Ultrasone's commitment to customer service

In November of 2009 I purchased a pair of Edition 8s from Headroom.  I was so blown away by the performance of the headphone out of the portable player that I decided I would buy one pair just for that and then buy another pair and balance the other.  Not too long after I received my second pair I sold my original right here on head-fi because I didn't have the funds to get a balanced amp as I had expected to at the time.  This sale occured sometime around Christmas.  When the buyer received the headphone he contacted me a few days after the package had been received, complaining of damage to the swivel mechanism in one of the earcups.  When I shipped them they were in mint condition.  The buyer's hesitation to contact me immediately and report the damage on date of receipt prompted me to believe that the buyer himself had damaged the headphone.  HOWEVER, after a few days of discussion I decided that I would simply take the headphones back and ship them to Ultrasone since they were certainly under waranty in my name...

Initially when the headphone was received by Ultrasone USA, the company wanted to charge me hundreds of dollars to correct the swivel.  I was appalled, and I was working literally daily on the phone with their head technician Mr. Paul Taylor to correct this problem without any cost to me or the buyer.  It seemed like a simple screw came loose and needed to be replaced or re-attached.  The price I was being quoted instead was almost half the cost of a new Edition 8.  Mind you, I had the buyer ship the headphones to me before they went to Ultrasone and I inspected the damage and listened to the headphones.  They sounded absolutely perfect but the swivel of the left cup was loose, that was the ONLY damage.

Months passed and Ultrasone began not answering their phones or returning my calls. It was now March 2010...

I finally got back in touch with Ultrasone and had been told the head technician Paul Taylor no longer worked at the company.  It seems that Ultrasone also changed their American Location during this time and no one could locate my Edition 8 for a few days.  Finally the headphones were located and the repair was done for free.  I contacted the head-fi buyer to let him know that he should be expecting the headphones soon.  When I recieved the headphones back from Ultrasone I inspected them and plugged them in to my iPod.  The right driver was BLOWN.  It was not working.  I immediately shipped the headphone back to Ultrasone with a distressed letter.  I could not believe that the headphones were shipped back to me with such apparent damage which was clearly not there when Ultrasone received them, since Mr Paul Taylor had agreed in emails to me that the headphones sounded just as they should and $600 dollars Ultrasone was initially charging me was just for cosmetic damage.

I'll speed this story up with details that I waited 8 weeks for Ultrasone to receive new drivers from Germany and they did this repair free of charge.  When I received the headphone back in early June I immediately noticed that the right earcup was so loose (not the swivel this time..but the actual adjustment section on the headband) that they could not rest properly on the head. I'll spare you the details of my emotional response to this, but you can fill in the blanks....

At this point, I took it upon myself to simply ship the buyer (who had already been waiting over 5 months for a simple repair) my other pair of Edition 8s.  I sent the defective pair back to Ultrasone and demanded a brand new replacement.  Crystal Williams (head representative of Ultrasone USA) agreed that a brand new replacement was due me.  I waited 3 weeks for the replacement to make its way to me.  It was now early July and the headphone came to me.  I openned the box and the pair was clearly used and in worse condition then the defective pair I sent back to them.  The leather earcup was practically falling off on one side and the headband had very odd bumps and looked heavily used / abused.  The interior accessories of the box had clearly been used as well.  I called Ultrasone back and was told that the pair I had just received was certainly brand new, never used, never opened.  I didn't accept this, and I shipped them back the headphone, where upon it was greeted with criticisms that "I, myself created all the damage."  I can assure you all head-fiers that this damage was there upon opening the box and I took photographs on day of receipt to document this.  I can also confirm (though I'm not sure of it's relevance) that this pair of Edition 8 was a very very early serial number.

At this point I had Crystal Williams agree to replace the pair with a brand new pair directly from the headquarters.  She had written to me that she would get a new shipment of pairs in late September/ early October.  Starting in late September I began calling and leaving messages daily for Ultrasone.  Very rarely does their customer service and answer phone calls, and they never return my calls either. 

Finally, after 3 weeks of consistent calling, I reached Crystal and was informed that a shipment of the Edition 8s had made it's way to the American Headquarters and she was going to ship one out to me.  I thanked her and was very relieved.  A few hours later, I get a message from Ms. Williams informing me that the shipment was the new Palladium Edition 8 only and she could not ship me the headphone.  I called back asking when the new Ruthenium Edition 8 would make its way to Ultrasone USA. This was in the first week of October.  Since then I have called daily and Ms. Williams claims she does not know when a pair will be available to ship to me...so much so that in a frantic tone, I joked that I could not be out of this headphone until 2013.  She responded with, "I really can't confirm anything but I doubt that will be the case."  Since then I have been calling daily and have been greeted with profanity and the same uncertainty.

I have began calling Germany but cannot reach the company no matter how many times I call.

Ultrasone? How can you do this to any customer, let alone a customer willing to purchase such an expensive product?!

I know of no other company with Ultrasone's established name that would ever do this to a customer.

I am putting this experience out there to inform everyone so that they can be an informed consumer.  I hope I will be able to update this thread with a more positive resolution.

-David