You,d think he would have told his customers
this is the address I was given !
LATAJEA
LOJA 18312
GRANADA
SPAIN
tel;003464 5613001
I was told the pipers club in Dublin might also have some imformation
charles roberts now living in spain
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rorybbellows
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Patrick D'Arcy
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mconners
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Re: charles roberts now living in spain
I wonder if his son Alan is still in Ireland and doing any pipe making.rorybbellows wrote:You,d think he would have told his customers
this is the address I was given !
LATAJEA
LOJA 18312
GRANADA
SPAIN
tel;003464 5613001
I was told the pipers club in Dublin might also have some imformation
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rorybbellows
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I have dealt with Charles Roberts in the past and always found the same things – good work, not the fastest to deliver, very slow to respond to Emails, telephone mailbox always full, very affable when you can get him on the phone, always seemed to be away on long holidays – well, frequently anyway. Didn’t strike me as the type of person who would cut and run with other people’s money, but you never can tell.
Is it certain that his house in Sligo is sold? The fact that his telephone is still active, albeit to his full mailbox, would indicate that at least the Eircom bill is paid and the line active, normally when a house is sold, would the phone line not be disconnected?
Hopefully all will be well for customers who have parted with money.
Is it certain that his house in Sligo is sold? The fact that his telephone is still active, albeit to his full mailbox, would indicate that at least the Eircom bill is paid and the line active, normally when a house is sold, would the phone line not be disconnected?
Hopefully all will be well for customers who have parted with money.
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cameron
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I spoke with Charles last night and can confirm that he is indeed in Spain at the moment and that it is his intention to return to Ireland in the near future. He has sold his house and workshop in Glencar, Co. Sligo but is looking for alternative premises.
He has some pipemaking equipment in Spain and is most certainly continuing in production and is working on fulfilling his orders. Naturally I am very pleased about this as I have an order outstanding on which I have paid a significant deposit.
He apologises for the lack of communication however it was left to someone else to respond to emails and phone calls and he feels a bit let down that this has not happened.
He told me that he will be getting a PC connected up in his house in Spain within a week so he should be able to respond personally to enquiries.
Perhaps this will put an end to the speculation and even calm some nerves a little.
Cameron
He has some pipemaking equipment in Spain and is most certainly continuing in production and is working on fulfilling his orders. Naturally I am very pleased about this as I have an order outstanding on which I have paid a significant deposit.
He apologises for the lack of communication however it was left to someone else to respond to emails and phone calls and he feels a bit let down that this has not happened.
He told me that he will be getting a PC connected up in his house in Spain within a week so he should be able to respond personally to enquiries.
Perhaps this will put an end to the speculation and even calm some nerves a little.
Cameron
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KelticRazor
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- Location: The Rocky Mountains
My Experience with CR
This is very interesting to hear about Charles Roberts.
I have had nothing but false promises and heartache dealing with Charles since August 2003. This came to a new climax when he illegally attempted to take an unauthorized amount from my credit card account in January 2004. I had paid in full my entire account and he had yet to deliver. I guess that was my mistake. But, then he decided he wanted to take money out of my credit card account without even asking me. I confronted him with this illegal activity and he back-peddled. Then, I don't hear anything from him for months, and just find out that he is now in Spain . . . with my money, my parts that he owes me, and has no more workshop.
This is unbelievable.
Fellow C&F's, I would strongly urge you to seriously consider any involvement with Charles Roberts. He is full of promises and seldom or never delivers. He decided to change the whole look of my pipes by subsitituting a Boxwood stock instead of ebony and didn't even bother tell me . . . I could go on and on about the stories. All the way up to Christmas it was all about money . . . all he wanted was the money. He promised to ship and didn't. And now he has skipped town.
I hope to still receive the merchandise that has been already paid for in the near future. I am not sure how that is going to happen.
All the best to the rest of you.
--KR
I have had nothing but false promises and heartache dealing with Charles since August 2003. This came to a new climax when he illegally attempted to take an unauthorized amount from my credit card account in January 2004. I had paid in full my entire account and he had yet to deliver. I guess that was my mistake. But, then he decided he wanted to take money out of my credit card account without even asking me. I confronted him with this illegal activity and he back-peddled. Then, I don't hear anything from him for months, and just find out that he is now in Spain . . . with my money, my parts that he owes me, and has no more workshop.
This is unbelievable.
Fellow C&F's, I would strongly urge you to seriously consider any involvement with Charles Roberts. He is full of promises and seldom or never delivers. He decided to change the whole look of my pipes by subsitituting a Boxwood stock instead of ebony and didn't even bother tell me . . . I could go on and on about the stories. All the way up to Christmas it was all about money . . . all he wanted was the money. He promised to ship and didn't. And now he has skipped town.
