Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Brand New Kawai Arrived Damaged. What Can I Do?

Gombessa,

I could not refuse delivery because there was not damage to the box. I opened the box and the unit had the cosmetic damage to the left cheekblock. I notified the dealer as soon as I opened the box and sent him pictures. I did not even test the keyboard. The pictures I e-mailed to the dealer showed I did not remove the transparent protective tape over the keys. I'm going to upload one of those pictures here. I did not remove tape and did not test the unit until the dealer told me to do so one or two days later. It was then when I noticed the problem with the keys. I notified dealer about the problem with the keys and a video was submitted to Kawai

I contacted them about both options: 1-keeping unit with cosmetic damage,covered under Kawai warranty and a discount (I did not even suggested a figure, "let's just talk about it" 2- full refund or replacement without shipping charges.

No reply

I just called and e-mailed again. When I call they transfer me to employees who say not to have the authority . I asked to talk to a higher position employee without any luck. I will not wait much longer until I tell you the name of the dealer. I would not want another person to have to go through this. Some of you may disagree but I am not pleased with Kawai either.

For a non-responsive dealer or one that seems to be passing you around departments, I would say you should wash your hands of it. If they're treating you this way now, how do you know you'll ever get full a full remedy, and what will you expect of them if something else goes wrong?

Demand a full refund, including shipping fees (and have them cover the return shipping cost) due to damaged/non-functional merchandise. Make a record of when you called and what you asked for. If they don't respond, file a dispute with your card issue and request a chargeback on the full amount.

You have to understand that Kawai is in a bit of a bind here. They're not privy to the transaction between you and the dealer, and they don't know both sides of the story. The fact that the unit was damaged without box damage does suggest something happened during manufacturing/shipping, but it's understandable that they want you to try to fix things through the dealer first. E.g., they don't know if you're privately worked out a monetary settlement with the dealer to keep the damaged merchandise, and then called Kawai to get a warranty fix (double dipping). Your first point of action should be with the dealer that sold you the goods.

Unfortunately you have haphazard US consumer protection laws over different states. Filing a small dollar claim in state N from California is a non-starter and the seller knows that.

Fortunately, US credit card companies can be quite accommodating in these types of situations. Read up on the internet how your card deals with large hardware broken in transit from another state and a non-responsive vendor. I don't know if you want to inform the credit card company just yet or wait until the holiday week ends. As the transaction was cleared weeks ago, I just don't know if time is of the essence for the credit card.

Getting a reimbursement from the credit card company will take months; from a practical perspective I don't think that matters too much but the process is somewhat painful and time consuming.

UPS and any shipping insurance may have some tighter reporting requirements.

When we received our first digital piano (cannot remember the model )there was damage to
a wooden panel on delivery.We contacted the Kawai dealer and he said he that the Kawai
factory would supply a new wood panel and a technician would replace it into the piano.
About a month later we traded in the Kawai digital for a new Roland Lx17.
The Kawai dealer was told about this transaction and they said we would receive the wood
panel in the post and we should contact the technician who would take the panel to the dealer who sold us the Roland.(they now had the Kawai piano which had not been sold yet)
Long story short the Kawai technician collected the panel went to the dealer who now had our traded in Kawai piano and installed the panel into the piano.
Best wishes

I'm on a different continent, but any time I needed to get the credit card company involved, I had to wait 30 days for the seller to fix things, and if they didn't the money was refunded immediately after that.

Perhaps Kawai's solution to Lady Bird's piano problem would be the easiest for everyone involved. Maybe that has to be sorted out between Kawai and the dealer.

Hello Dave,

I'm sorry to read that the dealer is proving unresponsive.

I would like to assist, but am a little reluctant to get involved, especially as you are already in contact with Kawai America staff regarding this matter.

Kind regards,
James
x

James,
Thank you. I understand

GOOD! for Dave that he hasn't.