Rip offs & Scams

[XxMedisinxX]

does anyone have any stories about buying/selling gear online or offline and being ripped off??

i'll start, first i bought a juno d from a music store here in socal and they told me everything worked they just didnt have any open sockets to plug it into so i pay 630 bucks for it get it home and the last 5 or 6 keys dont work....not even worth 300...

then i bought a mpc 1000 from ebay and the bottom 4 pads were so worn out i had to get an mpd to trigger em,i paid 750 for that..

then i sold my vestax mkII pro turntable to some guy along with my roland sp 404 with a ton of ol skool records for chopping and a preamp and even taught the dude how to chop beats n sh1t together this is worth more than $700 i sold it for 350 then this guy gave me 150 and told me he would give me the rest the next day because he gets his disabilty check...i guess i felt sorry for the guy cuz he looked messed up....but anyway yeah im a little wiser now and only go to legit shops.

 

[SUPERBANANABOMB]

does anyone have any stories about buying/selling gear online or offline and being ripped off??

i'll start, first i bought a juno d from a music store here in socal and they told me everything worked they just didnt have any open sockets to plug it into so i pay 630 bucks for it get it home and the last 5 or 6 keys dont work....not even worth 300...

then i bought a mpc 1000 from ebay and the bottom 4 pads were so worn out i had to get an mpd to trigger em,i paid 750 for that..

then i sold my vestax mkII pro turntable to some guy along with my roland sp 404 with a ton of ol skool records for chopping and a preamp and even taught the dude how to chop beats n sh1t together this is worth more than $700 i sold it for 350 then this guy gave me 150 and told me he would give me the rest the next day because he gets his disabilty check...i guess i felt sorry for the guy cuz he looked messed up....but anyway yeah im a little wiser now and only go to legit shops.

If you bought an item from the music store, why didn't you test it out? Actually, any respectable store would let you demo it first and they most definitely wouldn't try to pass off bunk gear as fully functional and working. I would have immediately taken it back and demanded to talk to the manager. That's unacceptable and if you just took it without a fight, I feel sorry for your loss but next time man up and get your refund.

And on eBay you really should only buy from people that have good feedback. And I don't mean like 5 positive feedbacks. On the flip side, you don't wanna buy from people who have thousands upon thousands of feedback sometimes because that means they are up to their elbows in orders and work, and those are the types of sellers that are usually very hard to get a hold of, and tend to be a pain. You should ask a million questions when buying off of eBay because people are constantly putting up their malfunctioning stuff and selling it "as is" and conveniently leaving out details or taking pics that leave out imperfections. Not everyone on eBay is shady but there are a lot of them.

You gotta know what kinds of common problems the item you're interested in typically has, that way you can ask. But with eBay at least there's Paypal, so if someone sells something that's grossly misrepresented, you can file a complaint and get your money back. But it's a double-edged sword because as a seller, you can sell something that's totally fine but people can claim there's something wrong with it and want a refund. And some people will buy an old synthesizer or any piece of gear specifically because they want to steal bits and pieces from the circuit board, then they'll claim that the item they got was non-functional... or some people will swap your item with one of theirs that's broken. ALWAYS make some sort of identifying marks on whatever you're selling on eBay, even if you have to open the case and just make a mark on the inside.

And never, let someone tell you that they're going to give you some money now and some money later. Even your friends. Because if you give someone the opportunity to rip you off, there's a good chance they will. Don't give anyone that chance. And if you see an ad on Craigslist for music gear, insist that you meet in some public place to make the transaction. I've heard stories of people getting robbed of thousands of dollars cash at a time because they went to someone's crib to pick up some sh1t they saw on Craigslist. Always meet up in public, somewhere where you can plug it in and test it out. And always have someone w/ you. I know that sounds paranoid it happens, believe me. Lots of scammers these days are robbing people of cash by having them come over to their crib (what they SAY is their crib) and then just pulling out a gun.

All in all, eBay is a great place to get gear as long as you can find someone to be straight up w/ you. I buy stuff on eBay all the time.

 

[Jon_B]

People like that do my head in coz I've got stuff to sell but it's getting more and more difficult to be seen to be legit. Not a buyer's fault I know - everyone needs to be wary, but people who do that do a great job of making it all but impossible to get rid of the stuff you don't need. Not sure what the answer is other than FeeBay/Paypal but the cut they take stings a bit. I guess that is the safest way, though.