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So, it's been a minute since I've posted regarding Jeff Kiesel and Kiesel Guitar's poor customer service and business practices. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I wanted to give an update on my personal experience. We were rightly refunded our money. That was a no-brainer since we didn't receive the product we ordered. I wanted to first give Kiesel the opportunity to respond. Maybe not publically, but possibly privately. Of course, doing a bit of Google research, I can see how that goes now. Only until it blows up big enough that Jeff Kiesel seems to feel the need to create an apology video tour on YouTube like he did in 2020 for lack of customer service. It looks like lip service to me based on my experience. I'd like to first thank the board admins for allowing this post. I'm not a guitarist, my husband is, I merely tried to have a guitar built as a birthday gift. for him. It seems some other forums are in cahoots with Kiesel and took down my discussions like nothing ever happened. Apparently, Kiesel follows some of them as they saw my post. ...More on that in a bit. My husband noticed the guitar he designed was for sale as an in-stock, notably quite a bit less than he paid since now, I guess they want to get rid of it. To be clear, he's never had it in person. The only guitar he did have in person was someone else's white guitar that Kiesel didn't know they shipped to us by mistake. Oddly enough, you'd think Kiesel would have stated to him, listen let's discount the guitar X amount due to our mistakes. ...this never happened. If someone didn't read my initial discussion, we immediately called Kiesel to let them know they shipped a white guitar to us that we didn't pay for nor did we order. We wanted to make sure that if the guitar was built for someone else, they needed to receive it. Yes, we are honest! So... he figured, let's give them another chance...yes, apparently, he called them and spoke to the rep who helped him create the order. Telling me this...I honestly was a bit taken aback by his actions. He went on and stated to me he asked for a discount above what they are NOW asking for the guitar This was for all his time and aggregation they put him through. Mind you, he's never asked for anything but the guitar from the get-go. If Kiesel didn't screw up our transaction, then hold the guitar captive (though it was paid for in full), my husband would have a new guitar, and they would have made money...so he asked for a 150.00 discount for all of the hassle that Kiesel had put him through. When he told me this...I said you should have asked for more. It's less than a 2% discount. ...Truthfully, I'm not on board with his decision. ...So the rep stated, he'd have to get back to him by the next day. Biting my tongue, I again was not pleased but I respect my husband's decisions. My husband stated to me "You know what, maybe they will appreciate the call and figure they are losing a good customer... It's an opportunity for Kiesel to mend wounds realize their mistakes, and move on". SO the next day came, I heard him talking on the phone and it was a lengthy discussion. He did not seem pleased. Apparently, because I told my Kiesel experience on forums, my husband can no longer purchase any guitar from Kiesel. Truthfully, I’m happy that none of our funds will ever go to the Kiesel Guitar Company. The rep told him the guitar could be purchased by a friend or someone else, but not him. Can you believe that! Because I voiced my experience and transaction, HIS account can no longer be used to make a purchase for their products. It seems that Jeff needs to reevaluate his actions. He had an open opportunity to rectify a transaction, make money, make a bad experience, better...move on and complete a sale... yet his action appear juvenile. It's apparent from reading other bad customer experiences, Jeff Kiesel has not learned from his mistakes. I'm sure there are good transactions occurring, but I would not want to take the change again with Kiesel. Based on my personal experience, I cannot give any good recommendations due to my Kiesel experience. My husband still gets a guitar for his birthday which obviously is late. It will be another guitar manufacturer. One that takes pride in their service their product and their customer experiences. Purchases are made many times by word of mouth and customer satisfaction. When I think of a Mercedes or a Ferrari, I think of excellence. Though I’m not a guitarist, when I now hear the name, Kiesel, my thoughts are not positive in any way, shape, or form! He's looking now at Anderson, McNaught, or Suhr.

