Orion Engine Blog

After over 9 weeks waiting for warranty repair, a ridiculously long time, I finally got my Roland Fantom G6 back! I sure hope I don’t ever have to return it for repair any time soon.

Let me tell you, it’s a good thing it was finally fixed. I was starting to get very pissed off over the whole matter. After all the times I bugged Roland on the phone, I never got one straight answer. It was always, “let me check on that and call you back”. But in reality, that translated into “we will probably be too busy to call you back, but let me tell you that we will call anyway”. It appears they were hoping that it would buy them another week or two. I was about to contact the Attorney General in California where Roland is located. Maybe the Better Business Bureau could have helped. There is no reason why any warranty repair should take this long. People shouldn’t have to put up with this crap when something is so new. I don’t care if the part is coming from Japan.  I’ve shipped things there, and it sure didn’t take anywhere near that long. But what I’m being told is that most companies are too big anymore to take care of their customers. It’s simply not physically possible anymore, I guess. Companies should not be allowed to grow this large. This is simply absurd. If they are that busy, then they should have plenty of money to treat a customer right. It’s not like they couldn’t afford to repair my unit. They could have exchanged it for a whole new synthesizer. They have been in stock nationwide this whole time, I’ve been checking. Also, they could have paid for shipping the replacement part by air, instead of a slow boat from Japan. Heck, they could have even offered to extend my warranty for the length of time it was in repair. My warranty shouldn’t slowly tick away while I’m not able to use it. Instead, they chose to not offer me anything; not even a courtesy call to ease my mind.

My loyalty to Roland keyboards since the early 80’s is starting to quickly fade. In fact, my next keyboard probably won’t even be a Roland at all; I’ll probably look at the new Korg workstations instead. I took a huge risk buying my new Roland the day it was released, without even reading any reviews first. That is how much I used to trust them.

It’s been over 7 weeks since I took my brand spankin’ new Roland Fantom G6 in for repair. I talked to someone about this at Roland once again on Friday. The guy seemed somewhat more helpful than the first guy I spoke with a while back. He promised to have a supervisor call me back on Monday. Well it’s Tuesday now, and I’ve not heard back from Roland yet. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve felt more comfortable dealing with total strangers on eBay!

According to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, the company “must, as a minimum, remedy the consumer product within a reasonable time”. I don’t think I would have a hard time proving in court that this has not been a reasonable amount of time. If Roland can’t get a replacement part for my defective keyboard, then it’s time to step up to the plate and send me a new keyboard, immediately!

The service center working on my Roland Fantom G6 display problem called the other day. After nearly a month already, Roland is telling them it’s still going to be another 3-4 weeks to get my replacement part. This is extremely irritating. The keyboard was just released a few months ago. Everyone nationwide still has the keyboard in stock. Take the part out of one! No, they have to order a part from Japan. What happened to the days when you could walk into a store and exchange a busted item for another one that actually works? Bottom line, this sucks. It was hard to get the money to buy the thing. Now my money is tight, yet I have no keyboard to get enjoyment from! I called Roland’s customer service. They were of no help. At least the guy could have offered to check with the parts department on the status of my order and then call me back! This is very frustrating, to say the least.

I’m still waiting to get my new Roland Fantom G6 back from repair. The service center is still waiting for Roland to ship them the replacement part. That sucks, because I want to play my keyboard pretty bad.

I wrote a fair, unbiased, review on the keyboard for the Guitar Center web site. They said it may take up to 5 days before it appears, but I’ve been waiting for a while. It sounds like they don’t want to post it because it actually contains pros and cons. The con being that I feel the new display technology is fragile. I also feel that a 90 day labor warranty is too short for such an expensive piece. The review that they have on their web site right now is useless. The reviewer said “havent had a chance to play”, that is so funny. It was probably written by someone who works there. I should have known an honest review wouldn’t get posted.