Bad Experience with Sweetwater's Plek Service

Hey all,

I have an Ibanez Talman 4 string bass, which on paper isn't anything special, it was about $400, has a PJ pickup configuration, but the most important thing was how it played. I couldn't find any imperfection with the fretwork, the nut slots were silent even while strumming the strings hard. All for a $400 bass from Indonesia. Couldn't be happier with it.

Of course, for me, just having a PJ bass wasn't enough, I have been wanting a decent humbucker equipped bass for years now. Single pickup or double, doesn't matter too much. I've pretty much given up buying online as I can't try them before I buy and receive them. Against my better judgement, I ordered a Sire Z7 which is like a Stingray with a Jazz style pickup in the neck and chose to have it Plek'd for a whopping $299, which my sales engineer Joe (thanks for hanging up on me mid-sentence the other day!) said if I got that, I wouldn't have to worry about a thing setup wise.

So I get the bass and my god does it sound horrendous right out of the box. I tune it to pitch, check action and neck relief. Lightly playing each string on this bass sets the corresponding slots in the nut to buzz like crazy like they were trying to make some sitar/bass hybrid. Spending $299 for a setup, and they were apparently fine shipping it to me like this. Returning it as soon as possible.

Short story: I know not all people who had stuff Plek'd from Sweetwater had a bad experience, but this had ultimately concluded me buying any more guitars or basses online and at the very least, be wary about that service. Especially at the price. Jfc