Disclaimer: I'm not looking to slander the company or its owner Wayne Richman. I'm sure the company did great work (note the tense there: DID), and I'm sure Wayne is a good guy. But people need to be aware of what I went through, because from what I've seen here on TB and on their own Tone-Guard's Facebook page, I'm not the only one who has had an unpleasant experience with this company.
Let me start this off by saying, DO NOT PLACE AN ORDER WITH TONE-GUARD. At least not right now. Maybe things will get better in the future, maybe they won't, but for the time being, you should basically consider their website dead.
Here's my story: back in November of 2017, I placed an order with them for a P-Bass pickguard. No transaction issues, as it was via PayPal. I didn't hear anything back from them the entire rest of 2017. Not a peep. Knowing that they were based out of Southern California, and knowing that the December wildfires devastated parts of it, I thought maybe that was slowing them down. But I still hoped to hear SOMETHING from them. Alas, nada.
I made my first attempt to reach out to them on January 3rd via email, simply asking if they received the order or had any updates they could give me. Once again, crickets. I waited another 3 weeks to contact them again. This time, I emailed them AND attempted to message them via Facebook. My email was again met with silence and the Facebook message was answered via an automated response.
A month passes. At this point, it has now been over 3 months since I placed the order, and I had been exceedingly patient with them, but my patience was wearing thin. I hopped on to their website to see if there was another means of contacting them. I noticed a different email address from the one that was given to me via PayPal, so I decided to try that. I explained my situation, gave them the order information, and asked if there were any updates. THIS TIME, within 20 minutes, Wayne answered me.
His explanation was that he had been dealing with damage from the wildfires and a personal family matter that "had my complete attention for the past months+." He also said in that email, "Your parts are almost ready to ship out. [...] [They] should be ready by end of this week, or beginning of next week." Okay, fair enough, he hit on some hard times, but he's playing catch-up, and I should probably expect a shipping confirmation within a couple weeks, right?
Fast forward 8 weeks. Nothing.
So, on April 10th, I send a follow-up email to the address where he actually responded to me, asking if there was any news on my order. This time, like with the other email address, no response. I even attempted to call the office number listed on the website, but there was no answer.
I waited yet another month. The deadline for filing a dispute with PayPal is 180 days from date of transaction, and that time was drawing near. I sent one final email on May 7th, saying that if I didn't hear from him by the end of the week, I'd be filing a dispute. I didn't hear from him. After going through PayPal's dispute/claim process, I did finally get my money back a week ago, but... jeez, what a mess!
I don't think it's appropriate to get into the details of what Wayne's "personal family matter" was on a public forum. Suffice it to say, it's one of those things where I can definitely understand how it would take up damn near ALL of your time. But it just strikes me as irresponsible/bad business to leave your website open for orders when you don't have the time or the intent to actually fill them! If this family matter is what you have to focus on, then at least take a few minutes to lock down the order options on your website & tell people "we are not taking new orders at this time."
So, at least from what I've seen, it's not worth your time to even look at Tone-Guard if you're in the market for a gold anodized pickguard. Perhaps when his family matter is settled, they'll get back in the swing of things, but for now, DO NOT place an order with them.
Let me start this off by saying, DO NOT PLACE AN ORDER WITH TONE-GUARD. At least not right now. Maybe things will get better in the future, maybe they won't, but for the time being, you should basically consider their website dead.
Here's my story: back in November of 2017, I placed an order with them for a P-Bass pickguard. No transaction issues, as it was via PayPal. I didn't hear anything back from them the entire rest of 2017. Not a peep. Knowing that they were based out of Southern California, and knowing that the December wildfires devastated parts of it, I thought maybe that was slowing them down. But I still hoped to hear SOMETHING from them. Alas, nada.
I made my first attempt to reach out to them on January 3rd via email, simply asking if they received the order or had any updates they could give me. Once again, crickets. I waited another 3 weeks to contact them again. This time, I emailed them AND attempted to message them via Facebook. My email was again met with silence and the Facebook message was answered via an automated response.
A month passes. At this point, it has now been over 3 months since I placed the order, and I had been exceedingly patient with them, but my patience was wearing thin. I hopped on to their website to see if there was another means of contacting them. I noticed a different email address from the one that was given to me via PayPal, so I decided to try that. I explained my situation, gave them the order information, and asked if there were any updates. THIS TIME, within 20 minutes, Wayne answered me.
His explanation was that he had been dealing with damage from the wildfires and a personal family matter that "had my complete attention for the past months+." He also said in that email, "Your parts are almost ready to ship out. [...] [They] should be ready by end of this week, or beginning of next week." Okay, fair enough, he hit on some hard times, but he's playing catch-up, and I should probably expect a shipping confirmation within a couple weeks, right?
Fast forward 8 weeks. Nothing.
So, on April 10th, I send a follow-up email to the address where he actually responded to me, asking if there was any news on my order. This time, like with the other email address, no response. I even attempted to call the office number listed on the website, but there was no answer.
I waited yet another month. The deadline for filing a dispute with PayPal is 180 days from date of transaction, and that time was drawing near. I sent one final email on May 7th, saying that if I didn't hear from him by the end of the week, I'd be filing a dispute. I didn't hear from him. After going through PayPal's dispute/claim process, I did finally get my money back a week ago, but... jeez, what a mess!
I don't think it's appropriate to get into the details of what Wayne's "personal family matter" was on a public forum. Suffice it to say, it's one of those things where I can definitely understand how it would take up damn near ALL of your time. But it just strikes me as irresponsible/bad business to leave your website open for orders when you don't have the time or the intent to actually fill them! If this family matter is what you have to focus on, then at least take a few minutes to lock down the order options on your website & tell people "we are not taking new orders at this time."
So, at least from what I've seen, it's not worth your time to even look at Tone-Guard if you're in the market for a gold anodized pickguard. Perhaps when his family matter is settled, they'll get back in the swing of things, but for now, DO NOT place an order with them.
I contacted Tone-Guard and Wayne about ordering a black anodized pickguard for it. He was super helpful, and very responsive right up until I pre-paid for it on January 6th. Crickets since then. No order confirmation, no invoice, no order number, no response or any documentation of any kind from Tone-Guard or Wayne since then. No human response to email (only a generic auto-responder). His "office" phone is a tape machine that doesn't take messages, and the company that actually received my payment was NOT Tone-Guard, but something called INSTRMARTS.