United break guitars – DV Don’t!

By Paul Dakeyne

August 4, 2009 | Posted in Guitar

If you’ve ever made a national or international flight, handed over your flight cased treasures and been less than happy with the state they turned up in at your destination, then you’ll find solace here. U.S. band, Sons of Maxwell were taking an inter-state flight recently and whilst sat on board the aircraft, lead singer Dave Carroll was shocked to see the United Airlines baggage handlers treating his flight-cased $3,500 Taylor Guitar to a severe mishandling session! The band alerted the cabin crew but that was met with complete nonchalance..

Sure enough, upon arrival and disembarking at the other end, Carroll found his beloved guitar very badly damaged. It may have been better protected with some ATA approved SKB Flight Cases!?!

His subsequent complaints were met with indifference for 9 months and although United didn’t deny the occurrence took place, they steadfastly refused to compensate the musician for his losses.

Dave promised the last United employee he spoke to that he’d write a song about the experience and upload a video to YouTube – she didn’t seem bothered..

But with a cracking song, funny as hell video and over 4 and a half Million plays.. she really should’ve been bothered!

So, United Airlines customer service it seems evokes that ol’ chesnut phrase.. ‘a lot to be desired’.. However, DV’s Customer Service of course is nothing like that.

The DV Guitar boys and their excellent delivery service make sure that such precious Guitars reaches it’s destination safe and sound, acting fast should there ever be any other scenario – as  ‘PS’ from Finland wrote only today in an email to DV’s ‘feedback’ address.. 

 “..and the delivery after you received the payment was fast (payment on your account on Wednesday, the goods in Finland on the next Monday was very satisfactory.) Even the bass guitar itself was almost in tune when I opened the package, so I’m more than pleased. Haven’t yet tested the instrument with the amplifier but I don’t expect to meet any troubles” 

Perhaps he’ll be kind enough to write a song and make a video for us.. asking too much..?

Oh well, a happy customer is enough for the DV Guitars team

About Paul Dakeyne

Paul Dakeyne has written 589 post in this blog.

Paul Dakeyne is a DJ/Producer who has dedicated the past two decades of his life to dance music production and DJ'ing. For six years, he toured globally for the world famous Ministry of Sound and has played DJ sets for the likes of U2 and for the legendary, Kraftwerk, Although remixing around 250 records in his career, as an artist in his own right, Paul landed one of dance music's seminal crossover moments with his "18 Strings' monster hit by Tinman - scoring a UK top ten in 1994. He also co-wrote and produced the music for BBC's Watchdog and Crimewatch when they were both revamped in 2001 and '06 respectively. His other career highlights have included an A&R stint for Mercury Records, lecturing in 'DJ culture and music technology' and creating mash-up mixes for Radio 1's, Chris Moyles. Paul joined the DV group in 2003 leading to his role as blog and feature author here at the DV Mag.

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Tags: break guitars, dave carroll, Guitars, sons of maxwell, taylor, united airlines

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