イシバシ楽器 Reviews 

I cannot express how disappointed I am in Ishibashi Music company and the unethical practices I have experienced.
I have been searching for a specific model guitar for over 7 years. I was excited when one came up in my Reverb alerts being sold by this company in Japan. When I checked Ishibashi's website directly, the guitar was listed for $800 CAN less than on Reverb.
l researched and found most international customers that had dealt with this company had positive experiences. I communicated with them on three occasions about this guitar. The last making an offer, which was rejected for the reason: "Unfortunately, the price is fixed and we’re unable to accept offers."
So, I decided to purchase for the full price listed, ¥408,000 JPY [$3,900 CAN] + shipping, as I had been waiting years to acquire this model.
I spent 6 hours online today, attempting to purchase this guitar by the only means available on the Ishibashi webpage, PayPal, and kept getting rejection after rejection. I called PayPal a total of 4 times [do you know how difficult it is to get PayPal Customer Service] and they kept telling me it was a problem with my card, before changing their story and blaming Ishibashi's system. I tried another card, same issue. I called my credit card company 3 times, and each time they said their was not a problem at their end, I have over $20,000 of credit available.
During this time I sent 2 messages to Ishibashi asking for assistance. When someone finally did get back to me, their suggestion was to contact PayPal or to do a bank transfer, which could be done immediately. I was not in a position to do a bank transfer.
At 7:42pm, my local time, the guitar was in my shopping cart, as well as it was listed on Reverb. I made the suggestion "I see the guitar is available on Reverb, however for nearly $800.00 CAN more than on your site.  If you would accept an offer of $3901.00 CAN [¥408,000 JPY] , as listed on your webpage, on Reverb, I could place the order there."
I received no response and at 8:35 pm, my local time, I went to make another attempt to purchase on the Ishibashi webpage. The guitar had been removed from my cart and was no showing as "Sold Out", and the listing was ended on Reverb as well!
WHAT is going on! Is this Ishibashi's brand of "Customer Service"! I thought the Japanese people were "honorable"!
I have asked for an explanation! I have been met with silence!
I am disappointed and ANGRY with both Ishibashi and PayPal!

A usually polite and mild Canadian

Ishibashi just responded to me as I complete this review:
"We sincerely apologize,
but the item in question has been ordered domestically.
Please rest assured that we take your feedback seriously and will use it as a valuable reference for future improvements."
Unacceptable...the item was in my cart and they knew I was making every effort to purchase!

Super fast delivery, better than expected condition (great quality photographs of the goods), well packaged. Have had 2 experiences with this company. Fabulous service.

Communications were rapid and to the point. The shipping astonishingly fast, the pricing good and the instrument quality and condition better than expected.

Fast answers to my queries, polite communications and very fast shipping. Guitar arrived in expected condition, well packed and undamaged. If I was pushed to find something negative to say about the experience, I would mention the fact the pictures they take are somewhat flattering but they are not really deceptive in any way. Basically, if you are buying a 35+ year old guitar like I was, you should expect a few scratches at the least. The guitar I bought was in excellent condition for its age.

I would definitely buy directly from Ishibashi again as their prices are substantially lower than those of the Japanese resellers on eBay (including their own eBay prices!)

Gibson acoustic purchased on a Thursday, arrived through DHL in perfect condition, well packed, excellent tracking and communications - 6 days later in the midst of a pandemic lockdown here and in Tokyo. Brilliant.

Everything about Ishibashi has been an absolute pleasure, she was shipped on the 3rd from Japan and arrived at my doorstep in Australia on the 7th. All lines of commication, were quickly answered. The guitar was packed professionally and she was in the exact condition as advertised. Will without a doubt, do business again!. Thank you Ishibashi Music!.

Lazy scheister scumbags. I bought an american guitar from them and asked them to make sure this was marked the invoice, because there are no duties on items returning to the US. They took my money and refused to so, they overcharged for shipping and took their sweet time shipping it as well. Because of their laziness it was help up at customs. They also took bad pictures to hide the deep scratches in the finish and refused to pay for the return of the guitar. They will only take the guitar back and refund the purchase price not including the hundreds of dollars I paid to ship the guitar. Which I wouldnt have done if they photographed it correctly. Now I'm stuck with it.

These guys are lazy, liars and extremely rude.

Stay away from them. Ikebe and rockin online are great stores in japan who care about their customers and are honest.
If you need a japanese guitar go to those guys.

I ordered a musical instrument from Ishibashi in Japan. There were problems from the start of the transaction and after three days of back and forth emails I ended up cancelling the order after they found damage to three or four places on the item that wasn't disclosed in the advertising photos: cracked and chipped lacquer that they attempted to minimise as 'light scratches' that were 'hard to see'. They refused to take any money off or provide any compensation whatsover. Even a goodwill gesture of ten or twenty dollars off the total would have secured the sale for me by showing that they meant well and were willing to show it. On an order value of over $800 this would have been no skin off their nose. So it was a case of 'you've paid us over $800 for this used guitar (from our stock of tens of thousands of musical instruments) but we've found some new damage that wasn't in the listing and no we aren't going to take any money off, not even ten dollars'. I told them to give me a refund.

Whilst overall they were polite in emails, I found their overall attitude to doing business was primarily focussed on maximising their own profits, not providing customers with a good experience so that they are more likely to come back to purchase more in the future, and to recommend them to friends, or online. I later discovered that their eBay prices are quite a bit higher than their website prices, for example. A whole $90 more in my case. This allows them to give a 'best offer' on eBay, where you have the chance to offer less on used stock but even then, you can expect any reduction to be higher than their website price, creating the illusion that you're getting a better deal, when you aren't. So refusing to take a few bucks off for damage that they discovered after the sale went through, seems especially mean-spirited. It left me feeling that if I did have any problems with the item after it arrived I couldn't expect to receive any real customer support from them, just a battle to recover my money.

A further red flag to my 'profit before people' suspicions about Ishibashi Music can be found in their terms and conditions on eBay. Namely, if you are sent an item from their company in Japan and it arrives damaged or defective, they will only refund the cost of the item EXCLUDING customs duty, taxes, paypal fees, and shipping fees! Customs charges and shipping alone on my used guitar was easily going to be a minimum of £300 (about $425). So the risk of buying from them is extremely high, particularly as they often ship instruments in a soft gigbag, not a hardshell case, and so courier damage is a real possibility. Their terms also state that you the buyer, not they the seller, have to make a report to the insurance company.

Dealing with Ishibashi over three or four days of all this was a complete waste of my time and effort and I have made it a point to share my experience of Ishibashi Music, Japan to help anyone out there avoid an expensive and frustrating time if they decide to buy a used instrument from them.