PIRATE.COM - Rehearsal Studios Arvostelua 

The company's customer service is abysmal, and their practices are riddled with fraud. £50 has been illicitly charged to my credit card.

Following the end of my studio session last Saturday, I received an email from their security department, alleging that one of my party members interfered with a CCTV. Regrettably, there exists no substantiating evidence for this claim and nor were provided when requested. Consequently, my account was summarily erased / deleted from their website by Pirate Studios, and their services were retracted.

A mere 24 hours later, a Pirate Studios employee unilaterally accessed my personal information and payment details, resurrecting my account without my consent or acceptance to their terms and conditions. This maneuver served only to facilitate an unauthorized charge to my credit card, under the pretense of a penalty fee for which no proof was ever provided. Taking the timeline of events into consideration, encompassing my account's deletion and the unsanctioned use of my private information for financial gain, it becomes apparent that these actions exemplify fraudulent behavior. The mishandling of sensitive personal data during this ordeal further underscores a breach of GDPR regulations.

I've already lodged a formal complaint with the Pirate Studios CEO, and I intend to seek a chargeback from my credit card provider. Furthermore, I am committed to reporting this GDPR violation to the ICO.

EDIT 23/10/2023: To this day no evidence of any tampering was provided to me. This should have been provided prior to charging my card as this makes your practices fraudulent. Screenshots I provided you clearly say my account was deleted (by you) therefore your right to use my personal or financial data was void and only way for you to seek any financial reimbursement from me is by going through civil court case not by opening new or reopening old account without my consent. In fact it was confirmed by my bank during chargeback process who took my side and dismissed your counter claims. Therefore this review has accurately represented your company fraudulent practices, it has also proved how shocking your customer service is and how keen you are to steal people's money without providing any evidence whatsoever for the alleged CCTV tampering.

This is the third time I've used the studios at Cardiff and the second time I've had an issue.
Started a live stream only to find out 30mins in that the usb reader wouldn't work on the one cdj, couldnt play any of my own tracks just my dj partners, was given instructions to do a hard reset, which was after our session had finished anyway.
Basically told it was my problem not theirs via a WhatsApp conversation.

I had an absolutely terrible experience with this DJ studio. Their equipment is almost always faulty, and the support team is unhelpful and does not issue refunds for the inconvenience caused. The air conditioning system never works, leaving customers sweating in discomfort for hours on end. On one instance, which turned out to be our last visit, we were kicked out for being over capacity, even though we had offered to book two studios to accommodate everyone. They wouldn't accept that because the studio would be over-capacity by just one person! It was clear that the studio's rigid policies prioritise their own convenience over the satisfaction of their loyal customers.

Overall, the lack of understanding and consideration shown by this DJ studio is appalling. The high prices charged for their services do not reflect the poor quality service they provide, and the lack of effort to fix ongoing issues with their equipment is unacceptable.
I wrote a complain email back in March, and didn't even receive a response!!
I would not recommend this studio to anyone and suggest looking for a more customer-oriented business, such as AllNighterStudios, or any other studio for that matter.

The Plymouth branch is a shambles, anytime there is an issue you waste at least an hour on what's app trying to get help. Poorly maintained equipment, parts of drum set always missing. Poor lighting, dim at best. Fire alarm goes off, no one deals with it. It's meant to be convenient to rehearse here but your waste more time than you save. Go anywhere else and your be happier. Also your notice they don't reply to the negative feedback. Pirate are Happy to take your money and hope you don't complain.

Wow - I cannot believe the lack of professionalism here. I booked a rehearsal space weeks ago, to host an audition for 70+ people. I explained at the time of booking that this was the purpose.
I received a text at 1a.m in the morning (36 hours before the start of the booking) telling me the booking was canceled - no explanation, not even an offer of a refund, just 'credit' to rearrange

Weeks and weeks of organisation went into this, not to mention travel and accommodation was already booked - and now i somehow have to find another venue which is near on impossible and likely to cost a fortune at this hour.

I texted the support chat asking if there was anything that can be done, to be met with a support agent that was completely rude. They told me they had to close due to equipment repairs. I offered to bring my own equipment and apparently that wasn't an option. Everything was so cold and rude and when I suggested at least an apology was expected, I was met with a 'laughing' emoji!

I can't quite believe it... so unprofessional and so rude and so frustrating....
DEFINITELY DON'T EVER USE THIS COMPANY

I’ve been using Pirate for years simply because there was nowhere else to go. I’m glad to say that we’ve found somewhere good, as people have realised that there is a massive calling for rehearsal spaces that don’t share Pirate’s abysmal practices and business model. Pirate has the worst gear, it’s a rip off and you’re lucky if you even have what you paid for in your room. So glad to be able to that I’m never going to have to smell that damp stink or waste an hour ringing for the gear we paid for. Terrible place to rehearse.

Easy registration, payment (ID required) and good rates. I booked the lite room in the Glasgow studios and as an intermediate player the kit suited my needs for practising. The room was clean and it was finally great to have a go at acoustic drums than my electronic ones at home!

My experience was not good because like many times I’ve come here, the equipment has had issues BUT I do have to say this experience someone helped me very well and was very sweet and fast with his replies. I usually do get help but it still takes time from my booking. In this experience he tried all possible options before refunding me and directing me to another studio. So thank you! I see improvement and the business growing by the quality of the people you’ve gotten to be on chat support.

