Mc,

I'm afraid he did buy it from Frank!

Sad, really sad.

I don't think Frank is personally at fault in all of this though do you? Ketron Italy is the main culprit because they haven't supplied the necessary support or parts to mitigate and solve skude's Audya problems.

If Frank's hands are tied because Ketron Italy won't come through on their end then that leaves Frank helpless to rectify the situation or to even help out. Frank's shop shouldn't be held culpable in skude's ongoing situation in my opinion.

On the other hand, Ketron Italy and Ketron U.S. should be held accountable, but what can you do when the company and its U.S. distributor are thousands of miles away and/or continue to defy support for their own products on a respectable, consistent basis?

What everyone should learn from this spectacle is to STAY FAR FAR AWAY FROM KETRON PRODUCTS and don't touch them with a ten foot pole unless you want to be out thousands of dollars of your hard earned money with NOTHING to show for it. Or possibly Pay and then "Pray" you get a good one. I mean, if your five thousand plus dollar supposedly top of the line keyboard is full of bugs and has other serious issues and problems and Ketron won't fix it, it's basically like having a $5,000.00 plus dollar paper weight lying around that is essentially good for NOTHING, right?

Ketron could be getting ready to call it quits and perhaps are in the process of shutting down and shuttering their doors even as we speak. Technics shut their doors rather suddenly too (to everyone's surprise) and towards the end support tended to dry up as well if I'm not mistaken. My advice is to stick with the Big Three (or Casio) and then pray they don't go belly up too. Yamaha will definitely be around for a long time and same goes for Roland since they are #1 & #2 in size and monetary soundness. Although Roland desperately needs to release a new TOTL arranger soon or they may encounter a mass defection by customers if they fail to do so in my opinion. Korg, on the other hand, is rather small in size by comparison and they're probably more at risk of going under during these tough global economic times than either Yammie or Roland are. Here's a thought? What would life be like for us musicians without having the availability of any arrangers or other type(s) of keyboards for sale on the world market? Zip, Nada, Zilch! If the global financial meltdown keeps getting worse and worse we may find out. Perish the thought, right?

All the best,
Mike

Mike I can only agree with you about the Ketron part of your post...the rest seems very imaginary...Frank has always been nothing less then Top NOTCH as a friend and dealer & in NO WAY responsible for what keeps occurring with Audya owners. They have made up their minds to buy the product even with all the problems stated all over the Internet, they have heard the unit on demos & you tube etc, and let the chips fall where they may. I personally saw the very first Audya in Louisiana demonstrated by AJ & was temped to buy also..but a little birdie told me to wait and I'm glad I did. I wish no ill fate on whomever has one, good drums & bass isn't worth this aggravation, I just feel bad this is happening to my fellow musicians out there. I Know that I would be VERY PISSED for sure.The Owners should really make a statement on their website for owners also to explain why.... Here hoping better days are ahead for Ketron owners.

Mike,

Thanks for that and your support, but the answer to your question must be yes, Frank is fully embedded in the loop with CMC and Ketron and there is no way out. If this was going to a court of law Skude bought the Audya from Frank and Frank is first in line of fire, he then needs to bring CMC and Ketron to book on this. I know it sound a bit mercenary but the way Ketron will look at it is simple, CMC made money and so did Frank, so sort it out between you! Alas no one has sorted it out.

Regards

Tony

Tony..you are wrong..in a court of law..Frank the dealer fulfilled his obligation...Orchestrated the deal between Ketron and the buyer...His contract was to supply a new Audya with a factory warranty for a certain price..He delivered and fulfilled his contract...Dealers can and usually do try to help to speed up the warranty process..but they can only connect the parties involved...Moving to another country can be a conflict of warranty ..and that is up to Ketron and their policies..

Frank is clear legally and ethically....but you can bet your last dollar he would still be willing to do what he "can" do...

Fran,

I am sure he will still do all he can, that’s what Skude is still hoping for, Fran here in the UK, the credit card company would give Skude his money back, but here the writ would be served on the person who sold the KB. Is it different in the states. Skude should not be chasing Ketron direct, anything they do for him direct will be a bonus, but I am not holding my breath. Their past record is not very good, not just my words, lots of complaints about Ketron on SZ.


Tony

I put a laptop that would not get past boot-up in what VISA calls a dispute. They told me to send the laptop back to the party that sent it to me. In 30 days I had a credit for the full amount on my VISA. I think I did this in a couple of weeks after my GURU couldn't figure it out. I don't know if there's a time limit to put something in dispute with VISA or not. I might add that this was through Pay Pal. Pay Pay asked me not to do this but that next time put the dispute in with them. However, I heard that they takes months to resolve a dispute.

Fran,

I don’t understand that philosophy – if you buy a compact Ford from your local dealer and it needs work doing under guarantee, the dealer does the work – Ford supply the parts free and the dealer charges set rates back to ford to do the work, that’s the way it works in the UK. And that’s the way that Ketron will work with the exception of paying for the likes of Frank to do the work on the KB, they won’t want to pay Frank anything, the reason is simple they are not as big as Ford and Ford are slick at what they and it works, BTW people don’t take Fords back to the factory and hand them back in and get their money back and neither do Audya owners.

Tony, the difference is the repairs are done by authorized repair centers...Most of the "Ford" dealers would be qualified service centers...in the Musical Instrument dealers..not all..in fact the majority are not authorized repair centers..Each manufacturer has qualifications thae the service center needs to become a "authorized" repair center...

Skudes case is a little more complicated than most.

He brought the instrument in the USA, but lives in Norway.

The Norway distributor is not going to be over inclined to help as he has not been paid to support this particular customer. He certainly could not afford to exchange the Audya with stock he has brought himself..

The law does not require the USA distributor to help because Skude is not in the USA.

So on paper Skude is left alone. But morally he shouldn't be. If Skude had brought the Audya from one of our dealers in the UK and moved to Norway we would first make an offer of any parts he might need (which would be with him within days) Or if there was no qualified person to fit the parts we would insist he return the Audya to us for repair (postage at his cost). The situation would be resolved within a week or two at the most.

If he had lived and stayed in the UK we would have just swapped the keyboard over, its the easiest and least frustrating option.