Recent dealing with Avantguard pickguards (BEWARE! Possible SCAM!)

[matbard]

Hello guys,

Just curious about your recent orders at Avantguard tort pickguards.

I placed my order for a Jazz bass tort on oct 12 2022 and paid immediately thru PayPal. I've got no further replies from François until dec 29 2022 where he apologised (upon inquiry...) about the lack of communications and stated that my pick guard was "curing". After that, I asked many times both thru his website form and private emails about the state of my order but received no replies.

Do you know about the state of his business now?

- Matteo

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

Well I don‘t think he is scamming people… he basically „just“ started his business 2-3 years ago.
Could be that the injury is something worse than one might expect - with some delays in the process (or he was running out of material and couldn‘t restock due to the injury…and that needs to cure?
The time does seem a bit long - but if there is a telephone number somewhere: maybe call him?

Or reach out via his socials?

[Francer]

Looks like he last posted on instagram on January 10th. Maybe try PM him there?

I hope you get it sorted and he’s he’s still in business, his tort looks amazing. I wonder if he’s just overwhelmed with orders.

[Fiddy]

Well I don‘t think he is scamming people… he basically „just“ started his business 2-3 years ago.
Could be that the injury is something worse than one might expect - with some delays in the process (or he was running out of material and couldn‘t restock due to the injury…and that needs to cure?
The time does seem a bit long - but if there is a telephone number somewhere: maybe call him?

Or reach out via his socials?

That he just started his business 2-3 years, wouldn't have anything to do with him scamming people or not, if he in fact is.

If he ran out of material, why not communicate with the buyer? Let's stop making excuses for sellers that leave people hanging. That simply is unacceptable.

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

Or reach out via his socials?

If he ran out of material, why not communicate with the buyer? Let's stop making excuses for sellers that leave people hanging. That simply is unacceptable.

I‘m a 100% with you. Communication is most important.
But a more or less active instagram account (~3 weeks) - states that his business is still active. And people seem happy about what they get… (therefore I figured: not too much to worry about) - so why not reach out there? As it’s seemingly more active as the email account?

Ah, inquiry, not injury. My bad.
Anyhow. Whatever happened between october and december is unacceptable - but a few weeks of curing (before actually cutting and drilling everything to prevent shrinking or whatever happens to uncured nitro cellulose) honestly doesn‘t seem too bad.

But giving a heads up what‘s the current waiting time would be something great to start with (even if reading 26 weeks for a Staytrem is a bit of a turn off).

[andy_tchp]

Takes less than 5 minutes to reply to an email.

“Sorry about the lack of communications, and now for my next trick I won’t respond to further communications” just stinks.

Having to “reach out via socials” is utter bullshit too.

Isn’t he a member here?

[Unicorn Warrior]

No affiliation. But, Possible scam is a bit much. If he wants to be successful with this, he’s not going to scam you. However, updates go a long way. I guess it’s too late for him now as he already is under fire with this thread. I’d say he’s just inundated with orders. There also could be a communication barrier like emails going to spam etc..who knows. But, probably just inundated.

[sal paradise]

Some of the most creative people I know are terrible at communicating. I guess you gotta balance service with quality of product.

I’m glad people are still a bit eccentric and aren’t customer obsessed. (Assuming op gets their product soon)

Jamie from Creamery is similar. Not the best at keeping you up to date. But the price & quality makes up for it.

[JSett]

Jamie from Creamery is similar. Not the best at keeping you up to date. But the price & quality makes up for it.

I've been buying from Jaime since he started but it's got so bad now I've moved away from his stuff. I can't wait 9+ months for some pretty standard pickups. They're good, but not 8 months better than the others out there now.

[sal paradise]

Jamie from Creamery is similar. Not the best at keeping you up to date. But the price & quality makes up for it.

I've been buying from Jaime since he started but it's got so bad now I've moved away from his stuff. I can't wait 9+ months for some pretty standard pickups. They're good, but not 8 months better than the others out there now.

Totally. But he’s still cheaper than most boutique. I got my ‘59 PAF in 3 months. And it was half the price of any other independent builder. It was just order & wait until it arrives though so that 3 months could easily have been 6 or more, with no update.

[Mechanical Birds]

Avant Guard killed my father, and raped my mother

[sal paradise]

You wouldn’t shoot a Policeman (IT Crowd content)

[DeathJag]

Jamie from Creamery is similar. Not the best at keeping you up to date. But the price & quality makes up for it.

I reached out on March 19 last year wanting to buy a custom set of staggered pickups. It took until September to hammer out the details, and I was told an invoice would be forthcoming. Now that invoice is supposed to come next week, the first week of February. I really want to hear the pickups, and I'm not going to flame the fellow, but ten+ months is quite a stretch. Especially when other people are getting theirs in three. This causes me to feel neglected. I even sent him a photo of the Deathjag to try and get the process going. Perhaps my order is taking so long because I did not harass him. Perhaps I should have inquired weekly.

In May of last year I reached out to Tim at Milkman to have a super crazy custom stereo tube harmonic tremolo (that's for you Johnny) build. He was very upfront about the wait time, and when I inquired he was very honest about it. This item is in transit right now, supposed to be delivered on Thursday. I never felt neglected once.

Those 5 to 10 seconds it takes to answer an email are worth it. Even if it takes 20 minutes to answer them all, it is worth it.

Back to the topic - no customer communication should mean instant death for ALL businesses.

EDIT January 2024 - I got the Creamery pickups about 13 months after ordering them. They sound great. I would have loved a monthly (or bimonthly) note about them but in the end still I got em.

[JSett]

.

That harmonic tremolo sounds fancy, I look forward to reading about it!

Jaime has always been slow to respond. Even before the family issues of 2021(?) and subsequent backlog due to grieving period and sorting stuff he wasn't great. The dude just needs to limit his orders more, clear the backlog and learn to spend an hour a day doing emails. Winding normal pickups (likely his most common job) can't take that long so maybe he takes 500 orders, then goes on a nice long vacation on the money (that's paid up front) then blasts them all out in a month ready for another 3 months off

[matbard]

François replied at least apologizing for the delay, citing health issues due to exposure to chemicals used for making pickguards. Mine is still in between of thew manufacturing process.