After 9 months of waiting for an ordered piano accordion from Lanzinger Harmonikas company in Sexten Italy, I contacted a number of other accordion companies for prices on different accordions - one of the companies I contacted was Fismen from Castelfidardo.

As I mentioned to Fismen that I am from Australia, they asked me whether I had ordered a Lanzinger piano accordion, with the exact details of the accordion I had ordered a year ago from now, from Lanzinger. I told Fismen the whole problem I had with Lanzinger and that the accordion Fismen asked me about was the same one I was waiting for, for such a long time, from Lanzinger.
To verify it was the same accordion, they took some photos of it and sent it to me. It was the same custom design I had ordered, and they explained that they still make accordions for Lanzinger.

They told me that the reason I did not get the accordion, was because although it was ready for months and waiting in Fismen's stock room, the Lanzinger company did not pick up the accordion. This means that the Lanzinger company did not even pay for the accordion and (probably) might not have even had the money to do so (otherwise they would have done it, and opened the door to sales in such a distant country, like Australia).

Fismen offered to sell me the accordion, and it turned out they did not receive any deposit from Lanzinger Harmonikas to start building the accordion - which means my 500 euro deposit which was paid to Lanzinger was like a donation to the company.

After I received the accordion from Fismen and was already playing on it, I received an e-mail from Lanzinger Akkordeons, saying that they have my accordion and it is ready to be sent to Australia - the same accordion that I already had in my hands!

I told them that I did not believe them. I asked them for a photo of the accordion they say they had, and also asked them why the accordion took so long to make; who really makes Lanzinger accordions?
They sent me a photo, the exact same photo that Fismen took and sent to me, weeks ago, before I received the accordion.
Lanzinger went on to write that they make their own accordions and order parts from Italy, and that they took the photo themselves.

I am continuing to ask Lanzinger Harmonikas for the return of my deposit.
The latest conversation, dated 23 October 2012:

<Myself>: "Dear Mr. Lanzinger,
Are you telling me, that you did NOT receive a deposit of 500 euros - which you never deposit to Fismen, and you DON'T want to return this money to me?"

I will make sure, that all musicians around the world, knows what you have done to me. And I will continue this, until I receive my 500 euros.

When will you return my 500 euros? To me, this is a big financial loss. I am only a student.

When will you stop treating your customers like this?

Regards"

<Mr. Lanzinger>: "...we got your deposit but we ask every time a deposit when we have to produce a special model. So if you want to continue you can continue. You had to pay the rest of your accordion and we sanded to you. When we pay to Fismen your accordion, is our problem not yours..."

Here is my problem: my 500 euros was NOT spent for business (my accordion) - but for what??

In the above e-mail, Lanzinger says "When we pay to Fismen your accordion, is our problem not yours." This means, that Lanzinger thinks he is entitled to keep my deposit, and keep/spend my 500 euros in any way he likes. It also means that the 500 euros was NOT spent on this accordion.

My opinion is that I am entitled to have my 500 euros returned, which was not at all spent on the construction of the accordion or even the deposit to the manufacturer (they never had the accordion in their hands, as you can read above).

Are they actually allowed to use my 500 euros for purposes other than the accordion? This is real DISHONESTY.

Is there any way that someone can help me, to get back my 500 euros that was not spent for what the deposit was agreed upon?