Payment Policy

Fodera Guitar Partners, LLC Instrument Payment Policy

Fodera Guitars requires a deposit for new instrument orders, $1,000 for Standards and $2,000 for Customs, unless otherwise agreed upon (ie. Masterbuilts require a $5,000 deposit). Receipt of your deposit ensures two things:

1. The price of your instrument is locked in at the pricing level in place at the time of your deposit. The cost of any changes made to the specifications of the bass after the deposit has been received will be charged at the current pricing in effect at that time. Shipping rates could be calculated for you at this time or when final payment is arranged.

2. Your Production Date and Production Number will be provided to you via email upon receipt of your deposit. The completion time that we assign you is our best effort to provide a realistic time frame for when your instrument is likely to be completed, typically an estimated month (ie. September 2021). Should this timeline change significantly, we will make reasonable efforts to contact you and make you aware. Unless we fail to deliver your instrument within six (6) months following your originally estimated completion (or any updated Production Date that we apprise you of and that you do not object to in writing), your deposit and any other progress payments made are non-refundable.

Any changes to the specifications of your instrument must be made within a month of placing your deposit. For any month that passes without confirmed specs beyond that one (1) month mark, you will incur a fee of $100 per month. In extreme cases, the build will be pushed to the end of our production schedule in addition to the accruing fees. At our option, additional charges as the result of any changes made at least one (1) month prior to your Production Date may be due immediately upon our agreeing to modify your specifications.

When your instrument is nearly complete, we will notify you that the balance remaining, including shipping, for your order is due and payable. At that time, Fodera reserves the right to require payment in-full for any order we deem, in our sole discretion, to be of a highly customized nature prior to beginning final production. All other orders will have fourteen (14) days from the date of this notification to make payment. Should you fail to make this payment within fourteen (14) days, we reserve the right to add a $100 fee for every month that there is still a pending balance and/or sell your instrument and will consider your deposit and any progress payments made to have been forfeited. 

Cancellation Policy

All deposits and any progress payments made are non-refundable and will be forfeited at the time of any order cancellation.

Refund Policy

All Sales Are Final. All physical items cannot be returned for exchange, credit, or refund. For information about canceling an instrument that you've placed a deposit on, please see our cancellation policy.

Promo Codes & Digital Coupons

All promotional codes and or coupons must be presented at the time of purchase. They may not be applied retroactively or post purchase. No exceptions will be made.

Promotional codes may not be combined with any other coupon(s), discount(s), offer(s), or promotion(s).

Policy on Hand Selected Tops

Fodera Guitars will only offer the service of hand-selecting a specific piece of top wood for an instrument once we have received a complete order and are in receipt of a non-refundable deposit.

Unless an order has been received along with a corresponding non-refundable deposit, any samples of top woods that you have been shown may be sold to other customers at our option.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Policy

Our bass guitars are crafted with some of the finest natural materials available. The importation or exportation of some of these natural materials, specifically shell products (Mother of Pearl and Green Abalone) are now being regulated by an agency in the United States Department of Interior, the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This Agency is responsible for the enforcement of all US Federal fish and wildlife laws. In order for Fodera to obey these newly enforced Federal Laws, Fodera Guitar Partners must file a true and accurate Declaration Form with the US Fish and Wildlife Service for EVERY international shipment that contains any kind of shell product (which is effectively 100% of the instruments that we sell). We also must receive an approval from the US Fish and Wildlife Service PRIOR to releasing any instrument for shipment. Unfortunately, this process is a fee-based system. Therefore, effective immediately, all internationally shipped instruments that include any amount of regulated shell products (again, 100% of our instruments do) will be charged an additional handling fee of $125 per shipment (this cost includes the $93 paid directly to the U.S. Government, our FedEx charges for submitting hardcopies of all paperwork [another $10-$15) and a very nominal charge for the time it takes to complete these tasks). The definition of a "shipment" is any instrument(s), up to 25 boxes, sent to one specific location/address under a master-shipping label.

For example:

Ex. No. 1: We ship one (1) bass to an international address. That is one (1) shipment and would be charged an additional handling fee of $125.

Ex. No. 2: We ship four (4) basses and one (1) box of strings to an international address. If this is being shipped under one Master FedEx Shipping Label this will be considered one (1) shipment and would be charged an additional handling fee of $125.

We regret having to pass this charge on to our international dealers and
customers. Unfortunately, this is completely outside of our control. Additionally, for instruments that will be completed within two weeks of one another, we will be more than happy to group the shipments together to save on paperwork and cost. However, instruments that will be completed more than two weeks apart will need to be treated as two separate shipments.

Finally, please understand that all international shipments that are registered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must be accompanied by a detailed invoice from Fodera that specifies the correct value of the shipment. While we routinely use accurate international invoices for shipping our instruments, it has come to our attention that some of our Dealers that ship internationally deliberately understate the value of the shipments to save their foreign customers taxes and/or customs duty. Please understand that we view this as unfair competition with those Dealers that do play by the rules and we will immediately stop working with any Dealer that we become aware of following this practice.

No-Hold Policy

Finished instruments could be held in our shop for up to 30 days. Any instrument still unable to ship after that point (per customer request or lack of response) will incur a $100 charge for every additional month held in our shop.