UPDATED: 'United Breaks Guitars' Singer Gets Cash Offer From Airline (VIDEO)

UPDATED, Jul. 10, 3:00 p.m:

After his song made its way across the Internet, Carroll received a call from United offering to pay for his beloved guitar. As you'll see below, Carroll politely declined:

Check back for Vol. 2 of Carroll's United trilogy.

*****

Hell hath no fury like a customer scorned. The LA Times reports that one United Airlines passenger was so dismayed over a guitar broken by United staffers that he has writ his anger across the web.

While Dave Carroll was flying from Nova Scotia to Nebraska he had his Taylor guitar ruined. After a protracted attempt to get United to pay for the damage, Carroll struck back. Here's Carroll's saga in his own words (from his personal website):

"In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn't deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say "no" to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world."

Here's the first of Carroll's songs:

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Comments

[AV8R Author]

Great that your song tells your story. The blurry shots are distracting rather than artistic though. Otherwise, congrats on your online success.
Cheers! Mark L Berry

[condor101]

Awesome song and video!
United Sucks!
Corporate America sucks.....plain and simple.

[planetjeffy]

I have never met a musician who would check their instrument thru baggage. They always carry it on the flight. This guy is just looking for attention to his lousy music. Beside country music still suckz.

[oakley9]

I would never check my Taylor. I recently bought a cheapo acoustic for such occasions.

[Celeste Moyers]

Southwest is great to fly with. I always carry my guitar on board and one time, I boarded the plane too late and could not sit near where it was stored above. Unbeknownst to me, a Southwest Airlines stewardess saw what was happening and asked a passenger nearby if I could sit with my guitar. As I was sitting down, the stewardess said, "I'm sure your guitar is really special to you and I figured you'd want to be close to it so you know for sure it's safe." She didn't have to go to all that trouble, but I'm so glad she did.

[Eric8869]

I live in Chicago - United's HOME and I'm also a United Premiere member and guess what...I fly Southwest.

Why? Well the boarding process is faster and the planes leave on time because of it. and 9 times out of 10 I get to sit in the seat I want. (the exit row)

United treats its customers like they don't value them at all unless they are the business traveler. They go as far as to have their first class passengers walk across a small red carpet to board. All this tranlates is that you don't value your other customers.­...period.

Then the gate employees are rude and the flight attendants are miserable.(Which you can almost not blame them after what they have been through with Uniteds bad management)

Then you have the southwest employees - casually dressed, friendly. The gate agents are so nice and the flight attendants are nice. The whole experience is nicer.

United has a lot to learn about customer service. Even with my perks - I'd rather fly Southwest.

[cceras]

Gotta love those internets!! It always floors me how these companies get away with such poor customer service. I'm in the healthcare industry and if I ever treated my customers like that, I would be shown the door in a NY minute! Good for this gentleman - and great voice!

[LisainNYC]

Believe me, I and a lot of other people have been treated as bad or worse by healthcare companies. And in those cases, obviously, the stakes are much higher.

[banker67]

Not that our comments matter, but I'd guess this was just considered a 'little people' incident until it hit the net.
As long as it's just ordinary customers, there's no reason for anyone to think.
Just blow them off.
What're they gonna do, sue? Hahahahahaha!.
But this guy wrote a song and pretty soon a million people will have a negative impression of United thanks to a lawyerly highest-level strategic decision to ignore the concerns of regular customers.
Soon the execs will need to squander a few hundred million on advertising to 'recreate the image' they so carelessly ruined. After that, they'll ask for a tax-payer bailout and will use most of it for executive bonuses with direct deposit in tax-sheltered Swiss bank accounts.
Kinda makes you proud of our business schools, eh?

[plzchuteme]

You are correct. I don't know why corporations would rather spend millions to convince us that there is no problem rather than prevent a problem or correct a problem at a fraction of the cost.

[WorkingClass]

Guess what United. Your customers hate your guts. Could it be because you treat them like dirt?

[lizr]

I switched to American Airlines- they did a great job for me in May!

[mlaiuppa]

United and all other large corporations need to take note. The world has changed. There used to be a time when you could screw over your customers and there wasn't much they could do about. But "word of mouth" has gone global. Dave Carroll can 'talk' to anyone in the world on the internet. And over 1 MILLION people know his story. Not because it's on the news but because they are enteratained by his song on YouTube. And there are two more to go. Because Dave promised there would be three songs and we can vote for your favorite. And unlike United Airlines, Dave is a man of his word.

You might have been able to buy him off when he first contacted you. Not anymore.

[nogrey]

THANK YOU!!!! Thanks for putting so nicely into words and song the views of so many. I admire so much your positive response to such a negative experience. I hope this proves to be a big break for "The sons of Maxwell". I also hope this proves to be a big break for those who might make the mistake of flying United. In my experience, they are the WORST choice of airines, not only for traveling musicians, but for traveling humans.

[Bing Futch]

Not only does United break guitars; Northwest breaks mountain dulcimers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x50pJe_QvQQ

[Weirdwriter]

That was superb. I recommend folks pass this on to others, too.

[snugglepuss]

These guys did a great job. I can relate. Since 1990, I've instructed all admins to never book me on United Airlilnes domestically (dirty, cramped planes; rude flight attendants, delays etc.) I live in Chicago, so we have a lot of choice. Their international routes are much better, particularly Asia/Pacific.

If you are reading this United, you need to urgently do the following:
1. Set up dedicated customer service teams that will handle any issues all the way through resolution. So whether an issue comes up in the terminal, online or by phone, all employees know to automatically escalate the issue to this dedicated team. No more leaving your customers to navigate endlessly through your massive corporate labyrinth (can't help you, call this #, e-mail this person endless loop).
Take responsibility and YOU, dedicated customer service person, call/e-mail internally to get resolution.
2. Change your recruiting practices. Take a page out of the Southwest airlines book - screen for people that enjoy serving and naturally relate to others.

Your welcome. This is for free - my consulting fees are generally $350/hour.

[kareemachan]

I heard Dave Carroll interviewed on CBC, and was impressed with his story - and his song. He really tried to deal with United before resorting to this. Classic response during this time from United was when he actually talked to somebodywho didn't immediately blow him off. He faxed her with all the info, she promised to look it over. He called back after a couple of days, and guess what? The phone # was disconnected. And so it went....

[scotia626]

I am a United Global Services Customer and supposedly benefit from the best service they have to offer. what a joke. So far this year I have flown 60 united flights and earlier this month flight attendant threatened to throw me off a flight when I suggested the customer who just ran over his toe with a roll-on-board and who he verbally assaulted as result probably did not do it on purpose. On the same flight in their in flight magazine was a 2 page article on the professionalism of their attendants and commitment to customer service. There is a hug disconnect between the company's stated values and their employee behaviours. And it will never be corrected until they stop making excuses and start cleaning house. This song may prove useful to all of us who get treated like so much garbage on the plane by people who fail to recognize that the customer is why they have a job!!!

[scotia626]

and i am thrilled that the singer is from my home town!!