A similar thing happened to a friend with Gibson. He sent his A style Flatiron Mandolin back for warranty work and, after not hearing back from them for a reasonable length of time, called them to check on the status of the repair. They told him that they couldn't find his mando and sent him a much more expensive F model as a replacement. Then they did find his A model, repaired it, sent it back to him and told him to just keep the F model as well. It doesn't excuse their misplacing his instrument, but it shows a lot of class.