third delay, they go well November or January. And I said that to my sales rep and he said definitely January. That was my straw that broke the camels back. I even told Sammy Duet how excited I was to get it when I met him a couple months ago and told him how many people wanted his guitar and he was shocked
Who would have the world of guitars could have so many intriguing stories. Looking forward to your next deep dive review of some guitar maker or guitar shop.
Is ESPs business model just forced scarcity at this point? It’s odd to me how few actual ESPs they make and along with your coverage I’ve seen others talk about how hard it is to get their gear. When you first reported this I thought maybe they canceled as an easy out to having to deliver on those guitars. Beautiful instruments, but with this much to do I imagine it’s hard to consider them when you’re making a multi thousand dollar purchase unless you’re dead set on them.
You can increase prices more easily if you produce less. All companies are abusing the "inflation" as much as possible, just like every supermarket or business in general. When prices rise by 8%, why not try to increase prices by 25? People will buy it anyway. Most metalheads would sell their souls for original ESP/Non-Ltd, no matter what the company does
@@xNachtmahRx I guess that is their plan? The ESP factories make thousands and thousands of guitars each year, and none of them say 'ESP' on them. It's like they don't WANT to sell them. Edwards, EII, LTD, Navigator, Grass Roots... I understand they don't want to slap their name on just anything ala Ibanez and Jackson, but a budget line such as Squier and Epiphone mentality makes sense. The EII's are MIJ and used to be branded as ESP's. I guess maybe it's like VAG - everyone lusts after a Lambo, but end up buying and Audi or VW from the same company.. Iono. I think a few more actual ESP's out there would help the brand recognition.
It just seems like there is something else going on here. I don't know what, but I also don't believe that this is the full story. There has to be a reason why ESP chose to terminate their agreement in the first place.
I've worked in IT for a while now and this reminds me of what Dell does with their "partners" where they try and cut them out of big server orders by selling the bid to a 3rd party. Funnily enough with Dell they end up telling on themselves through their own deal registration system(price is locked to the partner that requests it and cannot be undercut), because when you ask them to issue you with one they sheepishly say there is already one in place and so can't... then finally admit some random company has been approaching your client to cut you out.
@@CheshireTomcat68 perhaps not, but it does seem that deregulation over the last forty-odd years has led to ever more of a free-for-all, with corporations ever more prepared to stoop to new lows in screwing over the little guy because they know or believe that they won't face meaningful consequences.
I checked and there doesn’t seem to be anything on the website. Lee messaged me last Thursday about it so maybe it’ll take another week for the ASA to publish it?
He's an amazing journalist. Incredibly informative on the subject matter, provides his own reasonable takes and clearly addresses what's wrong or good about the subject he's reporting on.
When I first learned about this issue with Chondro Guitars and ESP, I was firmly on Chondro's side. Since then, I've learned a lot about TTM guitars, I can now understand ESP's side in this. (Note, nothing I'm about to say is an indictment or accusation of Chondro guitars at all, just the worst case scenario that ESP could forsee.) Imagine you run ESP guitars, and a dealer starts selling your guitars. And for years, it seems like things are going well. Then, out of the blue, the dealer contacts you and says "yeah, we're going out of business, but please send us all the guitars we agreed to." Well, the storefront is closed so how are the customers going to get the guitar? How are any warranty issues going to be handled? Are the customers going to be stuck holding the bag, and more importantly, is the owner of Chondro going to run off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom guitars to start another company to scam more people? That could really hurt the ESP brand name, especially since this was a company that had a large percentage of revenue from ESP, and that's something I'd be very interested in preventing. So immediately cancelling all orders and forcing the former Chondro customers to go follow up with another certified dealer makes some sense. I still think ESP is (very) wrong on this one, and they're going to pay for it, both in court and the court of public opinion, but I can at least see their side of it, if it was extremely poorly handled.
Then why would they give the "ok" to fulfill the remaining orders only to days later cancel them? This isn't a drunken text from a girlfriend or friend, this is an official email response from the manufacturer at hand. You don't just say "sorry, I was drunk when I sent that email, and after regaining my senses, all of that can be disregarded and now we're cancelling your orders".
@@squigpeels.1021 The same way how a CS representative can tell you anything they want to and company is under no obligation to honor it? The person writing the email or on the phone simply doesn't have the correct information. It's not that complicated, really.
ESP themselves handles warranties, well actually no they don't. The one time I bought an ESP and it developed a finish crack within THREE MONTHS of purchasing it brand new, they told me to go fuck myself and they weren't going to fix it. Never buying a guitar from them ever ever ever again. It also shouldn't take a multi million dollar brand more than a few months to build and ship custom guitars. If they are taking too many orders that they can't fill in a reasonable time frame, then they need to either hire more people or stop taking new orders until their back orders can be filled.
I’m not 100% sure since it varies by contract, state and country but the few stores I talk to “has” to buy the guitars from the dealer in order to stock them. There were a few exceptions in past like Gibson had a deal but the store was still required to sell “X” amount of profit which only large retails like Guitar Center, Sam Ash, Sweetwater could but small stores couldn’t which is why Gibson is vacant in many small stores but when I talk to stores, they have to buy anywhere between 5-10 guitars a year out of their pockets usually. And then custom guitars was a different contract altogether.
"how are the customers going to get the guitar? How are any warranty issues going to be handled?" Randall from Chondro still ships the guitars out. Most of his business was online so it would really change nothing in that respect, just that he receives and ships from his home instead of the storefront. Also of note here: Chondro started as a home-based business and was a dealer for ESP, Jackson, and others well before opening their brick-and-mortar. Warranty would be handled by contacting the manufacturer directly.
@@gonzoengineering4894 Relax, you're not on reddit now. This is 2 companies suing each other. Mostly because one went out of business and figures he can go all in to try and make a quick buck. If you were that interested in the success of chondro you should have bought an ESP guitar from them.
If ESP can prove Chondro never provided the list of prepaid orders, I suspect Chondro is hosed. Why on earth would ESP send a bunch of presumably unsold guitars to a dealer who had closed? During a global supply chain disruption, no less?
Between the various Gibson lawsuits, the impending demise of Dean, and now the drama with ESP, it's painfully obvious that, much like the music business itself, the guitar industry is full of some pretty awful people. I'm kind of happy I kept music as a hobby instead of actually becoming a professional.
@jski718 Hire better attorneys then? Like it or not, they represent the company, and when they do something like this, it's on behalf of the company unless they're told not to. If the company doesn't step in and do something, they're just as responsible in their inaction as the attorneys are in their action. They're awful people and I have no sympathy.
@devlintaylor9520 I'd say probably, though from what I understand, Dean's quality control is super sketchy these days. Maybe if you don't mind it as a mod platform that you plan to do a ton of work to already.
It's all rather moot without seeing the actual dealer agreement contract between ESP and a dealer which more than likely states you must have a storefront and repair division to be an ESP dealer.
Except the part where he was already an ESP dealer when he was in his basement, a fact known by ESP. Storefronts are nice, but not strictly necessary. In fact, just a picture of a "shingle" with your dealer name would comply with that requirement in most jurisdictions.
Without knowing the text/exact wording of the dealer agreement, it's impossible to even begin to speculate who is right or wrong here, let alone who is going to be successful in the lawsuit. For example, does the agreement _explicitly_ forbid the subcontracting of the maintenance/repair service, in case the dealer closes their physical (brick-and-mortar) store and workshop - or is it just assumed or implicit because that's pretty much the standard for high-end custom guitar distribution? But people in the comments are going to pretend to know exactly what ESP or Chondo should do - because... Dunning-Kruger effect.
Oh we can speculate. Can't say with certainty by any means, but we do have that email from ESP that cites the closure of the physical storefront as the reason for cancellation. We also can refer to the WFDL, specifically 135.04, which requires the grantor (ESP) to give 90 days notice of cancellation with a 60 day cure period. Therefore, if the closure of the physical location was the reasoning, Chondro could've reopened the storefront within 60 days, which would nullify the cancellation. Also, that assumes that ESP's dealer agreement requires dealers to maintain a physical location. Chondro started out as a home-based business that sold online and at guitar shows, and Chondro was an ESP dealer well before opening their brick-and-mortar. But, as you said, without knowing the terms of the dealer agreement, this is all speculation and hypothetical at best.
Exactly. Not to mention that we do not know which law governs the agreement. It can be a different state (I have seen quite a few where agreements are governed by third states).
KDH reads so many Cease and Desist letters on his channel that sometimes I think he's a legal channel that occasionally talks about guitar stuff, instead of a guitar channel that occasionally talks about legal stuff.... Either way, investigative consumer journalism at its finest right here...
As someone who has A JD degree I find it hard to believe that the manufacturer would not have a clause in the contract allowing them to terminate the dealership agreement with or without cause. Typically there's a spot to provide signature. Additionally there should be a clause that states if any part of this agreement is not understood than you are advised to consult an attorney or other knowledgeable party. Also there should be a part that holds them harmless against any law suits. Not saying the last part would hold in court. Also not saying that ESP was intelligent enough to consult a good law firm that specialized in contractual law. Just adding what a prudent party would have done. $1,000. Now beats a few hundred thousand later. Cheers 🥃🥃
I am and will remain an ESP guy. This crap was caused by a few people that have NOTHING to do with production, design or anything do with us, the artists. These aren’t even musician people, they are administrative business executives that are supposed to make “difficult decisions” on the companies behalf. This is an issue that 99% of the rest of the company (the workers, luthiers, designers, etc) hate as well. TL;DR, this isn’t the company being shitty. This is a legal division that is making decisions on ESPs behalf, and they should not be held accountable for the entire company.
The way I see it, prior to Chondro closing shop they should have communicated with ESP about what was gonna happen with the backlog of orders from the custom shop, how would those orders be handled. So considering that ESP emailed Chondro about the termination of the business partnership that means that at no point they had any communication with ESP about the situation. ESP likely got a notification of the shop clousure after the effect and so they had to redirect those orders to other affiliated shops ASAP, because of Chondro being unable to provide the post-sale and warranty services to the customers and having not talked about it with ESP.
