I quickly got a reply back, and the customer told us everything was correct – and to go ahead and ship the order.

NO PROBLEM!

Flash forward almost 2 months, and we get an email from PayPal. The email basically stated that the order may have been fraudulent, and that they were investigating it. The email stated for us not to worry, as we were covered. They asked us for some shipping information, and we gladly gave it to them.

We then got a phone call from a rather rude PayPal customer service rep. He asks us a few generic questions, and then states that we are not covered under their TOS because it seems that the person who paid was actually someone who hacked a PayPal account and bought the stuff. Even though the address was confirmed, we would most likely be responsible for this, and we were going to be out $1500+!

Obviously, this didn’t go well with us. We fought it tooth and nail, but PayPal decided in FAVOR of the other party! Obviously, this should NOT be the RIGHTFUL PayPal account holders responsibility, but how in the world should it be OURS? Plus, the stuff was shipped to the address on their PayPal account!

We got a lawyer involved, but it is right there in PayPal’s “Terms of Service” – You basically give PayPal the right to determine who is correct and who is not. And for whatever reason, they thought that we should be responsible for this.

We had to refund the transaction AND never got our products back.

Needless to say, we will no longer be accepting them as a payment option. We DO accept credit cards, like always.

On top of those very serious issues, it has unfortunately stopped one of my suppliers in its tracks! Unable to bring up their computers for lack of power, and warehouse temperatures reaching over 100 degrees means that shipping items were delayed for a few days. No phone lines, no emails, no power, no a/c, NOTHING.

I was sending orders in, but weren’t seeing them being shipped out. I noticed it on Tuesday evening, but they were already closed. Then the 4th of July meant they weren’t open on Wednesday… I waited until Thursday morning, and called them. No answer. No machine… What was going on? I sent a few emails, but got no answers. Then I remembered I had a cell phone for one of the warehouse people, and called him. “uuhhhh… hello?” – Finally! I introduced myself, and asked if he knew what was going on. He told me that they were doing what they could, but they had no access to their database, and couldn’t see any orders.

After talking to a couple of people, I came to find out what happened. And although I am rather displeased about not getting a quick phone call, or a simple email, I can understand that a lot of these works and people were probably dealing with their own family problems, and dealing with the lack of power and air conditioning in their own personal lives.

I got off the phone, knowing that they were doing the best they could. Now it was time for me to send out a mass email to all of my customers that I thought were affected. I started gathering emails, writing down what I wanted to say, and trying to come up with every possible answer I could for any questions that my customers would have…

My phone rings…

“Hello?” I said – “Hey Ryan, good to talk to you!” – It was my main contact at my supplier! But what was even more strange was that he was calling me from his office number! The power had just turned on, and he wanted to let me know he was back in business, and working on getting my orders shipped out ASAP. He explained to me that they had a LARGE back-log of orders, and they were getting them out as soon as they could. The orders most delayed would be the orders to first go out. The problem? They only had 2 warehouse guys at the moment, because all of the others were told to go home for the day because of the high heat in the warehouse. Before getting off the phone, I was told they would do what they could to get the orders out as soon as possible, and that they would even try to ship the items out with “faster than normal” shipping.

I feel it is important to let everyone know when things like this happens. We live in a society today, where we want things instantly… But sometimes mother nature shows us who is boss, and there is little we can do.

For those of you that were affected, please know that I am very sorry! Between the horrible storms and the holiday this week, it just turned out to be a very bad situation. Please accept my apologies.

So for the last SIX years, I have tried to find them.  Calling various agencies, any family member who may know something, etc etc – I had all but lost hope on it, and figured I may never find out who they were, or what had happened. Was I ever going to find them?

Last night, around 7PM my dreams came true!  I found them!  I found my 2 little brothers!  Luckily, they were taken out of the bad situation, and a GREAT family had adopted them permanently!  I NERVOUSLY contacted their adoptive parents, and explained to them who I was.  I was thinking they may want NOTHING to do with me, and might just hang up and tell me to never call them… But I HAD to tell them who I was… I had to tell them my story.  Would they believe me?  Would they be mad?