I hope to still receive the merchandise that has been already paid for in the near future. I am not sure how that is going to happen.
All the best to the rest of you.
--KR
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KenWolman
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Me and Charles and the pipes
I suppose I need to get this out of my system. Older timers here heard this tale. Others probably haven't.
I fell in love with the sound of the pipes in 2001. In early 2002, big fat tax refund in hand, I ordered from Roberts because (1) he had a reputation for quality, (2) I could put it on a credit card to keep it below the radar of my ex-wife's shyster, and (3) he claimed his waiting time was only a few months.
The quality part probably was correct: I had no basis for comparison. So was the credit card part, which was my own fault: like an idiot, I put the entire price on the card instead of the percentage he asked for before shipping. The waiting time was a bit of a stretch of the truth. Charles would just disappear; indeed, he mentioned going over to Spain (Malaga or Majorca, I forget which) to see his son, who was playing there. The workshop phone number in that craft village he had listed forever came back as disconnected. I don't know how much money I spent on calls to an answering machine in Sligo. Once in a long while I'd hear from Charles, either by phone or by email: Oh things are moving right along, chanter's done, assembling the rest, ready to ship any day.
And then nothing. Well, I was a bit less patient than I am now, and I got upset at the delays, non-responsiveness, and what I began to take as jive. So I contacted the credit card company and put the payment into dispute. In other words I want my pipes or my card credited back.
Two days later the pipes were on my doorstep. Not because I pushed the envelope but because he'd already shipped them without telling me they were going out.
The credit card issuer wouldn't let me take the thing out of dispute resolution. There was a "procedure." The ensuing months turned as ugly as Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz. Charles got "upset," I was furious, the credit card company went BANKRUPT without warning its cardholders, and their assets and liabilities went to another bankcard company. I was never told (and do not know to this day) if and when Charles got the money credited. He earned it, he just had a strange way of doing business--and I had private email that Charles was a great pipemaker but not exactly the brightest bulb in the box when it came to business operations. I know, he's a craftsman, but....
I ever had several phone conversations with an officer at Charles' Bank of Ireland Sligo branch (there are a few and I got lucky). She had problems dealing with the American card company, they didn't like her, and the Irish bank officer said Charles was not exactly scrupulous about keeping records or producing them. Not because he was dishonest, but because he was clueless about how to conduct the business end of his business.
I need to believe he got paid because I kept enough pressure on that credit card company to force their lunches up from their stomachs.
Had I played the pipes? God yes, and loved them to death. The whole dispute became so unpleasant, however, that by the late fall of 2002 I simply couldn't play them anymore. Looking at them made me ill. Bad conscience, bad memories of a deal gone very sour. Charles' noncommunication and my bad temper created a toxic situation. Besides, my reputation (like I even had one!) in a very small community of uilleann makers and players probably was tainted by the incident. Bad news travels fast; nobody reads the correction on the page behind the sports section.
In March 2003 I sold the pipes and the Heather Clarke book, via eBay. I didn't lose that much money. Ironically, the guy who bought them got two reeds from Charles by just asking for them. Like that. If Charles is around he's terrific, if he's not...go whistle.
This is somewhat about me and my impatience. If, if, if. If Charles had told me "two years" I'd have sucked it up. He didn't. He either made up a number or acted like what I gather he is, the eternal optimist.
I don't play the pipes anymore. I lurk here once in a long while and read the postings. I wonder what I'd be doing if I'd handled it differently. If I came into the kind of money I'd need to get back in the pipes game, would I buy from Charles Roberts again? Oddly, I very well might. As I said, playing them for the time I did was a wonderful experience and I can only assume he made and may still make (wherever he has landed) top-shelf instruments. But I'd also be a hell of a lot savvier about his business acumen as well as that of anyone whose first interest is craft, and for whom business might be set to one side.
I'd also be damned careful about what phone calls I made to whom.
I fell in love with the sound of the pipes in 2001. In early 2002, big fat tax refund in hand, I ordered from Roberts because (1) he had a reputation for quality, (2) I could put it on a credit card to keep it below the radar of my ex-wife's shyster, and (3) he claimed his waiting time was only a few months.
The quality part probably was correct: I had no basis for comparison. So was the credit card part, which was my own fault: like an idiot, I put the entire price on the card instead of the percentage he asked for before shipping. The waiting time was a bit of a stretch of the truth. Charles would just disappear; indeed, he mentioned going over to Spain (Malaga or Majorca, I forget which) to see his son, who was playing there. The workshop phone number in that craft village he had listed forever came back as disconnected. I don't know how much money I spent on calls to an answering machine in Sligo. Once in a long while I'd hear from Charles, either by phone or by email: Oh things are moving right along, chanter's done, assembling the rest, ready to ship any day.