My man, you have no idea what you're talking about. Randall has an email from his rep @ ESP saying they will honor all of the custom orders . Fast forward a couple months, that rep left ESP, and that's when the new rep emailed Randall telling him they were cutting ties. ESP is fucked in my opinion, because the way they handled this caused them to lose hundreds of future ESP guitar owners
I had 2x custom ESP on order through Chondro I got my deposits refunded but have not gotten anything from ESP yet I only wanted the MIj Custom not the USA I ordered. It doesn't look like I will get the MIJ ESP it's been 2 1/2 yrs.
Thank you for supporting free speech, being tolerant and inclusive unlike channels like Phil Mcknight and Grumpy Mike who go through and delete all comments they don't like.
ESP should've sought out to just fill orders and work with this store from day 1. It's not hard to so the right thing. They'll probably settle this out of court, I imagine.
Overestimating the greed of a multinational company here. They took this decision because consumers would have to place their orders again, where ESP would get to charge them 20% more for their already overpriced instruments.
Without the dealership agreement, we don't really know if ESP had the right to do what they did. It will be interesting to see what unfolds in the court.
Thank you KDH for another excellent vid. As you mention, there is important info relating to the actual supplier/dealer contract that is missing. That being said, I personally am siding with ESP on this matter, for the main reason that the dealer went immediately to social media to air his thoughts on this legal matter. He definitely paints ESP in a very poor light. The court in public opinion should not be permitted in these legal matters especially if it pertains to a potential plaintiff or defendant. I suspect Terms and Conditions of many contracts are being revised to reflect this. For this actual case, if I was a customer who ordered a custom guitar, I would FAR prefer to deal with an actual business than one that has closed their doors. After sale’s service is very important, especially for very expensive purchases.
I think ESP did provide good cause. His shop was closed. That creates a risk for ESP to continue a professional relationship with him. In the big picture I agree with Chondro but I have a hard time thinking he can make a compelling agruement about good cause. If the agreement was made with the company and not the individual. It may be terminated by default.
Interesting. That might be a technicality that helps. I don't see how 30 days is relevant in solving the problem though for the customers. I think it's safe to assume the orders wouldn't be filled in that amount of time. Maybe he would have kept Chondro active as a business longer even if the brick and morter was closed. I'm still leaning toward if the business closed the agreement was void.@@millsjonah
ESP has the right to terminate relationship and no longer accept orders but orders placed before the termination have to be fulfilled. If not then I can just start a company, take orders consisting of several billion dollars, charge a few million as a non refundable "servicing fee" and then just terminate/cancel orders and keep the few million without any questions asked. That would be a scam and I would probably get some prison time
@@millsjonahESP did say that he repeatedly didn’t respond to their inquires about the pre-sale orders so at that point they probably considered it breach of contract on his end
Regarding Chondro Guitars, they sold me some great axes over the years. I am grateful for them helping me get a dream Charvel. They should not be treated this way by ESP.
I believe in this case the correct pronunciation is Con--Dro. That is a nickname for Green Tree Pythons. A popular and expensive exotic pet snake species. Given the color scheme of the company's logo, it makes sense. That and there are a lot of guitar players that collect snakes.
I knew Randall when he first started selling gear out of his basement. My first deal with him was a trade of a Caparison C.C for a couple Charvels. He was more than generous, giving me freebie cables and such. An all around good guy to be frank. I had wished him luck when he decided to open his storefront, but haven thad a chance to purchase from him again. Wouldve liked to grab a Mezzabarba head at some point. Anyway, hate to see him basically get screwed over by ESP. I do not know how the contracts work but, if they agreed to fulfill orders already placed, they should not have backed out. Ill guess that those will be lost ESP customers in the future. Very nice of Diablo to step up and offer to take on the orders. The owner, Parker, is the former guitarist of Queensryche..if youre not familiar. He also has been an outstanding dealer and given me nothing but great deals. THats my 2 cents...if anyone cares...lol
He seems like a good dude, and there is a small shop, whom I think offered to take some of Chondro's ESP orders, that I don't care for a whole lot. TAP -- I'll see if anyone can decipher who I am talking about.
Being that it was an even trade on 2 brand new guitars, which were not marked up, for a used one..and the fact that he was becoming a Warwick (Rockboard) cable dealer...yes, they were thrown in free..several cables, patch cables, etc. Maybe they were free to him from Warwick..? Who knows. He had a pile..and I didnt pay a cent. But, I do get what youre saying..free is never free..at least in 99.9% of cases.
Thats why we call people or meet face to face to discuss serious matters, followed by sending a contact report. Emails and letters get missed or forgotten.
If I am a nationally recognized brand like they are, I would not want someone selling my custom shop guitars out of a house, and as a customer, I would not want to buy one from a guy in a house, but they should have been more careful about how they resolved that problem since they foolishly agreed to it at the start of the dealership. It's going to cost them money one way or another now.
It's not out of a house tf? They got orders, the business is closing but they still need to fulfill orders. Chondro just shouldn't have told esp and instead get the guitars then close
@@devlintaylor9520 since day one I have always been upfront and honest with my supplies and my customers. Keeping something as important as closing down the retail space isn't honest. I had an amazing relationship with ESP. I never thought they would do this.
@@devlintaylor9520 Pretty sure he said was "closing his shop," so he'd have to tell them to ship to his house. I don't think he'd keep paying full rent on the shop for a year or more while backorders trickled in.
@@ewo2754 Closing not closed, hes not gonna have them shipped to his house lmao. From my understanding, he emailed the companys in the first place to try to get higher priority and get them finished faster
@@devlintaylor9520 Yes, and I'm sure they all said, "You're closing your store? So your ESP buyers will have to go someplace else for service on these guitars? Well shit, let's get your orders ahead of the others then!" LMFAO!
Reading a lawsuit doesn’t make ESP liable or guilty….it’s a dispute. I’d like to read the correspondence ESP sent to Chondro(which he failed to mention)about fulfilling and acknowledging past and present obligated orders. If Chondro failed to respond about fulfilling orders( which Chondro omits mentioning again). I think a failing business has a lot of money problems to deal with, trying to navigate money agreements while failing to correspond in good faith will get Chondro another loss. I think if deposits are owed, ESP will acknowledge, but if Chondro wants more he’s going to suffer more losses.
Chondro refunded all ESP customers' deposits within a day or so of this happening. Randall also claimed that it took a while to get that list together that ESP had requested due to having to go through orders of ~1000 guitars while also trying to run the store during a GOOB sale, and that ESP sent the termination email shortly after Randall sent them that list.
Some people seem to have made up their minds that ESP must be wrong after reading a *Statement of Claim* by Chondro. The truth is that none of us know who is right or wrong because this is a breach of contract case related to a contract that *none of us have ever seen*. Did anyone notice that Chondro alleges that section 18 was breached, but they've only quoted it "in relevant part". In other words, they aren't quoting the whole section. There could other parts of that section that tell a different story. Chondro could have just quoted the entire section 18, and ephasized in bold what they thought was relevant. There could be other sections of the contract that are relevant too. It's a Statement of Claim that is clearly just throwing the kitchen sink at ESP -- they're claiming breach of contract, breach of a statute, and tortious interference with economic relations. In other words, they're pleading everything under the sun to see what will stick. That law firm probably has a template Statement of Claim that they always use, and they just changed some of the details.
I know several people often have problems with the pronunciation. When Sammy Duet went to the store to show his signature even he didn’t knew how to say it.
I find it quite hilarious that ESP needs it's dealers to tell it what guitars are on order with them. Like seriously, the company needs it's dealers to tell it what guitars it ought to be making? That's just nonsense. All that stuff should be logged on their CRM system. That's more ridiculous than UK air traffic control saying it's entire system went down because one flight plan had a single duplicate identifier in it.
Does ESP not have a database where they can lookup orders submitted by a dealer? It's hard to believe they wouldn't considering the amount of money involved.
I don't think that ESP's assertion that they repeatedly asked about the outstanding orders before cancelling them makes any logical sense. If the orders are on their books and money has been paid down already there's absolutely no reason for them to require this guy to list them off again outside of double checking their own records. If they don't have any idea which orders are through his dealership how would they even work out which orders to cancel? Seems like they were looking for an excuse to keep a bunch of deposits without doing the work.
I think Japan is having a really hard time getting guitars out of the country right now. I’ve been waiting for a MIJ Ibanez I ordered for almost 6 months now.
@@MrChondr0 I can imagine, that is quite a headache. They say 3 months it turns out to be 10 to 12. That could turn into a canceled order for a shop. Have a good one, hope your ESP troubles get solved. Cheers
It doesn't make a lot of sense for ESP to have handled the store closing situation this way. It would've been so much easier, and less expensive, to just fulfill the orders through him. In the event of a warranty claim the customers could still take their instruments to different authorized dealers anyway. If I buy a guitar in Florida, while on vacation from Montana, I'm not going to travel back to Florida for warranty service. I would just go to my local shop or contact ESP. I honestly cannot come up with a good reason for ESP to have handled the situation thirds way. If they somehow win the lawsuit they are not getting paid back for anything. This guy (or probably his business, if he structured it correctly) is more than likely declaring bankruptcy. Even if he doesn't, I highly doubt he will be able to pay for their attorney fees and lawsuit costs out of pocket. In other words, it's more than likely going to take years to recover the money they are spending to fight this. Even if he pays it all immediately, this has already hurt their reputation in ways that cannot be measured. For instance, I have been planning on buying a baritone guitar and was 99% sure I would go with the ESP Breaking Benjamin signature model. Not anymore! I own a small business myself. When it comes to business, nothing pisses me off more than seeing a big business screw over a small business! When a big business chooses to do something that means so little to them but so much to the small business, it reveals how little that big business cares about the people and businesses that help make it successful. ESP can go eff themselves! I'll never buy anything their name is attached to again!
