Where do I start. International Luthiers is a "company" that sells wood, supplies, and tools for violin, guitar, and other stringed instrument making. I put company in quotes because it's hardly a company at all. Rather it's one, maybe two people sitting behind a desk taking your money. First off, they don't have an online ordering system. I decided to send in a mail order form since the speed of the order wasn't a factor for me. They received the order on May 16th 2008, my card was charged on May 19th.
And so I waited.

And waited.

...And waited some more.

A month went by with no delivery. So I emailed them again and again without a single reply. I tried calling. No answers. I think one of their phone lines is set to busy and the other line no one ever answers. Nearly two months had gone by and by that time I was fairly certain I had gotten scammed. I asked my father (who's a lawyer) to try and contact them. Every one of his emails went unanswered. He finally figured out that they pick up their phone most often in the morning. They told him that the order had been sent, but it "must have been lost". I knew this was a lie because after I realized my order wasn't coming, I decided to look them up on google. The search came back with a few forums with complaints about this company, which were very similar to mine. No order received, claimed it was lost, emails never answered, etc. The man on the phone told my dad that he would send out another order and that we could call back the next day for a tracking number. So we did. Needless to say the tracking number was bologna and returned nothing on USPS's website. However, after a little legal coercing, today, a week later, July 24th 08, the package finally came. Two and a half months later.

And how about the contents of the package? One of the items is flat out missing. Another is being shipped in a separate package, which I won't be surprised if it takes another two months to get here. The carving knives are rusty. One of the pieces of wood is split. Packing protection consisted of two crumpled up magazine pages shoved in a corner.

Long story short, if you're interested in stringed instrument making, do yourself a huge favor and look somewhere else. This company has 17 complaints with the Better Business Bureau. I wish I had known this before I ordered from them. I came so close to getting on the next flight to Tulsa and putting a brick through every one of their windows.