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What is “case candy” worth?
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Comments
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
I saw a secondhand 1980 Les Paul in Guitar Guitar a few months ago, that still had the plastic on the back cavity cover. The plastic had shrunk and peeled at the edges making the sides of the cavity yellow. It gave it a nice sunburst to match the top.
Well it should be
@Dave_Mc Yeah, this is really about where I am at.
@Gassage I don't see what I'd get out of a complaint to eBay. Does anyone know how I might go about that? Or what I might gain from it if I don't return the guitar for a full refund? I'm clearly entitled to that, as the shipment did not tally with the item description.
@ICBM ; No, I think the guitar's condition would be very different if it had been a demo model or previously sold. I don't have a black light, but all I could see was the small headstock blemish.
Knowing how business is transacted in this place all too well, here's my theory: The guitar is about five years old. The picture showing all the case candy was taken soon after its arrival. Half a decade being shunted around in stock with maybe one or two withdrawals from its case will account for the scuffed case and the loss/disposal of (most of) the hang tags. The original wang parts could well have been cannibalised for other guitars to be sold "complete", or sold as spares outright. Ditto the strap. Alternatively, the hardware could have been stolen from the guitar while it was displayed, or removed to prevent this, and then mislaid/sold as spares from the "wang bar drawer".
@Garthy I think in this case RRP would be double what I actually paid.
@FelineGuitars I don’t think this guitar could have spent much if any time on the shop floor. There were no greasy fingermarks. Strings were fresh and it seemed like an expert distributor setup, even though the gauge fitted was surprisingly high.
@maltingsaudio No, it's not that for me. I only want to buy what I was sold. And I definitely want to play it. How long for, I've no idea and I can't play it properly to evaluate it as the instrument it was designed to be without the correct wang parts. Wanging is integral to the way I play.
@Garthy No, it's not a relic, I've never seen one with wear I thought credible, they've always looked wrong to me. True playwear can be beautiful, and some relics are great instruments, though that's then in spite of the finish aging.
@RaymondLin As @Panama_Jack666 rightly points out, this guitar was advertised as "new in box".
@mellowsun I'm definitely buying it as a player, I'd look elsewhere for an "investment guitar", but I think it's frankly daft to ignore resale at any time, and especially when trying something a bit new, as is the case for me here. No one really knows where they are going with their playing long term. I'm haunted Tom Quayle’s tale of dropping £3k (new) on his first archtop and having to sell it quickly for rent for under a third of that shortly after as a skint student... And of course, now he plays mostly solidbodies.
@Strangefan I'm actually a professional pedant. "Wang bar" is more musically accurate than "tremolo bar". In this case, given the location of all players in this sorry story, actually it's Das(s) Wang! That's actually the name of a town a few hours north of me, where my band was once scheduled to play.
http://www.postleitzahl-von.de/landkarte/Daßwang-132801.jpg
@Gassage That's right, there is no COA in this instance, nor is there supposed to be AFAIK.
@gibby I fall into neither of those categories.1) Yeah, pretty good.
2) Can't quite tell without the wang. Also not yet sure how well I get on with the neck profile and fret height, the heavier-than-accustomed strings make it harder to judge this.
It is still a material transaction; no one likes to get diddled. As above, it was not advertised as a demo model.If you request a return for an item not as described Ebay will contact the seller and give them several options. I can't remember them all precisely, but they are broadly to 1: accept the return and give a full refund, providing a postage paid and insured return label 2. offer a partial refund and let the buyer keep the item 3. offer a full refund and let the buyer keep the item . There might have been a 4th option, but it was irrelevant. There is no option to dispute the return or offer Ebay proof that it was as described. The seller can communicate with the buyer, but that's all.
It's all looked at by robots, there is no human involvement at any stage and the buyer always wins, regardless of the circumstances of the case. The buyer doesn't have to prove anything, simply request the return for the item not being as described.
I'm not sure how that helps your particular circumstances, but that is what will happen. The best outcome for you would be a decent partial refund (you can ask for an amount if you like, but don't have to). I guess it all depends on how desperate the seller is to avoid the return and having to re-sell it, plus the cost to them of having to return it.
Bear in mind that you don't have to do anything in the end, despite requesting the return. If the seller accepts the return and provides a shipping label, you still don't have to return it if you don't want to. The request will simply time out after a month or if you cancel it.
eBay T&Cs now run to several pages of small print legalese.
However, they can be summarised in 5 slightly easier to remember key points.
1. If you are the buyer, you win. Whether you should, or not.
2. If you are the seller, you lose. Whether you should, or not.
3. See point 1.
4. See point 1.
5. See point 1.
HTH.
