Bloomington Guitar & Amp

Brought in a guitar due to buzzing. All other guitars sound fine through the same rig, so I thought maybe there was an issue. Turns out no issue, the guitar is inherently noisy. So, nothing was fixed but I was charged the standard $ 30 bench fee for something I’d think they could have said up front.
Took same guitar to Vance’s on the square and he opened it up, checked ground continuity and looked for shielding. Told me the same thing I was told by Bloomington Guitar and Amp, but took less than five minutes to do this and charged me absolutely nothing.
I must have misunderstood when I brought in the guitar to Bloomington Guitar and Amp. The guy plugged it into two different amps and acknowledged the noise, then said they could do something about it. But after a $ 30 «triage» (as it was called when I picked up my guitar and asked what specifically had been done), there was apparently no fix other than the possibility of shielding for an additional $ 50 (which Vance’s said might not actually help anyways).
I get it, I paid the $ 30 bench fee. THEY DIDN“T EVEN WIPE DOWN THE GUITAR FROM THEIR OWN FINGERPRINTS WHILE CHARGING ME A $ 30 BENCH FEE! That’s something that every place I’ve ever done business with has done, even if simply restringing.
I’ll take my business to Vance’s where they could tell me upfront if it was worth the bench fee (since they, apparently, have the experience to recognize the issue without $ 30 of «triage»), and were able to be clear about the issue as well as the merits and shortcomings of possible solutions.
EDIT:
It is the next day following posting this and I received an email from Bloomington Guitar and Amp. My review above was referred to as disingenuous (due to me saying they did nothing). I am including here, for transparency and fairness the itemized work done to my guitar:
— Tested ground continuity from bridge, all pots and out output jack — that tested OK
— We then looked for cold solder joints, or parts touching that maybe shouldn’t be… anything that could be causing excess noise
— We found a «rogue» ground wire. There was a wire soldered to the back of one of the pots that went to nowhere.
— We removed it, and that seemed to make some difference. Continuity still tested correctly after that.
— After that, I tested it on a couple of different amps with a couple of different levels of gain
— It all sounded good, but there was some general noise, especially when you take your hands off the strings — nothing that wouldn’t be totally normal at that point on a guitar with no interior shielding.
—
Please notice, I brought in the guitar concerned because there was a buzzing that went away when I touched the bridge. Here, this very concern is being addressed and described as «totally normal.»
That is the real point of my review. If they are calling this «totally normal» why wouldn’t they have said that upfront and saved me a bench fee just to arrive at «oh yeah, that’s totally normal»?
In the email they also called the bit of extra wire they removed a «bad wire.» Yet this was a ground wire, and they also said that before and after its removal that the ground continuity was checked and intact. So, the wire was not a «bad wire» it was just superfluous.
Calling it a bad wire is disingenuous, more so than me creating this review to demonstrate that Bloomington Guitar and Amp charged me to check into something they later described as totally normal. Something their competitor didn’t need to charge me for.

After writing this review, the staff contacted me, explained everything and apologized. They made up for everything. Fully pleased with this company and would recommend them to anyone.

Great little shop! Love their hours. Needed a set of power tubes on a Saturday night at 7:30p and they had them in stock! Planning to have some fret work done here very soon.
I’ve have excellent friendly service each time I have stopped in. I really enjoy their unique selection of instruments and their effects pedal selection. Glad to see a shop in town that caters to the musician instead of trying to sell a bunch of cheap off brand gear.
Keep up the great work! You’ll do well in Btown!