Christopher Woods?

[boyd]

I'm on the completed list, but have nothing to show for it

I refuse to give up hope. I purchased this guitar and then found out that my wife was prego, so I wanted a refund so I could buy some stuff we needed for the baby and he very firmly told me no. He had no regard for my request.

[JShred]

Oh, I wish I could be married to Prego, it's much better than that watery Ragu stuff.

Oh, you mean the other kind. Well, grats, have a cigar. Your kid will be ditching the training wheels before you get your Woods project.

By the time mine is done, I'll probably have arthritis or carpal tunnel and I'll give it to my kid for high school graduation.

On the subject of suits and fraud claims and all that, I think we've dabbled in that occasionally over the life of this unusually long thread which seems to have taken on its own weird life. I think the only way to get a longer thread would be to drop a bomb on the forums with something stupid like "Best Guitar Player Ever?" or "Red Sox or Yankees?" or the ever popular "Who is better, Satch or Vai?"

But getting back to lawsuits and criminal claims, etc, I think one Jemsite user actually did sit down with a lawyer to get things going, and was basically told that the always wonderful hole known as California has a statute of limitations of fraud cases. The limit is 2 years, which is actually right around the waiting time for a respectable custom guitar job. So while 2 years might work for something like a TV repair or having a plumber install a new toilet main in the new addition on your house, it really sucks for a custom piece of craftsmanship that could very easily take over a year. By the time your spidey senses start to tingle that this is either a scam or gross incompetence, it's too late, or so says the Golden (shower) State.

At this point, as much as it saddens me, I'd be happy to just get back my money and my parts. I worked on the passion & warfare design with Woods, and since we finalized the deluxe design that incorporates monkey grip and lion claw, he's probably built them for other people but not me. Who knows why. Probably because I have the latest version of the Edge Pro trem (like what's on brand new Jems now) and he probably can't figure out the routing for it. Who knows.

Oh well, in lieu of stupid government, I'm a free markets guy. Bad publicity and word of mouth (jemsite etc) will bury his business, if it isn't buried already. For all we know, he's living in a cabin in Canada and occasionally pretending to update the site (moving food around on your plate so it looks like you're eating) just so we don't get wise.

It's been said before, and I'll say it again, don't ever commission anything from CWG.

[dgabriel713]

I understand.. PEOPLE start Paying with VISA or AMERICAN EX, OR MASTER CARD! its a whole lot easier to get your money refunded..
They Take on FRAUD CLAIMS on your behalf.
its beautiful to know they can legally take it out of the vendors bank account once the bank card finishes their investigation!
Either way it puts the VENDOR in the position in where they have to provide evidence that you have received the ITEM. Sometimes your bank will take care of you. Good luck to all!

[JShred]

Yesterday the Woods website got an update, first in a couple months or so.
I will paste it below.

Yes, I know it's a forum faux pas to post a giant massive hunk of text, but since we've all mostly stopped even checking the woods website, I figure I'm saving yall the trouble.

By the way, he's moving, to an undisclosed location. Maybe a secret bunker miles beneath the earth's crust.

- - -


Friday September 6, 2010

Huge Changes coming up:

I've certainly gone through lots of changes over the past 10 years with some good and some not so good. I've accomplished some amazing things and learned some things the hard way.

Next will be several new endeavors and utilizing my past experiences to make some new positive shifts.

First - I am moving.

I am moving out of California and will be setting up in a totally new location. At this point I am not exactly sure where but I've picked a few locations in the mid-west that are appealing. Personally I am very excited about this and professionally this will be a new start for completely different CWG (read on) In doing this I'll be cutting the overhead expenses down drastically. This will allow me to have a whole new meaning to the nature of taking on guitar building jobs. To be blunt, I won't need to do it for income anymore. This will allow me time to fous on the original designs that I actually love building and I will only accept custom requests that I find appealing to create.

So at this point right now I am not accepting any new orders. And I do not intend to accept any orders for neck, body, or kit orders at all in the future. I had a great run with these but it is time to move on. As for custom guitar orders, I will be accepting these again once everything is situated. I am totally guessing here but probably between January - March 2011.

After the move I plan to run production style with the CWG Signature guitars and will be doing runs of about 5 per month. I may still offer them direct or I may sell exclusive to dealers. As for the custom orders, I will probably only accept about 6 to 10 of these per year and definitely no more then 1 in production with 1 "on-deck".

Current Orders - First Let me re-cap the numbers. 63 jobs on order (lowest it has been in years) I have 10 jobs ready to go this week and another 5 easy ones lined up for next week. That will bring the 2-do down to 48. Which is nice beacuse it seems like the smaller the list gets, the less jumping around, the more gets done. I've been turning jobs away for about the last 2 months so it actually showing in the numbers now. Again, I am guessing on the move date but I suspect that this will happen around December. If anything changes, I'll post info here. But this will give me about 3 months to wrap up all the remaining jobs.