Quick summary of what happened (to the best of my recollection; this was several years ago, as I said):
- When I contacted the seller, the seller went dark. Didn't reply to any of my messages etc.
- I contacted Ebay, they said I should contact the seller.
- I pointed out that I had, several times, and they wouldn't answer.
- Ebay basically said it was between me and the seller to figure it out. Kind of hard when the seller doesn't answer.
- Ebay also said I should return it but I had to pay return postage. I didn't want to do this because (a) with a faulty item I shouldn't have to pay return postage (which is the law), (b) more importantly, I didn't much want to return something to someone who wouldn't even answer my emails- what if he refused delivery or pretended not to be in? but (c) much more importantly, it's virtually impossible to insure a guitar if it doesn't have a case, and considering how the seller had acted up to this point, I didn't trust that he might not smash the guitar and claim that it had turned up damaged (so he didn't have to refund me). Of course it's also possible that it might have genuinely got damaged in transit, too. (Actually at one point I was so bewildered by the whole thing that I was seriously considering putting it in one of my own cases (because losing the case would cost me less than losing the whole guitar), but eventually decided against that.)
- Anyway, after getting nowhere with Ebay, I basically decided to chalk it up to experience and figured I'd just keep the guitar. I'd rather have a lemon than no guitar and no money either if it got smashed in transit.
- A good while later (several weeks, if not a month or two), out of the blue, and after I'd given up, I got an email from Ebay. They said they'd found in my favour for some reason, and had decided (against their usual policy) to pay for the return postage themselves. So I sent it back, reasoning that since they were paying for the postage, it was their problem if it got smashed. And I got a refund.
But it was an absolute pain, and it certainly didn't seem that Ebay was siding with the buyer there at all. And if I had paid for the postage back myself, Ebay would have let me (with all that that might have entailed had something gone wrong).
What was also annoying was that I actually liked the guitar, had I got a decent example. And the lemon was so bad that it meant I was scared to order another from a different shop in case they were all like that.
Yeah. It's hard to know what to do. Sometimes in your gut you kind of know whether it's left such a bad taste in your mouth that you won't be happy if you keep it; sometimes you know you're just a bit annoyed about feeling "diddled", as you said later.
But I'm guessing "gut" isn't foolproof. I kept the two I was talking about*, and now am more or less happy (though I haven't forgotten about the missing gig bags, either- if I ever were to sell them I'm guessing the first question I'd get is, "Where's the gigbag?"**). But that doesn't mean you will be, and at the time I wasn't sure... I've also sent back other stuff where I wasn't happy, and with some of those I'm glad I did, but for at least one other thing I'm not so happy (I was offered a replacement, but declined, because I'd had a lot of faulty stuff at that time which had had to go back and I didn't fancy maybe having to parcel up yet another item to go back if the replacement were no better... in hindsight, at least if I hadn't had such a run of back luck and had my fill of parcelling, the price was so good I should've taken the risk I think
Also I agree with the rest of your post, wisdom duly awarded.
* Actually now that I think of it I think they were both basses. I'll edit my original post. That's actually one of the reasons why I was annoyed- the house is coming down with guitar-sized gigbags, but I don't have a single decent bass gigbag
** Actually it probably wouldn't be because I'd point that out first; whether people would believe my explanation is another thing, though I guess I could link to the threads and forum posts where I asked for advice about what to do...
1) What should happen (legally, I mean).
2) What's likely to happen in reality (whether legal or not).
I agree that (in hindsight after what happened to me!) you should err on the side of caution as a buyer, and not really assume anything- in practice, just to keep yourself as safe as possible.
But that doesn't mean that, legally and ethically, it's ok. If you ask me, if something is being sold as new (by a retailer), it should be assumed that it comes with everything it's meant to come with. If it doesn't, it's up to the retailer to point that out (before the sale occurs). If the retailer doesn't, again if you ask me, the customer is entitled to feel a bit miffed.
Your second post there makes clear that you were meaning point 2- in which case I agree with you. But your first post was a bit more ambiguous and could really have meant either- which could annoy the buyer if he/she thinks that you're basically saying, "You should've been more careful and you deserve what you got!". I know that's not what you meant, don't worry, but a lot of times arguments start because people are arguing at cross purposes (and I imagine I've been guilty of being ambiguous before too
The other problem as well (this is not really anything to do with you, I just thought of it as I was typing this) is that I've come across several posts on here where people who sell a lot on Ebay say that people who ask questions about items before buying them often turn out to be timewasters.