There are three elements to a successful civil suit Breach of duty Causation Damages Based on the video, ESP has done none of those. The store made the decision to close with unfulfilled orders. ESP agreed to fulfill those orders through other locations.
Lol. I guess because you’ve declared this, that settles it? My professional advice is that ESP should be settling this asap. No good outcome for them if it ends up in court. This is not even taking i to consideration the court of public opinion, where millions of dollars worth of potential business hangs in the balance.
@@marbar1844 working for an attorney does help. Lawsuits are not settled by what we think is wrong or right. They're settled in civil court. Those three elements have to be met in order for a lawsuit to be successful. What happens more often than not is cases are settled out of court because it's easier to pay a chunk of money than it is to drag out a civil case and end up paying twice as much. ESP has good insurance and attorneys on staff. They'll try to make it right with the customers and that's probably where this will end.
Man, this whole story is up there with the Dean attacking a customer incident. And I don't even think it would be even close to such a cluster if ESP hadn't said yes BEFORE screwing him over.
Could you explain? When did this happen? I can’t believe they’d do that. There’s always an asshole corpo in beloved/respected companies that screws up the companies reputation in a way
@@fireemblemistrash75 This was back in 2021. KDH has a video on it but the short version is that Dean used Instagram's copyright system to take down a photo of a customer's guitar collection because it included a now discontinued guitar that was very similar to a Dean ML several years after the photo was posted. As I said KDH has a video on it which goes into more detail which if I recall correctly is called "Dean Guitars, Just Like Gibson."
KDH, this is off topic. You put your hands on the Ormsby models at NAMM 2023. Can you tell me what your memory is of the singlecut model (abasi-like) regarding weight? I have a neck injury and I must use lighter guitars like Parker Fly and Strandberg. I was looking at a headless Klaas but Ormsby has a much better QC reputation. Thank you.
You talking about ESP USA…..a lot have problems with them ESP (original) is a 🇯🇵 company & brand , order your guitar there Im with them since '89 , never had a problem , have two ESP custom & two LTD series models All top👌🏼
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe ESP USA have and make custom orders & signature models ,too as the brand ESP USA build in the US. Most in the US order there and not in Japan. You must find out where the order go to build it , USA or Japan. ESP japan is one thing and ESP USA another.
@@justicia8393Thanks but I'm familiar with ESP USA. I just thought since they kept mentioning "custom" instruments I assumed it was ESP Japan. I don't really consider the USA ESPs to be proper customs. They're more like selecting options when buying a car; colour, pickups, etc. They don't make things to the customers exacting specifications. You can't for example select neck through or bolt on, or change the bridge or the neck shape.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe …..you thought and assumed …. that’s not really knowing if you make a report at your TH-cam channel ….. ESP japan , they are the original What they did with ESP USA since 2014 to customise & build guitars there ,too under ESP USA …. it’s not the original ESP , it’s ESP USA , to me it’s not a real ESP , if you don’t misunderstand me At ESP USA they are building guitars there , on TH-cam you have videos of it building, shaping, painting the guitars , like they do in japan ,too …. But there are not one japanese working at ESP USA It’s like when Volkswagen build the beetle car in Mexico , was it the same as the original build in germany by Volkswagen ? In ESP japan you need 10 years of learning and work experience to work in ESP customs not wanna say that ESP USA are not that good , but it’s not the same I work for ESP back in the late 80tis early 90tis when only ESP exist in Tokyo , Düsseldorf and New York , that was the only headquaters back in the day , Tokyo for japan , Düsseldorf for europe and New York for the US I workt for ESP Düsseldorf europe headquaters , ESP management and guitar work builders was japanese and the sale management german Same was in New York , ESP management and guitar work builders japanese , sales management americans That was still original ESP , out of japan , build by special learned & teached japanese ESP custom shop workers for Düsseldorf and for New York ESP USA don’t….. The master (of ex Washburn, Fender and Jackson guitar builder) Gil Vásquez is the custom shop builder at ESP USA And for shure he’s a good one ! Check out at TH-cam the ESP USA factory tour with Gil Vásquez !
IANAL but I read the WFDL and it seems to fall pretty clearly in Chondro's favor. The only question is whether the dealership agreement requires dealers to maintain a physical storefront--if that's not spelled out in the agreement, I can't see ESP satisfying the "good cause" requirement. Even then, WFDL requires 90 days' written notice for termination along with a 60-day period for the dealer to cure, so if ESP had sent a 90-day notice of termination because of closing the physical location, Chondro could've cured by keeping the physical location open, even if it was just on a by-appointment basis.
Look, I'm 100% on the side of the dealer and not the international mega corporation... buuuuut are we just going to gloss over the fact that they said he was meant to provide them with a list of outstanding builds and then didn't?
Why wouldn't they already know that information? If they don't have records of the orders and corresponding payments tied to his account on their system how exactly would they have known which orders to cancel? That whole thing just seems like a weird deflection intended to muddy the water.
With so many cheaper brands making high quality instruments for a fraction of the cost of the "luxury brands", it's shocking how absolutely awful the customer service is from these brands, as well as how terrible their PR is. Their quality isn't that much better, if at all, than cheaper brands (Pick up a USA fender vs a Indonesian Ibanez and tell me the fender is higher quality). There is almost no reason to go for gibson/fender/esp unless you must have one, which is totally valid (I want a 70s P-bass, I don't care if it was built by a hungover high Californian, weighs 100 lbs, and has a 1cm tolerance). It's like these companies are being taken over by cut-throat business school graduates who want to nickel and dime their customers and dealers. It's a real shame.
I own an American Fender and an Indonesian Ibanez. I am telling you that to me the Fender is higher quality. That said, its not a quality difference comparable to the price difference. I just wanted that particular Fender when I played it and had the extra money. Also, supporting your point, I prefer my Indonesian G&L to the American Fender…
One interesting point in Chondro's message to customers (shown in this video) is that it says that the brands all stepped up to the plate to help him out "even though technically they didn't have to" which sort of implies that at the time he was of the understanding they did NOT have to fulfill the orders. Why did he think that then? Or am I missing something?
Initially, I thought it was because he was winding down the company, but he made it clear in some of the comments that he is only closing the shop front. Of course, if initially, his communication said that he would close/wind down the business - even if this was just a mistake - ESP might have something to hold onto. However, it still won't explain their initial approval and then refusal, unless someone misunderstood something at ESP later - so initially they correctly assumed that the LLC would continue to operate and then someone higher up misunderstood it for full closure. Without all the documents and especially in the absence of the dealership agreement we can only shoot in the dark. For start, we do not even know which law governs the agreement (this not necessarily will be the dealership's state).
@@rkk578 good points - and as such he should be careful what he writes publicly as I'm sure ESP lawyers will be looking for any evidence they can get that corroborates confusion on their part about what he conveyed to them. If he was unclear or trying to play the line of closing/but not really closing, that might be enough to be a problem.
@@ewo2754 Someone below wrote that ESP apparently requires a brick & mortar shopfront from an authorised dealer. It might be that the comment regarding how the promise about the fulfillment of the orders was viewed as a favor relates to this. But even here we just run into the same problem. We don't know if the agreement had something that detailed the consequences should it be breached by the dealer nor do we know if there is a clause that ESP should be notified of any possible breaches within a certain timeframe and what are the consequences of failing to do this. I work in finance where we have a lot of covenants for various credit agreements. So basically the companies agree to meet certain ratios within certain time periods and they inform this via management information. Not meeting these or not supplying these would put the product into default. If they are afraid that they will breach it for some reason, they can ask for changes, but they have to do it within a certain period, which is detailed in the credit agreement. They cannot just say to the bank "oh, sorry tomorrow our current ratio won't meet the agreed number, so we need that to be amended/suspended". That would result in a default also.
Is ESP pulling a Gibson os us? First they start with shit like this then the quality of the instruments starts declining but if you say something about it they sue you.
Raise, praise and erase comes to mind. I believe Chondra has acted in "Bona Fede" good faith from the start and that counts for a lot as other dealers may feel that they could find themselves in a similar position in the future so it will be tougher now ( supplier shows true colours) to fo the same to thier loyal dealers who actually put the instrument into the customers hands. All dealers must take this kind of attitude seriously because it is becoming a familiar story. Thanks for posting.
ESP are wholly to blame for this fiasco. They should have been aware of any local laws protecting that dealers rights under Wisconsin law, ignorance of the law is no excuse. I wish the dealer the best of luck, you can never be certain on how a court of law will decide who is in the wrong. ESP deserve to loose custom shop orders after this, as their policy will apply to all dealers.
if you are a customer waiting on a guitar, one of these parties looks like it cares about getting me my guitar, and one party seems like its happy to use my order as a legal chess piece. just wanted a guitar, man. i imagine a couple people waiting on guitars will find out about all this through this video alone, which would make me pretty unhappy.
In the video Randall did which KDH used a clip from, he made it pretty clear that his first priority was making sure the customers were taken care of, to include honoring the agreed prices. Many (and probably most) of the guitars on order would've had price increases since the time of order, and Randall was usually pretty generous with discounts. IIRC he refunded all ESP customers' deposits within a day of the cancellation.
You'd feel different if you lost a couple hundred thousand in revenue on high-end ESP guitar sales. He had an agreement, in writing, that he could facilitate the orders that were already in. They did an about face and yanked it out from under him
@@leehingle9793 I left it to the reader to decide which party belonged in which category because I thought it would make the replies more interesting. Thank you for not disappointing.
@@KickYouInTheThroat You wouldn't have had to file for a refund. Randall immediately refunded everyone their deposit as soon as ESP dropped the hammer. Obviously you've never dealt with Randall, nobody takes care of their customers like him. Not music zoo, CMC, or the ax palace
Order a fancy custom guitar from a major manufacturer and wait a year.......or hit all the pawn shops, garage sales, craigs list type in town . I've found 3 instruments the past ten years worth multiple thousands of dollars each for $120 (antique shop, worth $2000) ) , $35 (garage sale, worth $2000) $100. (pawn shop, worth $5000).