And then nothing. Well, I was a bit less patient than I am now, and I got upset at the delays, non-responsiveness, and what I began to take as jive. So I contacted the credit card company and put the payment into dispute. In other words I want my pipes or my card credited back.
Two days later the pipes were on my doorstep. Not because I pushed the envelope but because he'd already shipped them without telling me they were going out.
The credit card issuer wouldn't let me take the thing out of dispute resolution. There was a "procedure." The ensuing months turned as ugly as Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz. Charles got "upset," I was furious, the credit card company went BANKRUPT without warning its cardholders, and their assets and liabilities went to another bankcard company. I was never told (and do not know to this day) if and when Charles got the money credited. He earned it, he just had a strange way of doing business--and I had private email that Charles was a great pipemaker but not exactly the brightest bulb in the box when it came to business operations. I know, he's a craftsman, but....
I ever had several phone conversations with an officer at Charles' Bank of Ireland Sligo branch (there are a few and I got lucky). She had problems dealing with the American card company, they didn't like her, and the Irish bank officer said Charles was not exactly scrupulous about keeping records or producing them. Not because he was dishonest, but because he was clueless about how to conduct the business end of his business.
I need to believe he got paid because I kept enough pressure on that credit card company to force their lunches up from their stomachs.
Had I played the pipes? God yes, and loved them to death. The whole dispute became so unpleasant, however, that by the late fall of 2002 I simply couldn't play them anymore. Looking at them made me ill. Bad conscience, bad memories of a deal gone very sour. Charles' noncommunication and my bad temper created a toxic situation. Besides, my reputation (like I even had one!) in a very small community of uilleann makers and players probably was tainted by the incident. Bad news travels fast; nobody reads the correction on the page behind the sports section.
In March 2003 I sold the pipes and the Heather Clarke book, via eBay. I didn't lose that much money. Ironically, the guy who bought them got two reeds from Charles by just asking for them. Like that. If Charles is around he's terrific, if he's not...go whistle.
This is somewhat about me and my impatience. If, if, if. If Charles had told me "two years" I'd have sucked it up. He didn't. He either made up a number or acted like what I gather he is, the eternal optimist.
I don't play the pipes anymore. I lurk here once in a long while and read the postings. I wonder what I'd be doing if I'd handled it differently. If I came into the kind of money I'd need to get back in the pipes game, would I buy from Charles Roberts again? Oddly, I very well might. As I said, playing them for the time I did was a wonderful experience and I can only assume he made and may still make (wherever he has landed) top-shelf instruments. But I'd also be a hell of a lot savvier about his business acumen as well as that of anyone whose first interest is craft, and for whom business might be set to one side.
I'd also be damned careful about what phone calls I made to whom.
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KelticRazor
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: The Rocky Mountains
HEELLLLPP!!
Very serious update folks:
I just checked my VISA bank account balance and transaction history and Charles Roberts took an UNAUTHORIZED amount of USD $307.52 on April 20th the very day after my previous post. Coincidence? I don't think so . . .
I have been unable to contact him, and I have the complete history of emails between us. So, living in Spain now, he is able to grab money from my account. This is unbelievable!!!
I am really shocked that he has not delivered as promised, and now has succeeded at taking $307 out of my VISA account!!!
Help! Please let me know what recourse I have.
Thanks for your help,
--KR
I just checked my VISA bank account balance and transaction history and Charles Roberts took an UNAUTHORIZED amount of USD $307.52 on April 20th the very day after my previous post. Coincidence? I don't think so . . .
I have been unable to contact him, and I have the complete history of emails between us. So, living in Spain now, he is able to grab money from my account. This is unbelievable!!!
I am really shocked that he has not delivered as promised, and now has succeeded at taking $307 out of my VISA account!!!
Help! Please let me know what recourse I have.
Thanks for your help,
--KR
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Jim McGuire
- Posts: 1978
- Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2003 10:43 pm
Challenge the transaction, too.
If you believe that it is a fradulent transaction, mention that as well. You might have a more difficult time using your own card but that is intentional. Mention 'fraud' and the cc people tighten everything up immediately due to their liability once they have been notified.
If you believe that it is a fradulent transaction, mention that as well. You might have a more difficult time using your own card but that is intentional. Mention 'fraud' and the cc people tighten everything up immediately due to their liability once they have been notified.