Ibanez JS100, a set on Flickr.
Bargain at £299 including Hiscox hard case – check out my EBay Auction
Category: Guitars
Epiphone SG, a set on Flickr.
Bargain at £99.99 check out this EBay Auction
Available from here
Bought a Warwick Rockstand five (5) guitar rack from Andertons in Guildford this morning.
Seems to do the job ok – holds a variety of different size and shape guitars quite effectively.
Odd thing is that there are an awful lot of parts left over – almost a complete new stands worth in fact.
I bet some poor sod has bought the same product and is scratching his head over missing parts.
The stand – fully populated
The left over parts
The stand and the leftover parts in all their glory
Well, a bit of patience seems to have paid off.
In addition to getting my money back from Ebay/Paypal I got to keep the fake guitar too.
Small consolation as the darned thing is rather shoddily made.
I have had many, many messages from other buyers regarding this particular seller (who now seems to have been put out of business). I’d certainly be interested to hear the outcomes of other claim cases.
This eBay rating system is a joke.
This particular seller (musicshowgo) has sold dozens of counterfeit Epiphone guitars to unsuspecting buyers (including me).
He has now tried to cover up the recent negative feedback by making it private – as a result of being found out.
His previous eBay userid was jaylee11582009.
Its interesting that he has changed his ID but eBay’s system is not indicating that he has changed his identity.
He has been reported to eBay and Gibson yet is allowed to continue trade.
The folks over at Andertons (great shop give them a visit) have very kindly provided me with a letter confirming the guitar is counterfeit.
As an authorsied Gibson and Epiphone dealer they should know. They have also pointed out another anomaly with this particular model – the gloss finish on the back of the neck. On the original, the finish is matte.
I have now faxed this confirmation over to PayPal and Ebay and eagerly await their response.
Gibson themselves have been helpful up to a point.
They have finally replied by email:
Hello Ian,
Thank you for contacting Gibson. The instrument in the pictures is not consistent with a real Epiphone Zakk Wylde model. The instrument in the pictures you emailed appears to be consistent with one of the many counterfeit instruments showing up these days. Thanks.
Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON
service@gibson.com
When asked if they could fax this confirmation through to me they responded:
Hello Ian,
Thank you for contacting Gibson Customer Service. We do not have FAX available. If you could email a link to the site where this person is selling these guitars, Gibson Customer Service would turn it over to our legal dept to have them work to shut this seller down. Thanks.
Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON
service@gibson.com
Blimey, Gibson seems rather technologically backward. Its not just the lack of fax, they have rather small email size limits and an inability to access the internet from their computers !
Hi,
Thanks for the email. Unfortunately, we are unable to view websites outside of the Gibson network. In order to properly identify and authenticate the guitar, please send in detailed pictures of the front and back of headstock as well as the front and back of the guitar’s body and we will be happy to evaluate. Also, make sure to keep the file size under 2MB total. If it is larger, we will not recieve it. Thanks again.
Gibson Customer Service
1-800-4GIBSON
service@gibson.com
Following my narrow escape from one fake Les Paul through Ebay, I thought I’d grab another bargain through Ebay. This time the Epiphone Zakk Wylde signature Les Paul. The listing indicated the guitar was 100% genuine and indeed from the listing pictures, the guitar looked legit. I emailed the seller to ask and he replied that indeed it it genuine.
The listing also indicated a collection option was possible so I though I’d buy it and reject if found to be a fake on collection.
A few days after buying and email the seller for a collection time and location I received a reply indicating that collection was NOT in fact possible but he’d ship the guitar to me for free.
Hmmm.
A few more days of chasing a delivery date and the guitar finally arrived in a parcel looking like this:
Horrible looking tape all around a polystyrene box which when opened revealed this box that looked like it had been damp at some point:
Needless to say that as soon as I opened the box I realised it was in fact another fake.
Giveaways include these volume and tone pots:
They should of course look like this:
Other giveaways include this pickup selector switch:
It should of course look like this (no surround):
I’m also quite doubtful about the back of the headstock. Here is the picture of the back of the guitar I received:
And the stock Epiphone photo looks like this – note the colour difference in the circular logo:
The neck to body join at the heel also looks awful:
When compared to this:
I have posted loads more pictures of the fake I have received here
And a few pictures of a genuine guitar taken from the Epiphone website here
I’m in the process of pursuing the seller through both EBay and PayPal. I have been asked by EBay to obtain independent expert confirmation of the guitar being a counterfeit.
So far Gibson have been quite helpful – they have asked for photographs of the guitar which I have now sent to them for confirmation.
I’ll update this post with progress and details as and when I get them
Had a narrow escape from what looked like a bargain Epiphone Les Paul purchase on Ebay today.
I had actually paid £220 for ‘this’ brand new Epiphone Les Paul Custom in a rather fetching vintage sunburst with flamed maple top. This is around a £300 saving on the retail price from the usual significant UK dealers.
After winning the auction, I asked the seller if I could collect the guitar only to be told:
“hi mate:
sorry for the late reply,to be honest with you , this is a
dropship bussiness, all the items are shiped from supplier to my customer
dircetly, so i am sorry to that we can not arrange the pick up in
person”
Hmm, ok so some businesses are not set up for collection so I thought not too much more about it.
However, just before the guitar was about to ship I spotted a whole bunch more Epiphone Les Pauls on Ebay all selling for roughly the same price from other providers – a bit strange not the bargain I first thought. Stranger that many of them are also quoted as being ‘drop shipped’ direct from the supplier.
I did a little bit of research and found that Fake Gibson and Epiphone guitars are rife on Ebay – got me worried enough to ask the seller:
Hi – before you ship the guitar I have bought, can you please
confirm
that it is a genuine Epiphone guitar please ?
If it is not genuine, can
you please NOT send it and refund my
payment.
Well, within no time at all I got this message back:
Hi Ian:
I am really not sure about this, to be honest with you, i am just
a student and this is a dropship bussiness, i do not play guitar mytself
and i have never see this guitar before.To avoid any kind of problems , i
have sent the refund to your account just now.
Well, I guess that answered my question.
Thanks to the forum over at mylespaul.com
Got to be really careful on Ebay its far less obvious than these guys who appear to be selling a $3000 guitar for around $300 !