Hi all, I need to share with the world what my husband and I just went through with Kiesel guitars. I pray that NO ONE ever has to go through what we did with Kiesel! My husband is a guitarist and bought his first Carvin (back in 1981). So for his birthday, I wanted him to 'build' out his dream guitar. Immediately he wanted a Kiesel. As his wife, I said, "Buy what you want, you deserve it." So he built all out and placed the order. I am not a guitar person but rather a wife that truly loves her husband more than anything. And to know that I was able to purchase him a custom guitar that he was so excited about meant the world to me. However, Kiesel not only ruined his birthday but also broke my heart. The look of utter disappointment on his face, when he opened a guitar that was not his, was gut-wrenching. That look I will never be able to unsee. ~14-16 weeks later he got notice that his guitar was done and was to arrive in a few days. Seriously the look of excitement on his face was everything to me. It arrived on 6/22 in the early afternoon and since we live in Arizona, we let it rest in the box for about 4 hours to allow it to acclimate to the ambient temp in our house. I recorded him opening up the box. Again, as a wife, seeing his excitement melted my heart. But that all changed... When he opened up the interior box he found that the guitar was in a soft case (he ordered a soft case). He was a bit bummed but said, “It’s okay, that’s an easy fix for them.” But then he opened up the soft case and his look of absolute excitement like a child on Christmas morning went to immediate disappointment. They sent him the wrong guitar. I equate his look and feel to the movie ‘A Christmas Story’ when Ralphie wants the red rider bb gun and gets the bunny suit instead. So he called Kiesel. He told Flock what happened and Flock said, “Oh! YOU got the white guitar!?”. So then knew they sent him the wrong guitar but they never called us or called FedEx to stop the delivery? Then Flock said, “You need to email Albert.” I’m sorry but Kiesel screwed up and we have to email someone there to fix this? Now we’re all human, mistakes happen. So my husband emailed Albert and that’s when it went south. Brandon in Customer Service got involved. Our thoughts were that my husband’s guitar was sent out to someone else and we thought some ‘stranger’ was playing HIS guitar. He voiced his concerns to Kiesel. They did show that wasn’t the fact but that his guitar was done and sitting in the shop. It ‘had’ been done. Brandon, whether he’s new or not, kept calling in the wrong Fed-Ex pickups. He would give ground returns for an express pickup. Doesn’t work that way. Twice this happened. Twice Fed-Ex showed up and said, “You have the wrong type label. That’s for ground. We can take the box but it’ll get thrown into the back of the truck and when we do get the right label we can ship it back.” Yeah – sorry but if we would have followed through with that, and it mysteriously got lost or stolen, WE would have been liable for it. No, thank you. Since Kiesel could not do the simple task of scheduling a correct pickup, we had to call Fed Ex and use the ground label Kiesel called in to schedule a ground pickup on 6/27. This whole time, we kept asking Kiesel when they were shipping his guitar as they charged our CC on 6/26 for close $3750. Remember, they said it was completed and ready to go and showed him pictures of it. I asked Brandon this on the phone and he said, “Oh, we’re not going to ship out his guitar until we get confirmation that Fed-Ex picked up.” So yes, they were holding his guitar hostage, a guitar he paid for BECAUSE THEY SCREWED up multiple times. They were projecting their failures onto us by charging us for a product and then refusing to pay for it. When this was conveyed to me (on speaker phone), my husband emailed Jeff at Kiesel and others. Jeff as well stated the same thing. They refused to ship out our guitar until they got theirs back. Seriously Kiesel??? If they honestly thought we were going to keep it, why in the hell do you think we’d ever call them in the first place, speak with Brandon countless times, speak with Chris the salesman and Flock telling them to come to get this guitar out of my house and even go so far to schedule a pickup ourselves with Fed-Ex? Seriously… the very thought of that is highly offensive and insulting! I, too, emailed Jeff (the VP) and Mark (the President) at Kiesel telling them exactly how I found Jeff’s actions absolutely deplorable and unethical. I’m not a lawyer but if I purchase a product, pay for the product in full, and then the company refuses to send me my product… is that theft, fraud, or deception? To date, neither my husband nor I have had any response from Mark or Jeff (other than Jeff’s only email saying he wasn’t sending out our guitar). ZERO phone calls. NOTHING. This is NOT how you operate a company. To boot – not once did we ask for compensation or the like. The ONLY thing I asked Brandon on 6/23 was could my husband get a T-shirt as I would happily post a pic of him wearing it with his new guitar. This was well before we knew Kiesel was refusing to send us our guitar. And to have Kiesel treat us like thieves for their continual failures and mistakes is unforgivable. They had every chance to remediate this yet apparently, we’re just another number in the X number of guitars they create every year. They had every opportunity to make this right yet they were so consumed with greed that they failed to do the right and honorable thing. Their company says, “We're not just a brand, we're a family.” If that’s true, I’d hate to see how they treat non-family members. It’s not the issue that we were sent the wrong guitar as I stated. Mistakes happen and it could have been perhaps caught in transit by their staff but we are all human. Kiesel wronged us by holding his guitar hostage. On Tuesday, 6/28 my husband wrote the entire company stating that given how horrible we were treated, the refusal to ship out a paid-for guitar, and the nightmare we were forced to endure from their continual failures he wanted a full refund. That they were to not ship the guitar. If it was in transit (but it wasn’t as again they refused to send out a product we paid for), we would reject it from Fed-Ex as it was signature required. Brandon stated that they have issued a full refund. Now it can take up to 10 days however I still see nothing pending. Again, even with all of that, not a single word from Mark or Jeff. They may create the best guitars in the world but we will NEVER EVER buy anything from them again. If a company imposes its failures onto you, implies that you’re a thief, AND holds your paid-for merchandise hostage they are not a company I will never, EVER support. And yes, I’m more than happy to share the email threads, the videos, and the documentation. Just because you build a fantastic product doesn’t make you a good company. When you practice so unethically and treat your customers as sh*t, you are a FAILURE of a company.