Just wondering if anyone has received a whistle from McHaffie recently or had any correspondence from him. Does anyone know of any news of him? I know he had some difficult times earlier this year, hopefully it hasn’t happened again. John, if you read this, drop us a line. Let us know how you are and when our whistles will ship. Thanks.
I am one of the lucky ones. John delivered to me 4 whistles (D, C, A, G), many months ago. The G was really out of tune with itself. He replaced the body. That fixed the problem. He gave me a low F - gratis - to get my opinion. One part of my order was not filled. When John ceased communicating with all of us, I was in the middle of a one-way e-mail campaign directed at the filling of that order. To date, I have not received my last item, and he will answer no e-mails. The 4 main whistles are in use by one of my band members. The volume level adjustment via the movable windway works well, when adjusted properly. The adjustment is tricky…Workmanship is average, and consistent from instrument to instrument.
John did go through some really rough times, a bit ago. I remain in support of him, and hope all is well. I have ceased attempting communication with him…
Good luck with your communication attempts.
Cheers.
Byll
I think Byll’s experience speaks for a lot of us. I am still awaiting delivery of a C/D set I ordered and paid for in April of 2000. Despite numerous emails and even a few letters, I have been unable to elicit any response from John since August. I have been in touch with several other customers that have also been left out in the cold. You can get a flavor by doing a search on keyword ‘McHaffie’.
If anyone does hear from John, or gets wind of any news, please share it with the rest of us.
Thanks,
Eric
I’m still hoping for a response from John McHaffie as well. I heard so many good comments about his whistles that I ordered one too, back in the spring of last year. I was pleased when John sent out the message at the end of August that we would all receive our orders within 90 days. Unfortunately, he has not replied to any of my emails for quite a while now.
Dave
I sent a snail mail (I hate that term - I’m a mailman) a week ago, plus I have sent email with a return receipt request. No response. The lack of a return receipt leads me to believe that he has no email capability, or is just not accessing his computer. I’m going to try a couple more ways to contact him within a couple weeks, just to give him time to respond. I’ll let you guys know if I have any result. I was kind of looking forward to having the low C I ordered in early July by Christmas…oh well.
On 2002-01-03 17:50, ScottStewart wrote:
I have sent email with a return receipt request. No response. The lack of a return receipt leads me to believe that he has no email capability, or is just not accessing his computer.
IMO you can’t read anything into the fact that you have not received a read receipt for the e-mail you sent to John McHaffie. Many people who use e-mail (including me) set their e-mail clients to “never send a read receipt”.
In any case, it is disheartening to hear of so many who have lost contact with John - I do hope he is okay 
I agree with you about setting one’s computer to never send the receipt. I have mine set that way. I would rather think that he hasn’t accessed his email than that he has read it and chosen not to reply. I am concerned, as you are, that something has happened to him. Until recently he was quick to reply to correspondence. Please do not think I am being critical in any way of this situation. I am only in search of info on John’s well-being and some resolution to this situation. I believe that when he is able, he will resolve all orders to the best of his ability.
I to would like to recieve word on the whereabouts and/or wellbeing of Mr. McHaffie. Ordered a Full Set through him beginning of summer, recieved word from him in August as did many of you, but have not heard anything for several months now. At this point I am more interested in how he is doing, rather than how my whistles are doing. If anyone recieves any word please let us all know.
I’ve been holding my tongue for some time hoping that John McHaffie would surface but I’m not sure I would hold my breath any longer waiting for a whistle from him.
Late last summer I went back to Missouri to visit family and paid John a visit since he didn’t live terribly far away. I’ve been seriously considering selling a very different kind of whistle and wanted to talk to him about startup dos and don’ts.
After finding his place in the boonies I was able to talk to him and his assistant for several hours. During the course of the conversation he told me that he was working on getting several of the local school systems to switch from recorders to his whistles and was successful with at least one system.
Unfortunately he was having problems successfully batching production of his whistles, which was causing much waste and many delays. He also expressed that he was going to start outsourcing almost all work on his whistles and was having problems getting the details worked out satisfactorily.
Gut feeling tells me not to believe a lot of the delay explanations he has been giving on the board as being true. I truly think he’s just gotten in over his head in orders and has probably given up completely since his web site has been down now for several months. (This is all personal opinion though.)
One thing I’m having difficulty reading into the messages in this thread is whether or not people are owed something by John, whether it be whistles or money – in other words, have you paid for whistles and not received them, or returned whistles and not received your money back?
I’ve been waiting for a refund for six months, after returning the unplayable whistles that took months to reach me. Of course, I’ve pretty much given up on ever seeing the money at this point, since he long ago stopped returning my email.
If there are a lot of people who’ve paid John and seen nothing for it, it might be worthwhile to look into settling accounts as a group.
- -Rich
Well, I’ve been holding my tongue too, but I have to agree with John - I think most of you will likely never see your instruments. It’s sad to say, and a disgusting thought, but I believe you’ve been had. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen many times before (fortuately not here), and I wouldn’t be surprised if McHaffie has moved on and is scamming someone else as we speak. I’d bet anything he’s done this before.
Loren
P.S. Okay John, maybe we do differ a little in what we think happened, just thought I’d add that to be fair to John.
