I should probably start a thread of my own, but, I'll post this here and go from there with it... (TL;DR at the end)
Back in late December, Mrs Selta's AX8 was stolen out of the garage in our house. We had unloaded from a gig the previous night, and woke up to a fair amount of gear stolen. Normally we unload and just leave stuff in the garage - no way I want to leave it in the car, as that's always asking for trouble. I figured the garage was "good enough", and we normally moved the gear into the house the next day.
Anyhoo, between 1am and 7am, the stuff was stolen. Two pedal boards, and our cable bags. Thankfully, one of our neighbors saw this happening and honked the horn on their car, scaring the theif off - otherwise, they likely would've gotten way more than they had.
So, I file the police report... my wife and I are dead in the middle of the moving process at that point, and the vast majority of our "stuff" is in boxes - some of it even still in a storage unit. We moved in a bit of a rush, as a house we wanted was on the market and we needed to move quickly, so the boxes were haphazardly filled and unlabeled. Basically, zero chance of finding stuff like purchase date/price and serial number.
Without a serial number, the police would still file a report, but even if an AX8 turns up, proving ownership would be difficult (the only thing we had going were names of presets we had made, and that was iffy ground). So, I PM M@ here, asking if there happens to be anything they can do.
Keep in mind, this is immediately before christmas. I sent M@ the PM on 19 Dec, and was not really expecting a reply quickly.
Roughly an hour later (like 9:30pm east coast time, 6:30pm my time - so after hours no matter how you look at it), M@ replies, and we work out a way that FAS may be able to help. Of course, these guys are all super busy, so it might take some time to see if they can help.
At this point, I'm just glad M@ and crew are digging into it. I've rarely run into a vendor that ties orders/customers to serial numbers. It's just not common, so my brain was rushing, trying to remember what box I packed the paper work into and where that box ended up.
Only 16 hours after my first PM to M@, they had my serial number, and provided it to me! I don't know who was all involved in sifting through the information to get it - I'm sure it wasn't trivial, and likely disruptive to all of their other normal work.
Once I had that serial number, the stolen AX8 was tracked down about a week later. Three weeks after that, I had the AX8 back in hand. The PedalTrain it lived on was not recovered, and only one of the cable bags was as well. The other pedalboard is still AWOL, though I've resigned to the fact that it's gone forever. But, the AX8 was back, and that was the biggie.
@Admin M@ / Fractal Support /
@FractalAudio were instrumental in getting the AX8 back. Without the serial number, I had maybe a 1 in 100 chance of getting it back.
As much as I am outspoken about what I feel is a cold shoulder to bass players with the Fractal gear (and, absolutely, some of the attitude from members here, even) - it is the OPs input, my own experience, and of course the product itself that has made and kept me a customer. And, every chance I get, I speak up about my very positive experiences with this gear and company - going so far as setting up one on one demos with other bass players, doing a 30-45 minute demo at my yearly bass player convention (Emerald City Bass Convention), and offering my time and assistance any way that I can on sites like this, TalkBass.com and others.
TL;DR:
Fractal support was the only reason I got a stolen AX8 back.