After about 30 minutes of giving them my story, telling them who I was, what I do, and basically explaining that I am just a “normal guy” who wants nothing more than to have SOME sort of relationship with my brothers, they agreed to start the process of introducing my 2 brothers to the fact that they have an older brother (ME!) – I was ecstatic!  Doing my best to hold back tears (not very well, mind you) – I told them everything I could about myself, my family, where I live, etc etc – We became friends on FB, and they were able to really get an idea of who I am.  We hung up with the agreement that we would stay in touch.

At this point, I am VERY happy!  Not only did I finally find my 2 brothers, but they were being WELL taken care of, and had a mother and father who seem to love them very much… But not only that, they seemed open to the idea of having ME be a part of their lives!  What did this mean?  Who would this go?  Would they even want to talk to me? … My questions were answered within about 10 minutes.

I am sitting on my recliner, mind racing… When all of a sudden, my home phone rings.  I answer it, and I hear “What’s up Bro!?!?!” – IT WAS ONE OF MY BROTHERS!  I couldn’t believe it!  We talked about EVERYTHING I could think of, and it seemed like we have known each other our whole lives!  Sports, hobbies, video games, girls, school, etc etc -

I even got to see pictures of them for the FIRST TIME EVER.  One of them looks almost exactly like me, even!  They look healthy, smart, and well nourished.  Like me, they were able to find someone to take them in, love them, show them the right ways to live your life, and just be there for them.  I am sure they will have a lot of questions about their past, and about where they come from… And I will be here to help them along the way!

This has been one of the best days of my life. And I had to share it with all of you.  I feel like all of you are my friends, and not just my customers.  You all mean a lot to me, and I hope that all of you that have a dream, a wish, a certain desire… I hope all of you keep at it, keep striving to succeed… Cause believe it or not, miracles do happen.  My dream has come true!

Well, that has now changed …

RockBandParts.com now sells REAL musical instruments and gear, and the first thing we wanted to do was to sponsor a real musician who embodies our enthusiasm, unique style and likes to think ‘outside’ of the box.

Let me introduce you to Don Vaughn!

Don Vaughn was actually a previous customer of ours, and after he sent me an email with some generic questions on some products, I quickly learned who he was, and what he does.  Without hesitation, I decided Don would be the PERFECT person to sponsor.  Not only to sponsor, but to have as our PREMIER partner to help each other grow.  Here are some details on Don Vaughn:

But enough with all of that stuff!  Click the video above to see what Don can do!  Pretty cool, eh?

It is also rumored that additional streaming content from cable providers or sports package providers will be made available.

There will be an early termination fee for those breaking the contract before the two years are up.

Owners taking Microsoft up on this offer will pay a premium, albeit a small one. Buying the console and Xbox Live Gold subscription outright would cost $420, compared to $459 for the subscription bundle.

It’s an interesting idea, but I can see a flaw, and this is that the offer will only be made available at selected Microsoft Stores in the U.S. If Microsoft wants to give this offer the exposure it deserves, then the offer should be made available online.

This subscription model is an interesting idea as it opens up the console to those who might not want to put down the $299 for the console upfront. It could also help prop up flagging sales that have resulted in Xbox sales falling by almost a half in a year.

The Xbox 360 console is now six and a half years old and in desperate need of a refresh. However, despite the fall in sales, the console has been the best-selling games console in the U.S. for the last fifteen months.

A new Xbox console isn’t expected to be available until 2014.

It will be interesting to see if Sony and Nintendo follow suit and offer a subscription model for their games console.

Although PayPal DOES accept major credit cards, a lot of people would see the PayPal button, and think “oh, I must have a PayPal account to pay.” – You can click on PayPal, and then checkout as a guest, which will allow you to pay with a credit card from PayPal’s website.  But let’s be honest, who actually reads all of that small stuff when you are trying to make a purchase, right!?