I have been holding my tongue as well. I ordered a whistle from him a couple of years ago. After he said he sent it, I hadn’t received it, so he said he was sending “another.” I didn’t receive it. Again, he said he was sending “another.” When the whistle arrived, it was the poorest excuse for a whistle I had ever met - out of tune with itself, fragile mouthpiece, just plain awful. I thought he should be embarrassed. I would not even give it away. I would be embarrassed to do so. Furthermore, I think I threw the bottom part away.
Jessie
[ This Message was edited by: JessieK on 2002-01-03 21:47 ]
It is sad, because I remember quite well the threads about McAffie whistles, and no one would speak quite LOUD against his whistles at that time. It lead to so many orders, I guess because the whistles were so cute looking (borrowed from Microsoft’s marketing techniques) and it seems like he had more success than he could have himself imagined… I hope you guyz and girlz arent doing the same with Copley flutes, because I ordered one! 
well, I was pretty vocal about having gotten cut by mine. =) I waited about 6 months to get my whistles (which ended up being about as useful as vacuum cleaner parts), sent them back, and only received a refund after many many many discussions and threats of mail fraud on our part. I felt like the first five excuses for the whistles being late might have feasibly been okay (wink wink) but the next three plus five more trying to explain away the lack of a refund/email responses/etc etc was just too much to brush off.
live and learn is all I’ve got to say. we stick to places like The Whistle Shop now.
stimps
Nope, Az…Copley flutes are great!
AZ, that remark about the Copley’s flutes isn’t funny, even though you probably mean it in jest. Dave’s work is excellent, and his name doesn’t deserve to be any where near this thread.
Your comments are ironic; I could have warned people a loooong time about McHaffie’s scam - but then I would have had 80 percent of the message board climbing up my ass about attacking a whistle maker without giving him the benefit of the doubt, blah, blah, blah…
Even now there are people in this thread who continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. The majority of regular posters on this board don’t want to hear about the unprofessional, (and occasionally unethical), things many of the whistle makers do. Very few people want to hear me, Jessie, or any one else, say unflattering things about the whistle makers - regadless of how truthful the comments.
So, when someone like McHaffie rolls in, and is obviously a fraud, who can blame Jessie for not saying something like “Wow, this is the worst freak’in whistle I’ve ever played!” or me from not telling you he’s a scam artist?
I say shame on all the folks out there who got crappy whistles and or lost their money, but didn’t speak up to warn their C&F brothers and sisters. I also say (as I have before) shame on us all for allowing this message board to be a hostile environment for those who would speak the truth. Right now it’s easier for people to keep their mouths shut, rather than get jumped on for saying anything less than positive about a whistle maker or his products.
Okay, that’s my sermon for the night. Now please pass that full collection plate back up to the front, so I can commence to restoring sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Step right on up now, don’t be afraid…
Just an added note…I had also been considering ordering a few whistles from John McHaffie but while I was there visiting he gave me one he had just finished. Seeing the craftsmanship of it I decided not to order any at all. I had heard from others on this board that he did wonderful work, etc. and was hoping that mine was just an oddity…I guess it wasn’t.
On 2002-01-03 21:23, Loren wrote:
Well, I’ve been holding my tongue too, but I have to agree with John - I think most of you will likely never see your instruments. It’s sad to say, and a disgusting thought, but I believe you’ve been had.
Well, I dunno. I mean, I know I’m not gonna see my hundred bucks again, but I did have whistles in my hands at one point, and there was evidently effort put into them, just heavily misguided effort (pretty, innovative, but poor-playing). I’m more inclined to think that it’s a case of business ineptitude than nefariousness. I suspect things went pear-shaped, organizationally and financially, and he high-tailed it.
I don’t disagree with the “never see the instruments” part, though.
- -Rich
My wife often asks me, when I buy or sell whistles to people on this board sight unseen, why I am so trusting. I always tell her that there’s no reason not to. I hope that if there are any unscrupulous people out there that they will be found out and reported quickly.
Loren, as to McHaffie’s scam I still am hoping that that is not the case even though I am out nothing by him. Why do you feel he is obviously a fraud? When buying handcrafted whistles you expect a certain amount of variation in the product. How much variation makes a crappy whistle. Obviously there are a number of people who love his work or are they scamming us to?
I’ll admit that I bought one of the Parkhurst whistles simply because others were saying they loved it, it played wonderfully, etc. When I got mine I was highly disappointed in it. I didn’t like the way it looked. I didn’t like the way it played. I sold it to someone else on the board who loved the way it looked and played…go figure. What if I had reported Dave as being a maker of crappy whistles? (which is obviously not the case!)
I think that John McHaffie simply abandoned a poorly run business.
[ This Message was edited by: John Allison on 2002-01-03 23:49 ]
Azlin said it, “that no one spoke loudly against John’s whistles…It led to so many orders.” I would have piped up long ago about never hearing any of his whistles sounding in tune, while he played them on Clips n Snips, but I thought that it would have been rude to comment, so I kept my opinions quiet. And that’s the dilema about this kind of thing. Some of us have said that we should not give negative opinions on a whistle (or maybe it was just about bashing them), and that it would be cutting into the business of a whistlesmith. But that is exactly what this board is about. We can’t try out whistles that are made hundreds of miles away, so we have to rely on the opinions, good or bad, of people who have tried them. There did seem to be be an over-abundance of positives. Maybe they were made by people who were too inexperienced to tell whether or not a whistle is in tune.