I was recently ripped off on Reverb and their customer support is AI and when I was finally able to email (only) a human… three days later they only sent that “business “ an email. I know this is not the topic but please do a video about problems like this… many people are sick of this bad business practice.
i have a rare ESP Vintage LTD Plus (GOLD ON GOLD #05/15) 25th anniversary model that i lost the certificate to and ESP was rude and would not reissue the cert when i acquired about it. ESP apparently has no records on a great deal of their guitars because of a fire but the store closed as well and i have no chance of getting a new certificate. bad story as most big companies will drag it through court till they bankrupt the store or they give up.
This story just sounds like it shuld be Gibson and not ESP. These are sad days boys. Thank goodness we have tons of new brands doing what ESP does, ESP isn't as needed as they once were.
I bought an LTD EC-1000 about 4 years ago and quality, fit and finish ran rings around Fender guitars at twice the price. However, I won't be buying another as the prices for the same guitar now here in Australia has nearly tripled!
Your research is excellent. Thx for all u do. ????? Just wondering if u have any info Wether or not any slave labor is used in the production of Ali express guitars. If anyone can find out you can. Just wondering. Love your channel
This nonsense both makes me happy that I am an attorney and disappointed that being an attorney is relevant for music stories. Although score one for where I went to law school
@@clintn6677 I haven’t been able to read the complaint yet so I just don’t have much of a useful thought on it. I requested to join the facebook group and will go from there. However, without seeing the agreement between ESP and the dealer there won’t be a lot I can add as well
@@jloiben12surely you don’t need to see the agreement? This is the internet. You can simply pontificate on matters that you don’t fully understand, all from the comfort of your arm chair 👍
I've been spending a considerable amount of time, probably too much time reading some of the comments here and on the first video about this issue between me and ESP. A lot of support thrown my way and for that I appreciate it. I made a post in my group about this specific issue and about the backlash ESP has received from this.ESP custom shop ESP USA and some of the higher end LTD guitars are some of the best guitars you will ever put in your hands. And I can say that as a fact. I did this for a living for a lot of years I specialized in high-end custom shop metal guitars. And ESP was the pinnacle. For those of you who refuse to buy ESP guitars now for those of you that have them and can't play them due to this issue I think is irrational. I can't tell you how much the support that I've received how much it means to me. I also would hate to see people lose out on amazing guitars that they could buy or that they currently own because of this problem. This issue was caused by a couple of boneheads at ESP this is not a reflection on ESP as a whole. There's a lot of good people that still work in that building. I am not one to cancel a company or get behind canceling a company that's not how I roll. There's a lot of moving parts to every facet of a company and shit canning, in this instance ESP, I don't think is a right move. A lot of people suffer because of a few boneheads. That includes dealers that includes setup guys that includes QC guys guys guys who take orders outside sales reps. They don't deserve this. Just keep that in mind.
Respect.
to say that those of us who refuse to buy esp because of this issue is somehow irrational, makes 0 sense. if a company pulls shady behavior, its in your best interest as a consumer to not support them. its that simple.
good man
@@imoffendedthatyouareoffended you might be right. I could be the one who is off base here. But, I am the injured party here. And up until this happened, ESP had been amazing to deal with. Something tells me there is more to this story that Im not being told. Something tells me in my gut, something happened that forced them to do this, something they otherwise wouldn't do. Then again, I could be full of shit. I always try and see the good side of things.
Thanks for these comments. This case seems entirely settleable and its a shame its gotten this far. I've posted a comment about not jumping to conclusions myself.
We had to go through over 1000 orders from all of our brands, while also running the day to day, and shipping, tech work, normal shop business. I told ESP when we had our phone conversation, that it would be awhile before I sent them a finalized list. They OK with that. We had all of our customer info, but, in order to give ESP the list of guitars to keep and cancel, we needed to send them over order numbers that ESP generates. ESP does not send you a list of back orders unless you ask. In order to make sure all customer orders were going to be fulfilled we needed the most up to date back order sheet ESP had to confirm it matched what we had. That way no one was left behind. The issue about shutting down the shop as being a good excuse, that does not fly. Chondro Guitars cannot legally shut down and still conduct business. Chondro Guitar was and still is an operating business until all orders are in the hands of customers that ordered them. Us closing the store front also doesn't matter as I was a dealer with ESP while I was running the shop in my home. I didn't have a store front nor was one promised when I became a dealer.
I am sorry to hear that you have had to deal with this kind of stuff. Here in Japan the ESP folks would have gone out of their way to make things work out for everyone but it seems ESP USA is not to that same standard. I am pretty sure here in Japan that could have all been solved with a phone call. I hope it all gets solved smoothly and they live up to the standards of the main company.
Sucks dude. I once LOVED ESP , because of Metallica basically. I was a kid, they played ESP, I wanted to play, so naturally, I wanted an ESP.
I can't support a company that fucks over fellow pickers like this. It's just not cool. I will be playing Schecter from now on. Keep your head up man. Please don't let ESP ruin your love of music and or guitars bro.
@@KairuofficialThe Japanese have a very different work ethic from the US, unfortunately. What you describe is certainly very commendable, and should apply in this case too, since ESP is a (very well established) Japanese manufacturer.
@@DrMurdercock funnily enough Schecter is owned by ESP haha. Just don't support the jokers at ESP USA if they are acting like this, ESP Japan is still great! Whether it is ESP,Schecter,Killer,Navigator,Edwards etc. they always have been great with everyone I know here in the biz.
@@claudevieaul1465 Yah man, honestly here in Japan if you got on the phone with them and gave it to 'em for a mistake they would apologize and get everything sorted quickly because it would be embarrassing not to fulfill such orders. If someone had not gotten back with info, a long time customer, you would go out of your way to get that info and have it all sorted. After care stuff? you would easily be able to direct the customers to other avenues for after care etc. These are just kind of common sense business practices to me after living my adult life here. Sad to see they were cutting corners.
First guitar-related lawsuit ever which was not filed by Gibson?
Hard to believe, i bet Gibson is behind all that.
Where does he say that anywhere?
@@ZiddersRooFurryI'm gay 🥞
@@ZiddersRooFurry
I am pretty sure he is making a joke, lol! Gibson is notorious for filing lawsuits.
@@Douglas_I Spray AUTHENTIC!
Fuck Gibson.
ESP will likely fight it and try to prolong it as much as possible so Chrondro will give up due to increasing legal fees. They have the money to see him in court for a good long while, while Chondro probably does not. It's sad to see how these big companies bully small business into submission and try to look the other way.
At this rate ESP is not gonna have shit... they are neglecting QC, neglecting their sellers, etc... at this point both shops an customers are not gonna buy from ESP anymore and makes sense, their quality right now let too much to be desired even in 1000€ guitars and then you have this...
@@CarlosSaulRodriguezA I had to send an $3k E-II and a $1500 LTD back to Sweetwater because they simply cut too many corners. It's a shame because I really like ESP, and I've been a fan of them for decades.
@@spoonerluv Yikes! I must have lucked out on my two LTD guitars. One was sold as B-stock, though, so I knew what I was buying. Main problem with that one was the nut was improperly cut. A replacement nut fixed that and it's all good. However, had that same guitar been "A-stock", I wouldn't be happy with all the minor finish flaws -- specks under the clear coat, runs in the clear coat, etc. Since I got the guitar for $800, I can look past these things.
@@spoonerluv I've been also a big fan, and had some ltd's and esp's borrowed, never owned... now after seeing the state of the one i sent back i think i will not get any ESP any time soon.
@@nckhed The E-II was a white finish with a bunch of black specks and dust under the clearcoat. The side of the fretboard was also cracked on the bass side. Unfortunately just not stuff I can overlook at that price range, and to be fair nobody should.
The LTD was also a white guitar with an insane amount of finish defects, be it black specks and dust under the clearcoat, chips in the satin neck finish. Just stuff I think anyone shouldn't put up with.
The message I get from this, as a potential customer, is: do not ever order a guitar that will take a year or more to be ready. Not from ESP, not from anybody.
100%!
ESP should settle this out of court ASAP.
I agree. It’s cheaper for ESP to fill the orders and saves company face.
Love my Esp, but this is a bad look. This is what settlements are for.
They should be held accountable for bad business tactics. Settlements are a way for big companies to sweep their bad business decisions under the rug without reprocussions. Sending a cease and disist letter because a guy spoke up, and brought their wrong doings to light is even worse. Its sad too, because I really love their guitars.
@@Sprocket74 the lost money and loss to reputation are the repercussions. Are you suggesting they go to jail?
@sole__doubt No, but large companies giving a settlement because they messed up is the equivalent to a government giving hush money. It's a shady thing to slide someone some money because you made a bad business decision. Especially when you start handing out cease and disist letters because someone's speaking the truth about your wrong doings.
ESP has screwed this one up. Somebody at ESP didn't handle something correctly and can't walk it back without consequences internally I guess.
Bingo!
My assumption is that ESP will say that Chandro terminated the agreement when they notified them that the store was closing, which is very hard to dispute. Without that, almost all the other arguments fall away, because they're based on ESP not properly terminating the agreement - which is irrelevant if Chandro terminated it.
@@robinr22What ever happened to pleasing the customer no matter what? That attitude can create lifelong relationships, meaning future sales.I don't get it, would it cost ESP much to satisfy the customers?Good public relations goes far.
@@kevmac1230It would be interesting to see exactly when ESP asked Chondro for the list of guitars on order. First, you'd think that ESP would have that at their fingertips, but still, was that list requested prior to the shop closing? If so, that's a point in ESP's favor.
Still, it would have been "cheap and easy" for ESP to simply fulfill the orders, with the caveat that Chondro would have to eat some of the cost of after-sale support.