First time DJ customer here. Awesome experience in the Tottenham spot.

Kit was a litttttle sticky but no big deal, definitely be back

The equipment is pretty broken, the B volume fader is broken, the tempo fade for number 2 cdj worked intermittently, which made it impossible to beat match for most of the session. Unfortunately I did not have a good experience,

I booked pirate studios for a 3 hours yesterday only to find the equipment faulty in studio 15, on one of the decks, the jog wheel wouldnt spin properly, the tracks would load, the mixer is on its last legs, it looked battered and the air con dosent work, the room is tiny with the speakers literally on top of you which has definitely set my tinnitus off even with ear protection on. Weve had simular problems with another studio at the birmingham branch with me having to leave early because of audio damage and the room being too hot. Very disappointing experience 🙄

I always love coming here and I even commute from San Diego because I can never find anything remotely as remarkable as Pirate Studios. The reason why I’m leaving this comment is because typically I don’t have any hardware issues and the one time I did I reached out to a service provider, by scanning the QR code on the door of each recording studio started messages on WhatsApp and they were able to put me into a different recording room. Just make sure you stay polite and patient because the team here at Pirate really want to see you create your best work and ideas as much as you do, and that’s a wonderful thing. A rare gem this place really is. 😚🤌

Studios 9/10 ordentlich mittlerweile, keine wilden Coronaparty mehr oder dergleichen.. perfekt zum kreativ-sein, aber schon auch dings
teuer!

Sarah absolutely killed it and helped me quickly, efficiently and nicely. I was freaked out but she saved me.

The idea of having somewhere to be able to hone your skills is brilliant , but I feel that this greenwich site will end up closing which is such a big shame and will be gutting . So many people go here and are very respectful but , for months the place is being allowed to be destroyed by others that just wanna party and get out of there nut and ruin it for musicians that use there place. The amount of damage happening is shocking. I feel pirate have used a few excuses to address this issue over the last few months.
Now personally would it hurt to employ a small amount of staff to rotate on shift to actually keep a eye on the greenwich studio ? It's not a big cost and it means less outlay on equipment that's damaged etc. Really need to get a grip of this studio location. Need permanent staff there to rid the rot out

I booked three hours in their Sheffield studio to use the DJ room. On arriving the equipment was filthy - thick with dust and stains. After spending a few minutes cleaning it we set and got going…to find that the mixer didn’t work properly. The cross fader was completely gone on it and the colour knobs had no effect on the sound. So it meant the session was a waste as I was planning to record a mix.
On reporting it to Pirate two days later they offered me 10% off my next booking. Erm thanks but no thanks.
My advise don’t use them there are better equipped studios out there.

As a band we rehearsed in room 7 at ‘ ‘Notting Hill ‘ ie Latimer rd W10. All the amps/pa had been turned up right to 10 then switched off by the last people, consequently as we switched on everything was screaming. The snare drum stand was broken, snare skin broken. Tom holders broken. No info on pa at all. No care, Soulless.

Been going here for years, it’s a great creative space for studio time and DJ practice but quite expensive these days, the prices have shot up!

Pirates do not care about their customers. They lack empathy and will do whatever they can to charge you unnecessarily.

I booked Pirate studio at the 'Tottenham' location on Friday, Jan 6, 2023, and received an email about being charged for tampering with the CCTV equipment (this was against their terms and conditions, as expected). This was very strange as no equipment was messed with or damaged and the room was left in a better condition than it was met. After seeing this email I decided to reply to get more information as I disagreed with the charges.

I messaged their security team as stated on their website and they replied the following day with an email stating 'We have investigated and checked our CCTV cameras. We can confirm that your responsible for tampering with our cameras'. After doing some research I found out that this email was a default email they send to everyone who they charge. This meant that they did not consider anything I said and did not bother to resolve this situation. After realising this I messaged again asking for the CCTV footage as they are charging me with no evidence of me breaking their terms and conditions. They then replied 'Unfortunately we cannot provide you with any CCTV footage without a case number from the police station'. I found this odd as on their website it states 'you have the right to access your CCTV data at any time and free of charge'. When I challenged them about this, they decided to stop responding to my emails.

Since then I have sent 3 follow-up emails and have not received a response. I have also contacted them via live chat on WhatsApp for 6 days and they have told me 'I will escalate this to security and get a response for you'. No one has gotten back to me yet and I started this dispute more than 14 days ago.

The reason I am more shocked at this experience is due to me being a regular at Pirate. I even became a Pirate ambassador to refer people to them and the way I have been treated is upsetting.

In Conclusion, Pirate has taken my hard-earned money out of my account unfairly, stopped replying to emails, and will not provide evidence to support their claims. I will be careful booking with them as it shouldn't be this difficult to solve an issue like this.

Edit: Pirate ignored me until I wrote this review. They then decided to contact me after writing this review 5 days later, whilst ignoring me days prior. They phoned me and told me they will not be reversing the charge and repeatedly told me information that was not fitting to my matter. As a result, I have claimed a chargeback through my bank and received the money through them. It's sad to see that after being a customer for so long this is how they treat you.