My husband was going to use Gary for lessons. Before he started I explained he had back issues, and may miss lessons on occasion, but would be willing to make them up other days. During the practice lesson Gary kept yawning and seemed like he could barely stay awake at 2pm on a Wednesday. The day before my first full lesson my grandfather got a flat tire, and my husband was the only one who could help. While changing the flat tire he threw his back out. Later that same day he found out he would need to accompany the same grandfather to an appointment at the VA. He sent Gary a message at 10:45 about his back for that week, and a second message saying he would need to do the lesson the following week on a different day the week after, He sent him another message at 6:30 to see if he had gotten the others, lastly I called shortly after 8pm. Gary didn't respond until the next day when my husband sent a message saying he wouldn't be using his service, and would like a refund of the money that had been prepaid. This was sent at 10:46 AM. Gary at 10:52 which I could write off as a fluke, but previous texts about using his service, and pricing had all been responded to within five minutes. His response was full of excuses, going so far as to say I hadn't contacted him until well after 4. I sent him a screenshot showing the several texts I had sent him, to which he replied there was no need to be cynical and that he had more students than he could handle. He also mentioned he couldn't check his phone during lessons, the problem with that is my husband witnessed him checking his phone, and responding to text messages during the trial lesson. Going a step further all texts regarding money were responded to within five minutes. After requesting the refund my husband had to tell Gary several times to stop contacting him unless he needed to inorder to facilitate the refund. He instead sent him several more text messages (that I considered rude in nature), and called him. It only stopped when we threatened to have the police involved for electronic harassment. Hopefully this will stop him from further harassment. Additionally it took several text messages to get him to simply refund the money. Eventually we did get the refund. Based on what it took to finally get the refund taken care of I would suggest that if you're going to use Gary's service you pay on a per lesson basis once you're at the lesson.
I don't know if Gary was being snyde about the situation, or if he simply hadn't paid attention to when things were coming in, but his texts and his home call made me 100% certain we had made the right choice in choosing not to retain his services. I would suggest to anyone else considering Gary they look elsewhere.
The review left by my husband was marked as not recommended because he used a secondary yelp account to respond to Gary's response. His response made me think even less of Gary who instead of addressing the issues brought up in the post started talking about giving people guitars, and how not responding to text messages until he was told we wouldn't be using him was because he didn't feel responses were necessary. As well as various other things that had no relevance to the review. He then said he would be glad to share the text messages with anyone. My husband is more then happy to do the same. In fact he will go one step further, and share voicemails left by Gary after he had been told several times to stop contacting us.
I appreciate that Gary has spent time building his business. I would imagine most people have put a lot of time into their selected profession. So when Gary also used this as part of his response to a bad review it came across like a person who insists on being on the cross.
Lastly and directed to Gary if you tell people what to bring to a lesson you wouldn't have to give away the $0.60 three hole binders. You wouldn't have to give students any of the other things you claimed to have simply given to people like guitars. read more
