NWB - Community Blog

24 Apr 2009

Ebay Is Rubbish!

Filed Under : Rants

Posted By : Film One | Comments : 7

The Ebay Curse Strikes Again!

Is it just me or should the words "in perfect working order" be accompanied by a disclaimer saying "(this is probably a lie)". The fourth piece of music gear out of four I've got off that site has again had turned up in anything other than working order! In this case it was a Roland JX3P synthesizer. Despite the synth arriving in a flight case, the plug was smashed to pieces (would've made testing the thing before listing it quite interesting), a quick change of plug later revealed an array of dead keys. Great! Chances are it's fixable, but it's a right swine of a job to do and involves enough pure alcohol to get a tramp drunk.

So glad I never bought a pre-CBS Fender off there, as I was planning to a couple of years ago. I suspect it'd either turn up in two pieces or with the word "Squier" shoddily rubbed off the headstock!

Rant over!

Comments

# Posted by Scott - Metalleeka - 24/04/2009, 15:48 (GMT)

had a couple of minor issues from ebay like a right handed tremelo on a left handed guitar etc, but on the whole my ebay experiences have been pretty positive.

The only way you'll negate the possibilty of something arriving busted is if you buy it new from a respectable dealer, but even then, it can still arrive busted.

The joys of buying online :-)

# Posted by W - 24/04/2009, 16:41 (GMT)

I never buy unless I can go check it out first...too many con artists out there. True bargains just don't exist now because we can all use the internet to find out the true value of an item.

Good to see you looking after the interests of fellow NWBers.

# Posted by Hare Of The Dog - 24/04/2009, 18:18 (GMT)

and the paypal claim thing its such a pain in the arse , a lot of people give up halfway, i did that with a dispute over an effects pedal, just though sod it and gave em the money back

i must admit with guitars and amps ive only bought them when nearby and can collect or meet halfway etc, which does limit the things available but......

# Posted by Film One - 27/04/2009, 07:53 (GMT)

I'm certainly never going to buy something off there without seeing it in person first. I'd certainly never do that for a really expensive item, but I guess I'll have to extend that policy to cheap as chips instruments now too!

I managed to fix the dodgy keys, but the seller must have known there was a problem as it was blatantly obvious it'd been opened and "serviced" at some point in the last couple of years as it was too clean inside for a 25+ year old board. Someone had also done a really dodgy repair on it, scratching the coating off the contacts, rather than using isopropyl alcohol to clean them. There's (terrible) advice about doing that to fix keys dead on the web. Still just about works, but a cautionary tale.

# Posted by Bad Horsie (Mick) - 29/04/2009, 14:37 (GMT)

I've been really lucky. Never had a deal go bad yet and I've bought stuff from the U.S.

I ALWAYS check that the seller has 100% positive feedback though.

Last purchase was a H&K Switchblade for £650 and it's MINT.

# Posted by NIGHT TRAIN - 29/04/2009, 15:12 (GMT)

always beware the lines' 'I'm selling this on behalf of a friend, and don't really know much about it'.....yeh they do,they know its knackered!

# Posted by Bad Horsie (Mick) - 29/04/2009, 15:38 (GMT)

lol.

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