Whither John McHaffie?

Post by **rich** » Mon Jul 23, 2001 9:23 pm

Has anyone heard from John McHaffie lately? I ordered a C/D set from him, was disappointed by it, and arranged to send it back for a refund. Sent it, saw no refund, and haven't been able to get John to reply to my email. A friend of mine has been waiting months for her full set and has found that he's stopped returning her email as well.

While I realize Mr McHaffie tends to attract events of disastrous proportion, I'm concerned that either (1) something bad has happened to him, or (2) something bad has happened to his customers (if you know what I mean). Has anyone else either heard from him lately, or found themselves in a situation similar to ours?
<ul>-Rich</ul>

DaveO · Post by **DaveO** » Mon Jul 23, 2001 10:45 pm

I ordered a McHaffie whistle a couple of weeks ago and I sent him an email just to make sure he received my order. Last week, after one week without a response, I forwarded my original message to him again. He replied to the second message, saying the first message never made it through. You might want to send him another email, just in case your first one got lost in transit.

By the way, he mentioned that the waiting list is still between 2 and 3 months.

Good luck.

Dave

fiddling_tenor · Post by **fiddling_tenor** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 9:15 am

I ordered a whistle one month and two days ago. I know he got paid (used PayPal), but haven't received any kind of order acknowledgement from him directly. Not sure he does that anyway (he'd spend more time on the computer, and I want him to build whistles).

His website says 2-3 months, so I figure my end of August I can start rattling his cage.

curioso · Post by **curioso** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 11:32 am

I received an aluminum D from McHaffie about a month ago. The whistle was nice and plays nice, but the "adjustable fipple" seemed touchy, and was harder to adjust than the website indicated for softer play without losing the bottom D.

It also took about a long time to arrive from ordering via paypal, but he had multiple disasters during this time - health, burglary, server crash. I had to e-mail twice asking for confirmation, as he apparently doesn't confirm paypal orders as a standard procedure. I got the impression that he was a nice guy, but perhaps overloaded. Just remember that artists can't be rushed, and e-mail is not a high priority.

EricW · Post by **EricW** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 11:54 am

I last heard from John via email on July 11th. He said he was making a quick trip to Branson, Mo. and was going to ship my order when he returned. He was going to email me a tracking number for the shipment.

I have not heard from him since. Nor has the order arrived. Nor has he returned any emails since then. This is unusual, as he had always returned emails promptly and courteously. Because of this, I share both of Rich's concerns.

I am waiting on an order for a C/D set that was placed on 15 March, four months ago. If anyone has heard from John since 11 July, or received any recent orders from him, I would be interested in hearing about it.

Still hopeful,
Eric

P.S. - Tom, when I placed my order, he sent me a confirmation notice within a day or so.

Ron Rowe · Post by **Ron Rowe** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 12:22 pm

It is funny that this topic should come up here, I posted a similar message over on the C&S board wondering if anyone had heard from John. I sent him a few e-mails telling him how much I liked the whistles he made for me and never heard back from him which is very unusual. John has always been very polite and courteous and has always answered my e-mails to him within a day or 2 at the most.
While I was waiting for my whistles he contacted at least once a week to let me know he had not forgotten about my order and confirmed both reciept of the order and of payment recieved.
From my experience with him I would say his being out of touch like this is highly unusual and very unlike him.

nbrock · Post by **nbrock** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 2:06 pm

I ordered a high D on February 11th, the wait time listed on his web site said 2-3 weeks. After a month I called him and he said he would send it out. It didn't arrive, so he sent it out again (???) and he included a low-D at no charge for my troubles (a wonderful gesture!). I finally received them at the end of March. I really felt that I had been sent "seconds" and sent him a long email describing my observations (around 4/8). He immediately replyed and offered to send replacements. I sent numerous emails and called him a few times. I know he had some "disasters" along the way, but I finally received the replacement set about July 10th. These whistles are actually very simular to the originals. In my opinion they are very hard to play compared to all my other 15 or so whistles. I do like that you can adjust them down to an extremely low volume - it does take a little practice to play them at that volume, though.