@@kevmac1230 I think they were satisfying their customers - just not the dealer.
That order is NOT from the court, which means it's unenforcable. It's just lawyers engaging in bullying and intimidation. And it's not slander to say ESP cancelled orders then re-tried to re-sell them at a higher price if he has the records to show that's exactly what they did.
What are your legal qualifications to make such an assertion?
@@EmsXGuitar Do you really need to have legal qualifications to have an opinion? I mean, I could look into this and see if it actually is true, but nobody needs legal qualifications to understand that lawyers speak legalese in order to scare people and intimidate them into giving up. It only scares people who are ignorant to the deception, though. Cops do this crap, too, and the only people who instantly submit are those who do not know their own rights. When cops bark their garbage at someone who actually knows their rights, you'll see those cops leave so fast.
What legal qualifications do you need to literally read the definition of slander?
@@EmsXGuitar "li·bel
/ˈlīb(ə)l/
noun
1.
LAW
a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation."
The TRUTH is not Libel.
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can look up legal definitions.
Also, My family owns a HUGE law firm.
Come at me bro.
@@the_algorithmYou're correct on your dictionary "copy and paste" libel definition, but legal definitions often vary from dictionary definitions. Consult your very large family law firm, and you'll find this out. I'm not saying that anything else you said is incorrect, but to simply use a dictionary definition of a word and say that this is the courts application of the perceived wrongdoing is flawed.
Lawsuit? Japan? Good Luck! I went to Chondro once and the store and the dude were nothing but awesome, I hope he makes ESP look like a bunch of fools.
No, not Japan. The US branch.
Just US. US guitars of course.
@@m00hk00h Yeah but isnt the ESP business themselves based in Japan? even though they have a U.S. factory? Regardless, I hope Chondro gets what is owed to him and then some, He is a really cool dude and was so friendly.
I'm on chondro' side, I got 3 delays and even a 9+ month longer wait on top of the already year and a half long wait on my ESP SD2. It was what I wanted as my last guitar and I ended up canceling, it wasn't worth being told it's being delayed a month before it ships out just to get another delay and rinse and repeat for a forth time.
I waited like 8 months for a guitar that came out for a second time right this year and they still managed to send me a guitar with tons of QC issues.... def not a cheap instrument for sure... i don't know what is, but ESP better start working on their shit and put it together...
@CarlosSaulRodriguezA that sucks dude I know my first LTD was one of the newer budget models to the Black metal type and like you said it was pretty bad for Indonesia but that's a mixed bag, sometimes Indonesia guitars are good and sometimes not.
For that time span, it would be better to go to a luthier and build a custom guitar.
exactly @@zerothehero448
@zerothehero448 and that's what I began to do after the second delay, but the part that bothered me the most is I had to do my own investigation for updates, cause as good as Sweetwater is my sales rep has a questionable intelligence he's just...off. so at the third delay after hearing directly from ESP/LTD for if my guitar is still coming around April on its third delay, they go well November or January. And I said that to my sales rep and he said definitely January. That was my straw that broke the camels back. I even told Sammy Duet how excited I was to get it when I met him a couple months ago and told him how many people wanted his guitar and he was shocked
Who would have the world of guitars could have so many intriguing stories. Looking forward to your next deep dive review of some guitar maker or guitar shop.
Is ESPs business model just forced scarcity at this point? It’s odd to me how few actual ESPs they make and along with your coverage I’ve seen others talk about how hard it is to get their gear. When you first reported this I thought maybe they canceled as an easy out to having to deliver on those guitars. Beautiful instruments, but with this much to do I imagine it’s hard to consider them when you’re making a multi thousand dollar purchase unless you’re dead set on them.
"""Beautiful""" instruments... not only scarce but also with tons of QC issues even in high range prices...
You can increase prices more easily if you produce less. All companies are abusing the "inflation" as much as possible, just like every supermarket or business in general. When prices rise by 8%, why not try to increase prices by 25? People will buy it anyway. Most metalheads would sell their souls for original ESP/Non-Ltd, no matter what the company does
@@xNachtmahRx I guess that is their plan? The ESP factories make thousands and thousands of guitars each year, and none of them say 'ESP' on them. It's like they don't WANT to sell them. Edwards, EII, LTD, Navigator, Grass Roots... I understand they don't want to slap their name on just anything ala Ibanez and Jackson, but a budget line such as Squier and Epiphone mentality makes sense.
The EII's are MIJ and used to be branded as ESP's. I guess maybe it's like VAG - everyone lusts after a Lambo, but end up buying and Audi or VW from the same company..
Iono. I think a few more actual ESP's out there would help the brand recognition.
It just seems like there is something else going on here. I don't know what, but I also don't believe that this is the full story. There has to be a reason why ESP chose to terminate their agreement in the first place.
I've worked in IT for a while now and this reminds me of what Dell does with their "partners" where they try and cut them out of big server orders by selling the bid to a 3rd party. Funnily enough with Dell they end up telling on themselves through their own deal registration system(price is locked to the partner that requests it and cannot be undercut), because when you ask them to issue you with one they sheepishly say there is already one in place and so can't... then finally admit some random company has been approaching your client to cut you out.
What can't people just do the right thing anymore...
Greed
Mate, they never did...
@@CheshireTomcat68 perhaps not, but it does seem that deregulation over the last forty-odd years has led to ever more of a free-for-all, with corporations ever more prepared to stoop to new lows in screwing over the little guy because they know or believe that they won't face meaningful consequences.
Too much money involved.
@@dogbiscuits752 aGreed
What's the latest on Andertons and the ASA? Isn't the judgement due out today?
I checked and there doesn’t seem to be anything on the website.
Lee messaged me last Thursday about it so maybe it’ll take another week for the ASA to publish it?
@@KDHWhich sections of the advertising code do you think Anderton has not complied with? I think it's 3.2.
Another amazing video. I love your in depth videos on stuff like this. Keep up the great content 🤘🏻👽🤘🏻
He's an amazing journalist. Incredibly informative on the subject matter, provides his own reasonable takes and clearly addresses what's wrong or good about the subject he's reporting on.
You have a great channel. I'm suprized that you don't have more subs. Keep up the great work!!
When I first learned about this issue with Chondro Guitars and ESP, I was firmly on Chondro's side. Since then, I've learned a lot about TTM guitars, I can now understand ESP's side in this. (Note, nothing I'm about to say is an indictment or accusation of Chondro guitars at all, just the worst case scenario that ESP could forsee.)
Imagine you run ESP guitars, and a dealer starts selling your guitars. And for years, it seems like things are going well. Then, out of the blue, the dealer contacts you and says "yeah, we're going out of business, but please send us all the guitars we agreed to." Well, the storefront is closed so how are the customers going to get the guitar? How are any warranty issues going to be handled? Are the customers going to be stuck holding the bag, and more importantly, is the owner of Chondro going to run off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of custom guitars to start another company to scam more people? That could really hurt the ESP brand name, especially since this was a company that had a large percentage of revenue from ESP, and that's something I'd be very interested in preventing.
So immediately cancelling all orders and forcing the former Chondro customers to go follow up with another certified dealer makes some sense. I still think ESP is (very) wrong on this one, and they're going to pay for it, both in court and the court of public opinion, but I can at least see their side of it, if it was extremely poorly handled.
Then why would they give the "ok" to fulfill the remaining orders only to days later cancel them?
This isn't a drunken text from a girlfriend or friend, this is an official email response from the manufacturer at hand.
You don't just say "sorry, I was drunk when I sent that email, and after regaining my senses, all of that can be disregarded and now we're cancelling your orders".
@@squigpeels.1021 The same way how a CS representative can tell you anything they want to and company is under no obligation to honor it? The person writing the email or on the phone simply doesn't have the correct information.
It's not that complicated, really.
ESP themselves handles warranties, well actually no they don't. The one time I bought an ESP and it developed a finish crack within THREE MONTHS of purchasing it brand new, they told me to go fuck myself and they weren't going to fix it. Never buying a guitar from them ever ever ever again. It also shouldn't take a multi million dollar brand more than a few months to build and ship custom guitars. If they are taking too many orders that they can't fill in a reasonable time frame, then they need to either hire more people or stop taking new orders until their back orders can be filled.
I’m not 100% sure since it varies by contract, state and country but the few stores I talk to “has” to buy the guitars from the dealer in order to stock them. There were a few exceptions in past like Gibson had a deal but the store was still required to sell “X” amount of profit which only large retails like Guitar Center, Sam Ash, Sweetwater could but small stores couldn’t which is why Gibson is vacant in many small stores but when I talk to stores, they have to buy anywhere between 5-10 guitars a year out of their pockets usually. And then custom guitars was a different contract altogether.
"how are the customers going to get the guitar? How are any warranty issues going to be handled?"
Randall from Chondro still ships the guitars out. Most of his business was online so it would really change nothing in that respect, just that he receives and ships from his home instead of the storefront. Also of note here: Chondro started as a home-based business and was a dealer for ESP, Jackson, and others well before opening their brick-and-mortar.
Warranty would be handled by contacting the manufacturer directly.
Without the dealership agreement, it is difficult to accurately assess the situation.
ESP caused irreparable harm to it's own damn reputation
They haven't... Noone will care
Yep, I'm never going to buy an ESP based entirely on the butthurt of some random bankrupt yank guitar shop
@@TheEmbalmer13 same. Don't matter to me. ESP FTW
@@michael1why are you bootlickers even here lmao?
@@gonzoengineering4894 Relax, you're not on reddit now. This is 2 companies suing each other. Mostly because one went out of business and figures he can go all in to try and make a quick buck. If you were that interested in the success of chondro you should have bought an ESP guitar from them.
If ESP can prove Chondro never provided the list of prepaid orders, I suspect Chondro is hosed.
Why on earth would ESP send a bunch of presumably unsold guitars to a dealer who had closed? During a global supply chain disruption, no less?