As things develop, I'll post info here.

[shesky]

Originally Posted by dgabriel713

I understand.. PEOPLE start Paying with VISA or AMERICAN EX, OR MASTER CARD! its a whole lot easier to get your money refunded..
They Take on FRAUD CLAIMS on your behalf.
its beautiful to know they can legally take it out of the vendors bank account once the bank card finishes their investigation!
Either way it puts the VENDOR in the position in where they have to provide evidence that you have received the ITEM. Sometimes your bank will take care of you. Good luck to all!

Absolutely true, this is how I received my money back from Sims. It really doesn't matter how long its been either. If you chose to pay by paypal, use a credit card, and you are still protected. Not by paypal, they are worthless, but your credit card company trumps all. Good luck to those waiting.

shesky

[Jack Secret]

He forgot to thank everyone for the advance money to be able to move out to California.

[dgabriel713]

Jack Secret.. that is so true. Moving van time.

[boyd]

Originally Posted by JShred

Oh, I wish I could be married to Prego, it's much better than that watery Ragu stuff.

Oh, you mean the other kind. Well, grats, have a cigar. Your kid will be ditching the training wheels before you get your Woods project.

By the time mine is done, I'll probably have arthritis or carpal tunnel and I'll give it to my kid for high school graduation.

On the subject of suits and fraud claims and all that, I think we've dabbled in that occasionally over the life of this unusually long thread which seems to have taken on its own weird life. I think the only way to get a longer thread would be to drop a bomb on the forums with something stupid like "Best Guitar Player Ever?" or "Red Sox or Yankees?" or the ever popular "Who is better, Satch or Vai?"

But getting back to lawsuits and criminal claims, etc, I think one Jemsite user actually did sit down with a lawyer to get things going, and was basically told that the always wonderful hole known as California has a statute of limitations of fraud cases. The limit is 2 years, which is actually right around the waiting time for a respectable custom guitar job. So while 2 years might work for something like a TV repair or having a plumber install a new toilet main in the new addition on your house, it really sucks for a custom piece of craftsmanship that could very easily take over a year. By the time your spidey senses start to tingle that this is either a scam or gross incompetence, it's too late, or so says the Golden (shower) State.

At this point, as much as it saddens me, I'd be happy to just get back my money and my parts. I worked on the passion & warfare design with Woods, and since we finalized the deluxe design that incorporates monkey grip and lion claw, he's probably built them for other people but not me. Who knows why. Probably because I have the latest version of the Edge Pro trem (like what's on brand new Jems now) and he probably can't figure out the routing for it. Who knows.

Oh well, in lieu of stupid government, I'm a free markets guy. Bad publicity and word of mouth (jemsite etc) will bury his business, if it isn't buried already. For all we know, he's living in a cabin in Canada and occasionally pretending to update the site (moving food around on your plate so it looks like you're eating) just so we don't get wise.

It's been said before, and I'll say it again, don't ever commission anything from CWG.

Thank you! And you're right.

Okay, so I talked to some really big time, super expensive lawyer while I had a chance for free. The guy knows his stuff. Granted, this was free advice because he was in the same place as I was for a different reason, but I tried to bug him for this case. Told him real quick what was going on and he said that we should get in touch with the state's Consumer Protection program. Every state has one and when you contact them with a good case, they will get in touch with the guy, which is way better than the slap on the wrist the BBB will give. he said, "If you do that, you will have the state backing you up, and that is something he will have to answer to."

Just thought I'd share this info with you guys.

[JShred]

Update; he must have read me complaining about my 5+ year job being almost last in line, because now it IS last in line. Not even in a cool way like Dio. lol

[dgabriel713]

yes.. you gotta understand that he needs the Glue to properly dry. You cant rush ordinary craftsmanship.

[boyd]

I responded to that e-mail he sent out about moving since he never responds to anything I send him from his website. I asked if he was done with mine since it says it's in the Shipping area and this is what he said:

"Boyd,

Again, I'll let you know when the guitar is shipped.

I added the words "Shipping Cue" to the list so that you won't be confused.
This group is being processed out.

Thanks,
Chris"

WTF? How long does it take to ship a guitar from your store?

[JShred]

Well, to be fair, it takes a while to ship something that doesn't exist yet.
Logistics can be tricky like that.

[boyd]

Originally Posted by JShred

Well, to be fair, it takes a while to ship something that doesn't exist yet.
Logistics can be tricky like that.

You and your logic!!! You're very right.

[Ibateur]

I hope you don't get a snooker/billiard cue, since he did say "shipping cue"

[boyd]

I didn't notice that...