My story is more on after sales service.
I remember back in 1994 or 96 (tagal na no?) my dad bought me a brand new washburn acoustic from Yamaha southmall. It was a washburn d-10n if I remember correctly. after a few months, one of the tuning pegs broke off. it was still under warranty so we took it back to the store where we bought it from and they instructed us to bring it to their main office at Makati. when we got to there, this guy told us to leave the guitar and come back after a month to claim it...well, I was a noob, and I thought "bakit ang tagal?"...anyway, we left the guitar and waited for a month. After a month, I decided to call them to inquire if the guitar was ready for pickup. this guy named bel sayson told me that the unit was still not ready because they are waiting for the shipment of the parts. asked him when can we expect it but never got a direct answer...so I just decided to wait again. after a month uli...I called and got the same reply. to cut the story short, mr. bel sayson offered me that they would replace the broken tuner with a non-original part...and since, im so excited to play my newly acquired guitar, I said im ok with it. so we went to yupangco, expecting that, at least, the non-original tuning peg was already installed (and somehow, looks and fits like the original). We arrived there and a guy brought my guitar from another room still with the broken tuning peg...and handed me what looked like a cheap used tuning peg from a different guitar...it didn't even look like the original...even the screw holes were not aligned with the original screw holes. Out of disappointment, I just took the guitar and non-original tuning peg and installed it myself. simula noon, nagging masama na talaga ang tingin ko sa after sales service sa pilipinas.
it's funny because back in 2006 or 2007, during my stint with ursaminor, I met bel sayson in one of our gigs. never told him my story ...pero yeah, in my experience, yupangco's after service sucked back in the 90s. ewan ko lang ngayon.