Thing is, ESP wouldn't have to request such a list since Chondro's account manager at ESP will have the backorder list with estimate completion dates.
My man kdh! Love you brother for always being vigilant for all of us little guys!!!
Between the various Gibson lawsuits, the impending demise of Dean, and now the drama with ESP, it's painfully obvious that, much like the music business itself, the guitar industry is full of some pretty awful people. I'm kind of happy I kept music as a hobby instead of actually becoming a professional.
It's attorneys for companies doing these things, not the companies themselves.
@jski718 Hire better attorneys then? Like it or not, they represent the company, and when they do something like this, it's on behalf of the company unless they're told not to. If the company doesn't step in and do something, they're just as responsible in their inaction as the attorneys are in their action.
They're awful people and I have no sympathy.
Time to buy luna athenas and deans
@devlintaylor9520 I'd say probably, though from what I understand, Dean's quality control is super sketchy these days. Maybe if you don't mind it as a mod platform that you plan to do a ton of work to already.
@@jski718Don't believe that. Gibson's Tom foolery alone was brought on by employees.
It's all rather moot without seeing the actual dealer agreement contract between ESP and a dealer which more than likely states you must have a storefront and repair division to be an ESP dealer.
Except the part where he was already an ESP dealer when he was in his basement, a fact known by ESP.
Storefronts are nice, but not strictly necessary. In fact, just a picture of a "shingle" with your dealer name would comply with that requirement in most jurisdictions.
@@MetalBeastShred But what does their dealer agreement state (as ESP could bend their own rules for a temporary time).... that's the important part.
Without knowing the text/exact wording of the dealer agreement, it's impossible to even begin to speculate who is right or wrong here, let alone who is going to be successful in the lawsuit.
For example, does the agreement _explicitly_ forbid the subcontracting of the maintenance/repair service, in case the dealer closes their physical (brick-and-mortar) store and workshop - or is it just assumed or implicit because that's pretty much the standard for high-end custom guitar distribution?
But people in the comments are going to pretend to know exactly what ESP or Chondo should do - because... Dunning-Kruger effect.
Oh we can speculate. Can't say with certainty by any means, but we do have that email from ESP that cites the closure of the physical storefront as the reason for cancellation. We also can refer to the WFDL, specifically 135.04, which requires the grantor (ESP) to give 90 days notice of cancellation with a 60 day cure period. Therefore, if the closure of the physical location was the reasoning, Chondro could've reopened the storefront within 60 days, which would nullify the cancellation.
Also, that assumes that ESP's dealer agreement requires dealers to maintain a physical location. Chondro started out as a home-based business that sold online and at guitar shows, and Chondro was an ESP dealer well before opening their brick-and-mortar.
But, as you said, without knowing the terms of the dealer agreement, this is all speculation and hypothetical at best.
Exactly. Not to mention that we do not know which law governs the agreement. It can be a different state (I have seen quite a few where agreements are governed by third states).
KDH reads so many Cease and Desist letters on his channel that sometimes I think he's a legal channel that occasionally talks about guitar stuff, instead of a guitar channel that occasionally talks about legal stuff....
Either way, investigative consumer journalism at its finest right here...
As someone who has A JD degree I find it hard to believe that the manufacturer would not have a clause in the contract allowing them to terminate the dealership agreement with or without cause. Typically there's a spot to provide signature. Additionally there should be a clause that states if any part of this agreement is not understood than you are advised to consult an attorney or other knowledgeable party. Also there should be a part that holds them harmless against any law suits. Not saying the last part would hold in court. Also not saying that ESP was intelligent enough to consult a good law firm that specialized in contractual law. Just adding what a prudent party would have done. $1,000. Now beats a few hundred thousand later. Cheers 🥃🥃
I am and will remain an ESP guy. This crap was caused by a few people that have NOTHING to do with production, design or anything do with us, the artists. These aren’t even musician people, they are administrative business executives that are supposed to make “difficult decisions” on the companies behalf. This is an issue that 99% of the rest of the company (the workers, luthiers, designers, etc) hate as well.
TL;DR, this isn’t the company being shitty. This is a legal division that is making decisions on ESPs behalf, and they should not be held accountable for the entire company.
Your victory Amps video was my introduction to your channel and I’ve binged it ever since. Love what you’re doing keep it up dude!
The way I see it, prior to Chondro closing shop they should have communicated with ESP about what was gonna happen with the backlog of orders from the custom shop, how would those orders be handled. So considering that ESP emailed Chondro about the termination of the business partnership that means that at no point they had any communication with ESP about the situation. ESP likely got a notification of the shop clousure after the effect and so they had to redirect those orders to other affiliated shops ASAP, because of Chondro being unable to provide the post-sale and warranty services to the customers and having not talked about it with ESP.
My man, you have no idea what you're talking about. Randall has an email from his rep @ ESP saying they will honor all of the custom orders . Fast forward a couple months, that rep left ESP, and that's when the new rep emailed Randall telling him they were cutting ties. ESP is fucked in my opinion, because the way they handled this caused them to lose hundreds of future ESP guitar owners
@@leehingle9793 Oh damn, then that is one hell of internal miscommunication at ESP.
I had 2x custom ESP on order through Chondro I got my deposits refunded but have not gotten anything from ESP yet I only wanted the MIj Custom not the USA I ordered. It doesn't look like I will get the MIJ ESP it's been 2 1/2 yrs.
My ESP sits in a case under my bed. It sucks. One day I'll get around to making it playable.
That sucks. What's wrong with it?
Let it go, brother. Easier to sell it and buy 5 playable guitars
Big fan. Thanks for keeping the community honest!
I would want the guitar i ordered from where i ordered it.
Thank you for supporting free speech, being tolerant and inclusive unlike channels like Phil Mcknight and Grumpy Mike who go through and delete all comments they don't like.
ESP should've sought out to just fill orders and work with this store from day 1. It's not hard to so the right thing. They'll probably settle this out of court, I imagine.
Overestimating the greed of a multinational company here.
They took this decision because consumers would have to place their orders again, where ESP would get to charge them 20% more for their already overpriced instruments.
@@HGilbanator Ah, I see. Thanks for chiming in! I haven't bought an ESP instrument so my experience with them is limited.
Theres something about this that doesnt make sense. Im guessing theres a legal detail we are all missing.
Without the dealership agreement, we don't really know if ESP had the right to do what they did. It will be interesting to see what unfolds in the court.
Thank you KDH for another excellent vid. As you mention, there is important info relating to the actual supplier/dealer contract that is missing. That being said, I personally am siding with ESP on this matter, for the main reason that the dealer went immediately to social media to air his thoughts on this legal matter. He definitely paints ESP in a very poor light. The court in public opinion should not be permitted in these legal matters especially if it pertains to a potential plaintiff or defendant. I suspect Terms and Conditions of many contracts are being revised to reflect this. For this actual case, if I was a customer who ordered a custom guitar, I would FAR prefer to deal with an actual business than one that has closed their doors. After sale’s service is very important, especially for very expensive purchases.
ESP's C&D is amusing. Go ahead, file. Discovery might hurt a little...
I think ESP did provide good cause. His shop was closed. That creates a risk for ESP to continue a professional relationship with him. In the big picture I agree with Chondro but I have a hard time thinking he can make a compelling agruement about good cause. If the agreement was made with the company and not the individual. It may be terminated by default.
Even if they had good cause, which is entirely up to interpretation. They did not give him the 30 days notice
Interesting. That might be a technicality that helps. I don't see how 30 days is relevant in solving the problem though for the customers. I think it's safe to assume the orders wouldn't be filled in that amount of time. Maybe he would have kept Chondro active as a business longer even if the brick and morter was closed. I'm still leaning toward if the business closed the agreement was void.@@millsjonah
ESP has the right to terminate relationship and no longer accept orders but orders placed before the termination have to be fulfilled. If not then I can just start a company, take orders consisting of several billion dollars, charge a few million as a non refundable "servicing fee" and then just terminate/cancel orders and keep the few million without any questions asked. That would be a scam and I would probably get some prison time
@@millsjonahESP did say that he repeatedly didn’t respond to their inquires about the pre-sale orders so at that point they probably considered it breach of contract on his end
@@wspeed657in one ear and out the other. I think you need to re-watch the video again, this time using common sense.
Regarding Chondro Guitars, they sold me some great axes over the years. I am grateful for them helping me get a dream Charvel. They should not be treated this way by ESP.
I'm assuming ESP will file a motion to dismiss, which is probably where we'll get more info on the correspondence between them.
Sounds like ESP USA are using the same lawyers as Gibson…
I believe in this case the correct pronunciation is Con--Dro. That is a nickname for Green Tree Pythons. A popular and expensive exotic pet snake species. Given the color scheme of the company's logo, it makes sense. That and there are a lot of guitar players that collect snakes.
I knew Randall when he first started selling gear out of his basement. My first deal with him was a trade of a Caparison C.C for a couple Charvels. He was more than generous, giving me freebie cables and such. An all around good guy to be frank. I had wished him luck when he decided to open his storefront, but haven thad a chance to purchase from him again. Wouldve liked to grab a Mezzabarba head at some point. Anyway, hate to see him basically get screwed over by ESP. I do not know how the contracts work but, if they agreed to fulfill orders already placed, they should not have backed out. Ill guess that those will be lost ESP customers in the future. Very nice of Diablo to step up and offer to take on the orders. The owner, Parker, is the former guitarist of Queensryche..if youre not familiar. He also has been an outstanding dealer and given me nothing but great deals. THats my 2 cents...if anyone cares...lol
He seems like a good dude, and there is a small shop, whom I think offered to take some of Chondro's ESP orders, that I don't care for a whole lot. TAP -- I'll see if anyone can decipher who I am talking about.
Cable wasn't free.
You paid for it if realize it or not.
