The general Bananana thread

[Pete]

I sent an email explaining the situation, so I'll hope for the best now. Hopefully I just got a defective pedal and can get a working replacement or refund


Maybe these type of glitch pedals are just very susceptible to issues-look at all the people who've had issues with their Raptio

[ALLisNOISE]

Whoo boy!
Well, I purchased that pedal from them through their Reverb shop around Christmas, got it on Christmas Eve in fact.
Right out of the box, it started exhibiting the same issues. I tried it with my Voodoo Labs power supply, then with a single 1 Spot. I sat on the floor with that thing for an hour, to no avail. Mind you, my foot never touched this thing. I was using my hands the entire time. I boxed it back up, and shot them an email hoping to just get my money back.
I waited a few days with no reply (Christmas, I know...) then shot them another email. About a day after that, a fella name Ric got back to me saying that he'd personally tested the pedal, but he'd reach out to the builder. He then suggested that I might have it on a weird setting. I thanked him for that, but told him that I was familiar with pedals like the MASF Raptio, and that I knew what I experienced was not how the pedal was supposed to function, and I was uncomfortable owning it. I just wanted my money back, so he tells me to send it back. I do, but I don't hear from them a couple of days after USPS tracking says it's been delivered. By this time, it's right after the new year, so I just send a little email asking when they were going to process my return back to PayPal. He hits me back by saying that the pedal was never malfunctioning, and I was on the hook for a 15% restock fee (because the box was now unsealed... it was in a cardboard box with no seal to begin with.) or store credit.
At this point, I just want my money back because I know that the pedal was malfunctioning.
I even tell them "good luck to next person you sell it to".
After I refuse to accept the restock fee, he then comes to the conclusion to give me all of my money back minus $10 to cover his shipping.
So I argue that I should get $10 back because I had to ship back a malfunctioning pedal.
I open a Reverb claim, and talk to the customer service representative about what my options are.
Apparently, he'd also started a claim about the situation as well, because for whatever reason, I get emailed a transcript of his Reverb conversation in which he called me "unreasonable" and that I had "buyer's remorse" because the pedal was too "weird" for me.
At this point, I'm infuriated, so I email him back and threaten to get PayPal involved.

Here, he relents and refunds my entire amount, but shoots me an email about how he "took the high road" and how next time I'm "just looking" that I should check out YouTube. Then he gives me a math lesson on how much it costs small businesses to ship pedals.


Overall, this is more about this particular customer service interaction, and how poorly I feel they handled it.
I get that parts go bad. I had a switch in a Fuzzhugger pedal go bad. Not Tom's fault. But that's the difference in these two situations. Tom didn't infer that I didn't know what I was doing. He told me to send it back, and he replaced it.
I'm sure if I'd had the ability (and pleasure, I'm sure) to deal with Bananana directly, then this situation would've gone much differently.

TL; DR:
I'm sure I'll buy a Bananana pedal again,but it definitely won't be from these guys.

[ALLisNOISE]

Maybe these type of glitch pedals are just very susceptible to issues-look at all the people who've had issues with their Raptio

For what it's worth, my Raptio (and Possessed, when I owned one) never once gave an issue.

Is there a "knock on wood" emoji?

[elevenstrings]

Holy shit. This is why I hate dealing with middlemen. Jumpei's English is pretty good (or his translation software is pretty good) just order directly - I think the shipping is @ $10 and pretty quick from Japan. I would also let him know this happened as he would be disappointed that his one US distributor is doing this kind of thing.

[DRodriguez]

Shit, that's way worse than I thought.

Pete, if you can, escalate with reverb if you bought it there so that there is a record at reverb of the shenanigans.

[ziltoid]

I want one of those bananana sequencer.

[Inconuucl]

Maybe these type of glitch pedals are just very susceptible to issues-look at all the people who've had issues with their Raptio

For what it's worth, my Raptio (and Possessed, when I owned one) never once gave an issue.

Is there a "knock on wood" emoji?

I'm almost sure that was just me, twice. I'm just unlucky I guess.

[Pete]

Wow! Thanks for sharing your experiences, ALLisNOISE. This sucks.

I even tell them "good luck to next person you sell it to".

Maybe now that they've received the same complaints about the pedal, they'll realize the pedal was malfunctioning, all along.

Apparently, he'd also started a claim about the situation as well, because for whatever reason, I get emailed a transcript of his Reverb conversation in which he called me "unreasonable" and that I had "buyer's remorse" because the pedal was too "weird" for me.
At this point, I'm infuriated, so I email him back and threaten to get PayPal involved.

Here, he relents and refunds my entire amount, but shoots me an email about how he "took the high road" and how next time I'm "just looking" that I should check out YouTube. Then he gives me a math lesson on how much it costs small businesses to ship pedals.

Pathetic. Love how he made all these condescending assumptions about you, based on nothing. Saying you had "buyers remorse" because the pedal was too weird. It's buyers remorse because you received a defective product. Next time you're "just looking", you should check out youtube. What an ass. I guess he was just running with the idea that this was an impulse buy, where you just dropped $200 on a pedal you had never heard before, and knew nothing about.



I might just go to the store in person next weekend. Looks like it's about 45 minutes away from me

[Pete]

Shit, that's way worse than I thought.

Pete, if you can, escalate with reverb if you bought it there so that there is a record at reverb of the shenanigans.

Didn't buy it from reverb, bought it from the store's website. I had been searching for a Mandala on reverb for the past few days, but there weren't any listings. Then I googled the pedal and saw that Guitar Pedal Shoppe was selling it, so I bought it. Now I realize maybe they took it off of reverb, so that the next person who bought it couldn't file a Reverb claim.

[hotknife]

Sorry this happened, Pete. Hoping you get your rupees back. This is also why I dislike dealing with middlemen. Buying something advertised as new and receiving a store demo/customer return has been a surprisingly common experience for me.

[Pete]

Update:

The store owner/guy I emailed was actually very cool with me. He had me ship back the pedal, he contacted Bananana and Jumpei (seems like a great guy) mailed me a replacement Mandala. I picked it up from the post office today and just tested it out. It works perfectly.

[UglyCasanova]

That's great news! Does anyone know when the arp thing is being released? Want a piece of that still.

[ALLisNOISE]

Stoked that it worked out for you!

Definitely post some clips if you can!

[hotknife]

Good feels all around.

That's great news! Does anyone know when the arp thing is being released? Want a piece of that still.

Last update a few weeks back was that prototyping is complete. Should be in the middle of production right now.

[Ruiner]

Y'all seen this???

https://instagram.com/p/BSGkN5RDgv8/