Austin Bazaar – Cashback, Rebates & Rewards

Austin Bazaar is a .Com business that sells music industry related equipment among other things, online, and is also a seller on Amazon. I purchased a fairly expensive lighting and stage equipment control unit from them via Amazon. The outside package arrived damaged, water stained and had been retaped by Fedex. The product package was also retaped in a similar manner. The product was not properly seated in it’s factory foam, and appeared to me to have been a used unit, instead of new (micro scratches on the plastic view meter lens, as though it had been wiped off). I immediately returned it via Amazon and requested a refund. Austin Bazaar requested photos, which I tried to upload via Amazon Messenger; upload failed. Then they insisted I send them photos outside of Amazon Messenger (policy violation), but they could not share their URL due to Amazon policy… they made me Google them. I sent the photos. Long story short, took me over 3 weeks to get the refund. Amazon usually refunds as soon as the tracking system shows it is on the way back. They had me jumping through a bunch of unnecessary hoops, and then on top of all that aggravation, had the audacity to charge me a restocking fee when none of this was my fault. I found their customer service to be poor, and they never addressed my complaint that I thought they sold me a used unit. I will not ever purchase anything from this company again. There are plenty of retailers that want to earn your business. This does not seem to be one of them. And they did not treat me as well as all of the other retailers I bought similar equipment and lighting from… I spent over $14,000 in two weeks on a large project… happy to say not another penny went to them after that debacle.