Being that it was an even trade on 2 brand new guitars, which were not marked up, for a used one..and the fact that he was becoming a Warwick (Rockboard) cable dealer...yes, they were thrown in free..several cables, patch cables, etc. Maybe they were free to him from Warwick..? Who knows. He had a pile..and I didnt pay a cent. But, I do get what youre saying..free is never free..at least in 99.9% of cases.
ESP should be more concerned about Gibson suing them for selling Explorers and Eclipses...
Not the eclipses. The owner should be worried about the Harmony series
You mean Flying V, not Eclipse.
@@Duevel both
Too many internet ‘lawyers’. Be careful!
Thats why we call people or meet face to face to discuss serious matters, followed by sending a contact report. Emails and letters get missed or forgotten.
Companies and corporations arent your friends, people
KDH is the guitar communtiies F.B.I.
I think you stole my comment from casino guitars this morning I said he was the TMZ of the guitar community.
It's spelled C-H-O-N-D-R-O, but it's pronounced Throatwobbler Mangrove.
Thought it was spelled Raymond Luxury Yacht. What happened?
@@christopherlewis1847I thought it was pronounced wiki wiki wiki spring.
If I am a nationally recognized brand like they are, I would not want someone selling my custom shop guitars out of a house, and as a customer, I would not want to buy one from a guy in a house, but they should have been more careful about how they resolved that problem since they foolishly agreed to it at the start of the dealership. It's going to cost them money one way or another now.
It's not out of a house tf? They got orders, the business is closing but they still need to fulfill orders. Chondro just shouldn't have told esp and instead get the guitars then close
@@devlintaylor9520 since day one I have always been upfront and honest with my supplies and my customers. Keeping something as important as closing down the retail space isn't honest. I had an amazing relationship with ESP. I never thought they would do this.
@@devlintaylor9520 Pretty sure he said was "closing his shop," so he'd have to tell them to ship to his house. I don't think he'd keep paying full rent on the shop for a year or more while backorders trickled in.
@@ewo2754 Closing not closed, hes not gonna have them shipped to his house lmao. From my understanding, he emailed the companys in the first place to try to get higher priority and get them finished faster
@@devlintaylor9520 Yes, and I'm sure they all said, "You're closing your store? So your ESP buyers will have to go someplace else for service on these guitars? Well shit, let's get your orders ahead of the others then!" LMFAO!
Reading a lawsuit doesn’t make ESP liable or guilty….it’s a dispute. I’d like to read the correspondence ESP sent to Chondro(which he failed to mention)about fulfilling and acknowledging past and present obligated orders. If Chondro failed to respond about fulfilling orders( which Chondro omits mentioning again). I think a failing business has a lot of money problems to deal with, trying to navigate money agreements while failing to correspond in good faith will get Chondro another loss. I think if deposits are owed, ESP will acknowledge, but if Chondro wants more he’s going to suffer more losses.
Chondro refunded all ESP customers' deposits within a day or so of this happening. Randall also claimed that it took a while to get that list together that ESP had requested due to having to go through orders of ~1000 guitars while also trying to run the store during a GOOB sale, and that ESP sent the termination email shortly after Randall sent them that list.
Some people seem to have made up their minds that ESP must be wrong after reading a *Statement of Claim* by Chondro. The truth is that none of us know who is right or wrong because this is a breach of contract case related to a contract that *none of us have ever seen*.
Did anyone notice that Chondro alleges that section 18 was breached, but they've only quoted it "in relevant part". In other words, they aren't quoting the whole section. There could other parts of that section that tell a different story. Chondro could have just quoted the entire section 18, and ephasized in bold what they thought was relevant. There could be other sections of the contract that are relevant too.
It's a Statement of Claim that is clearly just throwing the kitchen sink at ESP -- they're claiming breach of contract, breach of a statute, and tortious interference with economic relations. In other words, they're pleading everything under the sun to see what will stick. That law firm probably has a template Statement of Claim that they always use, and they just changed some of the details.
Hi Regina🌹🌹
How are you doing?
I feel like the pronunciation of Chondro is quite important here
I know several people often have problems with the pronunciation. When Sammy Duet went to the store to show his signature even he didn’t knew how to say it.
Love Sammy Pierre
kon-dro
ESP are you high.
I find it quite hilarious that ESP needs it's dealers to tell it what guitars are on order with them. Like seriously, the company needs it's dealers to tell it what guitars it ought to be making? That's just nonsense. All that stuff should be logged on their CRM system. That's more ridiculous than UK air traffic control saying it's entire system went down because one flight plan had a single duplicate identifier in it.
Certifiably addicted to KDH videos at this point
Hands down, best "guitar" TH-camr.
I think it’s because Lee owns ESP.
he knows those guys
Really? He does?
Hey I just wanted to see if you could check out the current elysian/guitarmory beef. It's pretty messed up and it deserves some coverage.
What a shame for ESP this even worse than the "play authentic" incident.
Does ESP not have a database where they can lookup orders submitted by a dealer? It's hard to believe they wouldn't considering the amount of money involved.
I don't think that ESP's assertion that they repeatedly asked about the outstanding orders before cancelling them makes any logical sense.
If the orders are on their books and money has been paid down already there's absolutely no reason for them to require this guy to list them off again outside of double checking their own records.
If they don't have any idea which orders are through his dealership how would they even work out which orders to cancel?
Seems like they were looking for an excuse to keep a bunch of deposits without doing the work.
I think Japan is having a really hard time getting guitars out of the country right now. I’ve been waiting for a MIJ Ibanez I ordered for almost 6 months now.
Ibanez is about 10 to 12 months out. It has been difficult to say the least.
@@MrChondr0 I can imagine, that is quite a headache. They say 3 months it turns out to be 10 to 12. That could turn into a canceled order for a shop. Have a good one, hope your ESP troubles get solved. Cheers
Mmmmm more yummy guitar drama!
It doesn't make a lot of sense for ESP to have handled the store closing situation this way. It would've been so much easier, and less expensive, to just fulfill the orders through him. In the event of a warranty claim the customers could still take their instruments to different authorized dealers anyway. If I buy a guitar in Florida, while on vacation from Montana, I'm not going to travel back to Florida for warranty service. I would just go to my local shop or contact ESP. I honestly cannot come up with a good reason for ESP to have handled the situation thirds way. If they somehow win the lawsuit they are not getting paid back for anything. This guy (or probably his business, if he structured it correctly) is more than likely declaring bankruptcy. Even if he doesn't, I highly doubt he will be able to pay for their attorney fees and lawsuit costs out of pocket. In other words, it's more than likely going to take years to recover the money they are spending to fight this. Even if he pays it all immediately, this has already hurt their reputation in ways that cannot be measured. For instance, I have been planning on buying a baritone guitar and was 99% sure I would go with the ESP Breaking Benjamin signature model. Not anymore! I own a small business myself. When it comes to business, nothing pisses me off more than seeing a big business screw over a small business! When a big business chooses to do something that means so little to them but so much to the small business, it reveals how little that big business cares about the people and businesses that help make it successful. ESP can go eff themselves! I'll never buy anything their name is attached to again!
That got annoyingly long, sorry!
There are three elements to a successful civil suit
Breach of duty
Causation
Damages
Based on the video, ESP has done none of those. The store made the decision to close with unfulfilled orders. ESP agreed to fulfill those orders through other locations.
Lol.
I guess because you’ve declared this, that settles it?
My professional advice is that ESP should be settling this asap. No good outcome for them if it ends up in court.
This is not even taking i to consideration the court of public opinion, where millions of dollars worth of potential business hangs in the balance.
@@marbar1844 working for an attorney does help. Lawsuits are not settled by what we think is wrong or right. They're settled in civil court. Those three elements have to be met in order for a lawsuit to be successful. What happens more often than not is cases are settled out of court because it's easier to pay a chunk of money than it is to drag out a civil case and end up paying twice as much. ESP has good insurance and attorneys on staff. They'll try to make it right with the customers and that's probably where this will end.
Get ready to receive a lawsuit for ESP defamation any moment.
Man, this whole story is up there with the Dean attacking a customer incident. And I don't even think it would be even close to such a cluster if ESP hadn't said yes BEFORE screwing him over.
Could you explain? When did this happen?
I can’t believe they’d do that. There’s always an asshole corpo in beloved/respected companies that screws up the companies reputation in a way
@@fireemblemistrash75 This was back in 2021. KDH has a video on it but the short version is that Dean used Instagram's copyright system to take down a photo of a customer's guitar collection because it included a now discontinued guitar that was very similar to a Dean ML several years after the photo was posted.
As I said KDH has a video on it which goes into more detail which if I recall correctly is called "Dean Guitars, Just Like Gibson."
Thanks, Kirland. 🙂
KDH, this is off topic. You put your hands on the Ormsby models at NAMM 2023. Can you tell me what your memory is of the singlecut model (abasi-like) regarding weight? I have a neck injury and I must use lighter guitars like Parker Fly and Strandberg. I was looking at a headless Klaas but Ormsby has a much better QC reputation. Thank you.
Well, I guess we need an update
You talking about ESP USA…..a lot have problems with them
ESP (original) is a 🇯🇵 company & brand , order your guitar there
Im with them since '89 , never had a problem , have two ESP custom & two LTD series models
All top👌🏼
Is that right? I assumed they were custom shop (Japan) orders.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe ESP USA have and make custom orders & signature models ,too as the brand ESP USA build in the US.
Most in the US order there and not in Japan.
You must find out where the order go to build it , USA or Japan.
ESP japan is one thing and ESP USA another.
@@justicia8393Thanks but I'm familiar with ESP USA. I just thought since they kept mentioning "custom" instruments I assumed it was ESP Japan. I don't really consider the USA ESPs to be proper customs. They're more like selecting options when buying a car; colour, pickups, etc. They don't make things to the customers exacting specifications. You can't for example select neck through or bolt on, or change the bridge or the neck shape.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe …..you thought and assumed
…. that’s not really knowing if you make a report at your TH-cam channel …..
