Kudos to Lexar Media and to Horizon Music, Inc.

Usually I just post the same article I write for my rehearsal handouts on Wednesday evenings and leave it at that. I had an experience this morning that needs to be made known.

Christmas 2004 I received a Lexar Media 128MB USB Jump Drive Secure from my family. It was on sale for about $35 at Rat Shack (an aside here ... I bought a 1GB USB drive last week for right at $25 ... technology comes down in cost over time, doesn't it?). About 9 months ago it started acting up, then finally refused to be recognized at all by any computer I tried to hook it to. I almost threw it away in the big Clean Sweep of the Music Suite, but decided not to.

On a whim this morning I went to the Lexar web site, clicked on support, then on live chat. After about 10 to 15 minutes online with Jey the tech support guy during which we jumped through all the diagnostic hoops to confirm that the drive was indeed dead, he asked if I wanted to replace the drive. My immediate response was "At what cost?" since I had just bought a new drive with 8 times the capacity for $10 less. The bottom line is that all ll I have to do is to send the drive back to them at my cost (and how much could that be? It only weighs a couple of ounces) and they'll send me a new one. Period. End of story ... well, not exactly.

My new 1GB drive is not a Lexar product, but you can be sure I'll look at Lexar products first when considering a similar purchase. They've earned tons of customer good-will from me.

The same goes for Horizon Music. Last month I bought a 20ft instrument cable for my guitar from a local music store that didn't pass any signal to the mixing board the first time I plugged it into my Ovation acoustic. Though the package said "limited lifetime warranty" and "Any cables returned for warranty should be sent freight prepaid to our factory at the address below," I couldn't find an address on the package. A quick Google search got me to their web site. I e-mailed them and heard back in a couple of days that they would send a new cable to me pronto. They didn't even say anything about sending the old one back (which I've done because it's the right thing to do), or providing them with proof of purchase, or anything. They just sent me a new cable on good faith. On a curious note, I checked the "bad" cable with my cable tester (also a Horizon product, oddly enough) and it tested good.

Bottom line for this blog is this: "kudos" and "thank you" to two stand-up companies that stand behind their products. Well done, y'all. You've got my business for quite some time yet to come.