All in all, my experience has not been very good, though John has been "great" every time I've talked to him in person - his heart is really in his business. It took an extremely long and frustrating time for this whole process given the timeframes and promises I was given for the order and the replacement. I believe he now has an assistant to help with the business details (unless that has fallen through ??).

Actually, from comments on this forum and reviews, etc. I thought my experience was the exception to the rule.

Good luck and lots (and lots) of patience.

When do you want your whistles? - yesterday? WHOA there feller :^)

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 2:28 pm

nbrock...I had the exact same experience you mentioned, but he (supposedly) sent them 3 times instead of two. I can not find something nice to say about the whistle itself.

~Jessie

Post by **rich** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 2:30 pm

On 2001-07-24 16:06, nbrock wrote:
I ordered a high D on February 11th, the wait time listed on his web site said 2-3 weeks. After a month I called him and he said he would send it out. It didn't arrive, so he sent it out again (???) and he included a low-D at no charge for my troubles (a wonderful gesture!). I finally received them at the end of March. I really felt that I had been sent "seconds" and sent him a long email describing my observations (around 4/8). He immediately replyed and offered to send replacements. I sent numerous emails and called him a few times.
[...]
Actually, from comments on this forum and reviews, etc. I thought my experience was the exception to the rule.

Wow, that pretty much sums up my experience exactly, including the "send it out again" bit, the timescale, and the whistle quality. I didn't take him up on his offer of replacements as I didn't see any reason why they'd be any different from the first 3.
I'll keep the board updated as to whether or not I ever get my refund. (I'm not holding my breath.)
<ul>-Rich</ul>

Blaine McArthur · Post by **Blaine McArthur** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 4:43 pm

This is all very disappointing. I had initially heard so many good things. I was seriously thinking of going for one of his sets, just to have them, after making a few more essential purchases to round out my collection in terms of coverage of all the basic keys. Someone else said they would give him the benefit of the doubt for now; still ....

Dale, have you been following this?

stimps · Post by **stimps** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 4:45 pm

Hi all!

We ordered a set for my birthday in April (a full set with a case), and we did indeed hear from him last week. Apparently the cases were very poorly made, and he sent them back to get them fixed (the screws scraped the surfaces of the whistles, which is rather unpleasant). He got the new, better cases back last week, according to an email he sent us, and has apparently shipped the set to us as of last friday.

He's been a bit lax on mail, and the story about what's happened to the set has sort of changed over time, but I'm inclined to be pretty flexible here. I'm planning to wait patiently until the end of this week (as express mail is supposed to be 3-5 business days), and impatiently until the end of the following week if they haven't arrived by then. I'll keep you all updated if you're interested.

happy chiffing!

stimps

Curlyblue · Post by **Curlyblue** » Tue Jul 24, 2001 6:18 pm

I have ordered a whistle set from John in May, mainly because he said I could have it by the time my vacation would start. This didn't work out, unfortunately. I received an email from him on July 19, saying he was having a family emergency right now. He has been in and out lately had not updated everyone.

He promised to let me know something on Monday (23), but so far I'm still waiting.
He's always very kind in his emails. To bad he has these unfortunate situations happening to him.

His whistles were going to be the first high-end and low whistles for me. Thanks to Mick O'Brian I now have a Burke Low G to play with while waiting.

Ilana

Byll · Post by **Byll** » Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:28 pm

I have been in the middle of transactions with John for months. There have been packages delivered to me, and lots of e-mails between us. Some packages are still due, and he has simply disappeared. I understand that his world has been turned upside down, lately, by a rash of bad luck... During my communication time with him, he has had two flare-ups of a cronic illness. I find it significant that he has not posted any message to this board, lately. I wish him well.
Cheers to all...