ESP japan , they are the original
What they did with ESP USA since 2014 to customise & build guitars there ,too under ESP USA …. it’s not the original ESP , it’s ESP USA , to me it’s not a real ESP , if you don’t misunderstand me
At ESP USA they are building guitars there , on TH-cam you have videos of it building, shaping, painting the guitars , like they do in japan ,too ….
But there are not one japanese working at ESP USA
It’s like when Volkswagen build the beetle car in Mexico , was it the same as the original build in germany by Volkswagen ?
In ESP japan you need 10 years of learning and work experience to work in ESP customs
not wanna say that ESP USA are not that good , but it’s not the same
I work for ESP back in the late 80tis early 90tis when only ESP exist in Tokyo , Düsseldorf and New York , that was the only headquaters back in the day , Tokyo for japan , Düsseldorf for europe and New York for the US
I workt for ESP Düsseldorf europe headquaters , ESP management and guitar work builders was japanese and the sale management german
Same was in New York , ESP management and guitar work builders japanese , sales management americans
That was still original ESP , out of japan , build by special learned & teached japanese ESP custom shop workers for Düsseldorf and for New York
ESP USA don’t…..
The master (of ex Washburn, Fender and Jackson guitar builder) Gil Vásquez is the custom shop builder at ESP USA
And for shure he’s a good one !
Check out at TH-cam the ESP USA factory tour with Gil Vásquez !
IANAL but I read the WFDL and it seems to fall pretty clearly in Chondro's favor. The only question is whether the dealership agreement requires dealers to maintain a physical storefront--if that's not spelled out in the agreement, I can't see ESP satisfying the "good cause" requirement. Even then, WFDL requires 90 days' written notice for termination along with a 60-day period for the dealer to cure, so if ESP had sent a 90-day notice of termination because of closing the physical location, Chondro could've cured by keeping the physical location open, even if it was just on a by-appointment basis.
Here we go.
Wow, this information demonstrates ESP breaching a contract from what I can see. Of all the brands I was surprised to hear ESP would sink this low
Look, I'm 100% on the side of the dealer and not the international mega corporation... buuuuut are we just going to gloss over the fact that they said he was meant to provide them with a list of outstanding builds and then didn't?
Why wouldn't they already know that information?
If they don't have records of the orders and corresponding payments tied to his account on their system how exactly would they have known which orders to cancel?
That whole thing just seems like a weird deflection intended to muddy the water.
With so many cheaper brands making high quality instruments for a fraction of the cost of the "luxury brands", it's shocking how absolutely awful the customer service is from these brands, as well as how terrible their PR is. Their quality isn't that much better, if at all, than cheaper brands (Pick up a USA fender vs a Indonesian Ibanez and tell me the fender is higher quality). There is almost no reason to go for gibson/fender/esp unless you must have one, which is totally valid (I want a 70s P-bass, I don't care if it was built by a hungover high Californian, weighs 100 lbs, and has a 1cm tolerance). It's like these companies are being taken over by cut-throat business school graduates who want to nickel and dime their customers and dealers. It's a real shame.
I own an American Fender and an Indonesian Ibanez. I am telling you that to me the Fender is higher quality. That said, its not a quality difference comparable to the price difference. I just wanted that particular Fender when I played it and had the extra money. Also, supporting your point, I prefer my Indonesian G&L to the American Fender…
One interesting point in Chondro's message to customers (shown in this video) is that it says that the brands all stepped up to the plate to help him out "even though technically they didn't have to" which sort of implies that at the time he was of the understanding they did NOT have to fulfill the orders. Why did he think that then? Or am I missing something?
Initially, I thought it was because he was winding down the company, but he made it clear in some of the comments that he is only closing the shop front. Of course, if initially, his communication said that he would close/wind down the business - even if this was just a mistake - ESP might have something to hold onto. However, it still won't explain their initial approval and then refusal, unless someone misunderstood something at ESP later - so initially they correctly assumed that the LLC would continue to operate and then someone higher up misunderstood it for full closure. Without all the documents and especially in the absence of the dealership agreement we can only shoot in the dark. For start, we do not even know which law governs the agreement (this not necessarily will be the dealership's state).
@@rkk578 good points - and as such he should be careful what he writes publicly as I'm sure ESP lawyers will be looking for any evidence they can get that corroborates confusion on their part about what he conveyed to them. If he was unclear or trying to play the line of closing/but not really closing, that might be enough to be a problem.
@@ewo2754 Someone below wrote that ESP apparently requires a brick & mortar shopfront from an authorised dealer. It might be that the comment regarding how the promise about the fulfillment of the orders was viewed as a favor relates to this. But even here we just run into the same problem. We don't know if the agreement had something that detailed the consequences should it be breached by the dealer nor do we know if there is a clause that ESP should be notified of any possible breaches within a certain timeframe and what are the consequences of failing to do this. I work in finance where we have a lot of covenants for various credit agreements. So basically the companies agree to meet certain ratios within certain time periods and they inform this via management information. Not meeting these or not supplying these would put the product into default. If they are afraid that they will breach it for some reason, they can ask for changes, but they have to do it within a certain period, which is detailed in the credit agreement. They cannot just say to the bank "oh, sorry tomorrow our current ratio won't meet the agreed number, so we need that to be amended/suspended". That would result in a default also.
It is definitely pronounced Kondro. Like chronology, chorus, etc.
Esp M1 has one of the best necks currently available... And cheaper than a Jackson
Is ESP pulling a Gibson os us? First they start with shit like this then the quality of the instruments starts declining but if you say something about it they sue you.
so, it all comes out now…ESP is an acronym for, “elephants shit peanuts”.
If ESP doesn't at least try to go for an out of court settlement over this, they are gonna look really stupid.
This is why I build my own guitars and I don’t use brand name guitars in public. Too much drama.
Raise, praise and erase comes to mind. I believe Chondra has acted in "Bona Fede" good faith from the start and that counts for a lot as other dealers may feel that they could find themselves in a similar position in the future so it will be tougher now ( supplier shows true colours) to fo the same to thier loyal dealers who actually put the instrument into the customers hands. All dealers must take this kind of attitude seriously because it is becoming a familiar story. Thanks for posting.
ESP are wholly to blame for this fiasco.
They should have been aware of any local laws protecting that dealers rights under Wisconsin law,
ignorance of the law is no excuse.
I wish the dealer the best of luck, you can never be certain on how a court of law will decide
who is in the wrong.
ESP deserve to loose custom shop orders after this, as their policy will apply to all dealers.
This is the part when everyone switches from ESP to Jackson lol
hell no
if you are a customer waiting on a guitar, one of these parties looks like it cares about getting me my guitar, and one party seems like its happy to use my order as a legal chess piece.
just wanted a guitar, man. i imagine a couple people waiting on guitars will find out about all this through this video alone, which would make me pretty unhappy.
In the video Randall did which KDH used a clip from, he made it pretty clear that his first priority was making sure the customers were taken care of, to include honoring the agreed prices. Many (and probably most) of the guitars on order would've had price increases since the time of order, and Randall was usually pretty generous with discounts. IIRC he refunded all ESP customers' deposits within a day of the cancellation.
You'd feel different if you lost a couple hundred thousand in revenue on high-end ESP guitar sales. He had an agreement, in writing, that he could facilitate the orders that were already in. They did an about face and yanked it out from under him
@@sneerim Thats pretty handy because I would have filed for the refund immediately lol. As much as I wanted the guitar.
@@leehingle9793 I left it to the reader to decide which party belonged in which category because I thought it would make the replies more interesting. Thank you for not disappointing.
@@KickYouInTheThroat You wouldn't have had to file for a refund. Randall immediately refunded everyone their deposit as soon as ESP dropped the hammer. Obviously you've never dealt with Randall, nobody takes care of their customers like him. Not music zoo, CMC, or the ax palace
Order a fancy custom guitar from a major manufacturer and wait a year.......or hit all the pawn shops, garage sales, craigs list type in town .
I've found 3 instruments the past ten years worth multiple thousands of dollars each for $120
(antique shop, worth $2000) ) ,
$35 (garage sale, worth $2000)
$100. (pawn shop, worth $5000).
I was recently ripped off on Reverb and their customer support is AI and when I was finally able to email (only) a human… three days later they only sent that “business “ an email.
I know this is not the topic but please do a video about problems like this… many people are sick of this bad business practice.
I wonder if they saw it coming somehow.
i have a rare ESP Vintage LTD Plus (GOLD ON GOLD #05/15) 25th anniversary model that i lost the certificate to and ESP was rude and would not reissue the cert when i acquired about it. ESP apparently has no records on a great deal of their guitars because of a fire but the store closed as well and i have no chance of getting a new certificate. bad story as most big companies will drag it through court till they bankrupt the store or they give up.
When is the free guitar for glen video
This story just sounds like it shuld be Gibson and not ESP. These are sad days boys. Thank goodness we have tons of new brands doing what ESP does, ESP isn't as needed as they once were.
I bought an LTD EC-1000 about 4 years ago and quality, fit and finish ran rings around Fender guitars at twice the price. However, I won't be buying another as the prices for the same guitar now here in Australia has nearly tripled!
Your research is excellent. Thx for all u do. ????? Just wondering if u have any info Wether or not any slave labor is used in the production of Ali express guitars. If anyone can find out you can. Just wondering. Love your channel
This nonsense both makes me happy that I am an attorney and disappointed that being an attorney is relevant for music stories.
Although score one for where I went to law school
Interested in what your take is?
Pointless lawyer commentary cool
@@clintn6677
I haven’t been able to read the complaint yet so I just don’t have much of a useful thought on it. I requested to join the facebook group and will go from there.
However, without seeing the agreement between ESP and the dealer there won’t be a lot I can add as well
@@jloiben12surely you don’t need to see the agreement? This is the internet. You can simply pontificate on matters that you don’t fully understand, all from the comfort of your arm chair 👍