Experience with Fulltone Customer Service

[bcalla]

A friend of mine is trying to get warranty service on his Fulltone OCD pedal, and he has gotten a couple of nasty e-mails from Michael Fuller.  Anyone have any experience with him or his company?  I am truly impressed by how rude he was.

[jkokura]

That's not super uncommon. I've heard he's been a hard man to relate with.

Jacob

[spaceboss]

Yeah if you like being ridiculed, their customer service is great. Never again.

[electrosonic]

I am just surprised he personally answers emails. Isn't his company big enough to pay someone else to do customer service stuff?

Andrew.

[das234]

I am just surprised he personally answers emails. Isn't his company big enough to pay someone else to do customer service stuff?

Andrew.

Yeah, I'd send out rude emails on their behalf for ten bucks an hour.

[Clayford]

First off, he can send off rude emails for free so why should he pay someone. Especially when he can void warranties for having a 3rd party replace a 3PDT switch, then charge $60/hr for a bench fee and $15 to replace the 3PDT before he'll even start working on the other problems at $60/hr

(edit: reworded to make it clearer that I wasn't being snarky to das234)

[AntKnee]

Wow. I've never dealt with him, or owned one his pedals, but I had no idea there was so much dislike for the guy. Sure would like to see that rude email!

[Scruffie]

Yet despite Z.vex's online reputation, very polite and easy to deal with in e-mails to customers at least.

Can't say I ever got a good vibe from fulltone without reading this. I recall some complaint about someone getting a replacement de-ja-vibe bulb too.

There's ruthless business and then there's being ruthless towards customers... it'd only take one upset person to damage the business.

[madbean]

I only know of it by proxy. My bandmate had a FullDrive for about 10 years and it crapped out. He sent it back and they supposedly repaired it. Got it back, no good. Contacted them again and the replaced it at no charge. That's pretty good service.

But, yeah, there are plenty of not so good stories out there.

[gingataff]

I emailed them a while back asking about screws for the clyde. No reply. I guess I was lucky.

[PimpMyTone]

I emailed them a while back asking about screws for the clyde. No reply. I guess I was lucky.

LOL

[atreidesheir]

Pros: warranty honored
Cons: Yes, Mike Fuller sounds like Archie Bunker by email.

I used to rock several Fulltone pedals back in the day when I was a studio hoss.  Fuller is a grade-A dbag by email.  He fixed an Octafuzz for me (the octave transformer stopped working and it was a killer fuzz without it).  He made it good.  I also broke some knobs while on tour and he sent me six free ones by courier.  So he is not a 'customer is always right' type of guy, but he backed up his warranty and went a little beyond in my case.  I presume knobs are not warrantied.

[Blues Healer]

it's true that Mike has a bad reputation, but I've had good dealings with him ....
I can remember 20 years ago, when I was going to the vintage guitar shows, Mike was the only dealer doing what he did : making new pedals from the best vintage circuits.
There are too many stories for me to be able to defend him, but as you can tell from the numbers, he's been pretty successful building pedals, and he's one of a handful of pioneers of the "boutique" business.