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
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#1 by Jonathan on February 7th, 2010
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Hi there, can you let me know how you got on with this as i have recently bought off ebay a very similar guitar, probably the same seller by the looks of it.
Thanks matey
Jonathan
#2 by ian on February 7th, 2010
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Sure,
I complained through Ebay and PayPal and got my money back – you’ll see from the blog post it took a bot of effort as I had to get written confirmation from an ‘expert’ that the guitar was counterfeit. In my case I got a letter from both Gibson Europe and from my local authorised Gibson dealer.
Good luck – be interested to hear how you got on. Do you have the Ebay sellers ID and item number to hand ?