To eliminate the confusion, we decided it would be best to just go ahead and offer a secure way for you to pay with a credit card, straight from our website.  Our website features a 100% secure SSL checkout experience.  We have a certificate from Starfield technologies, which guarantees you that your information will be safe.  Completed encrypted, and the credit card is charged in real-time, ensuring that your personal information is NOT saved anywhere. No one from RBP sees your information. We just simply get notified when the payment has been processed, and are given the information that YOU give us during the checkout.

The list of credit cards we now accept are:

• Bankcard
• Visa
• Switch
• Discover
• American Express
• Solo
• MasterCard

Now that is a LOT of choices!  And that’s what we like to give you.  Along with paying with credit cards, RockBandParts still gladly accepts PayPal as a form of payment as well!

Discuss it over on our facebook page!

Here is what I am looking for in a blogger/reviewer/person:

• The ability to write interesting articles that people want to read.
• Someone who can stay on schedule, and pump out articles on a regular basis.
• Independent, trust-worthy, and kind.
• Someone who can think on their own.  I want you to have full control on what you write on the site.  I may sprinkle in some ideas, but writing blogs is not my forte.

For your awesome writing abilities, I will pay you back in discounts on anything that I carry.  And when I say discounts, I don’t mean 5%, 10%, etc – I mean some REALLY GOOD discounts.  Along with the cool discounts on stuff, you will also get a lot of notoriety through the web site, my youtube videos, facebook, twitter and more.  I plan on informing my followers about new articles.

So, if you want to be more involved, and want to be a part of the NEW RBP, then hit the contact button above and let me know why you should be picked!

Many of you know that ION (who makes the ION Drum Rocker) also makes other things like pianos, iphone and ipad stuff, and other random things.  Over the past few years, I would get quite a few emails and messages that would say something like “I see you carry ION, could you maybe get me THIS?!?” – This leads me to believe that there are at least a few of you that buy other stuff other than just gaming equipment for Rock Band and Guitar Hero!

I have expanded the site to include not only ‘gaming’ equipment, but also ‘real’ instruments and gear, electronics, and some random fun stuff that I also have access to.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN I AM MOVING AWAY FROM THE RHYTHM MUSIC GAMING BUSINESS!  In fact, I have added MORE stuff to this site that will work with Rock Band and Guitar Hero!

This is just a “hey, why not carry it if people want it?” deal.

Take a second to see some of the stuff I have to offer now!  iPhone and iPad accessories, Person Mixing stuff, and more!

TRACK YOUR ORDERS: Our website now offers our customers the ability to check on their orders in real-time.  Wondering if your order is still pending?  Wondering if it has shipped out yet? By simply providing your email and order ID, you can get all of that information and more!

INVENTORY CONTROL: One of the features that seemed to be the most difficult to control on our last website was inventory control.  A lot of our products come from different distributors.  Each distributor is different.  Some would offer us inventory reports, while others would not.  This created some issues, and we have now worked with each distributor to get inventory levels on a regular basis.  By getting these reports, we are now able to mark items as ‘out of stock’ on a faster rate.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS: Did you buy something from us, and LOVE IT?  Hate it?  Want to tell people how your experience was with the item you bought?  You can now do that!  You can buy a product, and offer a review on it so other people can see what you think.

COUPONS!: One thing customers LOVE about RBP is our willingness to make deals when you needed them.  Since 2009, RBP has had a sale EVERY day on at least 1 item.  But one thing that site was lacking, was the ability to offer coupons.  That has now changed!  Coupons will be given out for short-term sales, customer rewards, contests, and more!

USER FRIENDLY:  Although we feel RBP has always been user friendly, we believe that the new site is even better! Easily search for items by name, genre and more.  Easily identify items that are on sale.  Bigger pictures, more details about each product, and more.

On top of all of those great additions, RBP has also including things like a more robust shopping cart, faster performance, and MORE PRODUCTS.  We thank you for all of your continued support, and we look forward to providing you with the best products, best prices and best customer service!