EDIT: (Grr, sorry for the long-winded posts
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that I think all buyers are good or that all sellers are bad, or anything like that. I'm well aware that a lot of buyers are chancers (or worse), too. I'm just saying that, unless Ebay rules have changed since my experience, having Ebay supposedly totally on the side of the buyer didn't feel like a lot of help when I was the buyer and in trouble. I consider that I got out of that one by luck rather than good judgment.
If you come up against a determined scammer or chancer, especially an experienced one who's more familiar with Ebay policy than you are, you'll do well to get out of it intact, despite Ebay's rules, unless you're either lucky (like I was) or the scammer/chancer has underestimated you (like @milamber , though I guess maybe he didn't get out of it anyway
When I contacted Ebay with proof that the item I sold was genuine they didn't want to know. The only option I had was to accept the return and pay for the shipping. I could do so at the return 'request' stage which is where we were at or wait for the buyer to make a claim. The only difference was that if the buyer made a claim it would count against my seller ratings. They told me then that no-one would look at the case and I would automatically lose the case if I fought it. There was also a risk apparently, that I would have to refund and let the buyer keep the item.
Against all instinct I accepted the return, effectively having to admit that the item wasn't as described even though it was. Strangely though, that was it and I never heard from the buyer again. After a month the request timed out, the Paypal payment was released and case was closed. No idea what happened, unless the buyer was simply hoping for a substantial or even total refund and didn't ever want to return it.
That's the other bit I didn't mention, sorry. If @DLM makes a return request, remember it has to be for 'not as described', the Paypal funds from the transaction will be frozen immediately and for however long the request takes to complete. Another incentive for the seller to try to sort it out.
I would say that they didn't seem too concerned about doing the right thing back then, either
That does seem pretty ridiculous (have a Wow and I'm glad you didn't eventually have to refund a clearly bad "not-as-described" request
Labelling people asking questions as time wasters is daft, how many people try gear in shops that don't buy? It's just part of being a retailer.
Agreed about the questions thing too. As other people on here have pointed out- I think with quite a funny joke about a house and subsidence IIRC
They wrote to say the bar they'd ordered had arrived. What brand and gauge of strings did I want?
I replied asking if they could now also supply the other vibrato components. And what about the strap? And that I thought one set of strings was poor compensation for the missing "case candy", even if it was a pricy coated set.
Then I got a new offer, with a picture of the prospective package: two sets of coated strings (their suggestion of brand and gauges), a quality leather strap branded with the guitar manufacturer's logo (costs about €70 new, must be worth much more than the OE strap, whatever that was), a budget pedal tuner ....
.... and the same bloody wang bar they sent me with the guitar the first time.
http://www.transadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Epic_Facepalm_by_RJTH25255B125255D5B15D.jpg
So I wrote back thanking them for their efforts to fix things and listing again (again with the exact part numbers, for the third time!) precisely which wang parts I need, with links to the individual pages for ordering these from the distributor as spares.
I asked them to swap the strings out for the same brand and type with the gauges I actually use. And to replace the cheapo tuner with a second set of wang parts so I'll have spares. My TC Polytune dumps all over the model they wanted to send me. Do not want.
Today they replied that they had ordered two of everything and would then get it all in the post. I'm on tenterhooks to see if they can actually get it right this time.
My thanks to everyone who's chipped in so far, I'll let you know what happens next.
Definitely interested to see what actually turns up- hopefully it's the right stuff (eventually).
And so the sorry story continues:
Scouring the courier's list of parcel drop-off points (not googlable) gave me a similar Turkish name to the one shown on the tracking site. It's a new Turkish business, and I had in fact seen in passing that they accept parcels. And the courier (a multinational) evidently can't spell in Turkish characters.
Now 'Er Indoors was indoors all day yesterday, being rather poorly. Did the courier ring the bell? Did they hell. Did they even leave a card saying that they'd tried to deliver? Nope. So if I'd not been following my package on the interwebs, I'd have been none the wiser anything had come at all.
The nice Turkish chap said there had been several complaints yesterday about packages going to him rather than the actual addressee. Not that he can do anything about it. Might have something to do with it having remained below minus ten all day here, and inside the van being comparatively warm...
So I unwrap the parcel and discover they'd sent me only one wang bar instead of the two agreed upon. In its place was a handful of cheap-crap plectrums in an envelope, embossed with the shop's logo. The other wang parts were in duplicate, the strings and the strap provided. (And, I noted, all the packaging stapled and taped together in such a way that I couldn't sell anything on as NIB. Fine. I didn't want to anyway. :scowl:) So, really, I have to complain yet again? No, not impressed.
But yeah, enough correct wang parts to use the system. Whoop.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be over in the infamous STBYP thread in SC, venting.
Then composing more maddened missives.