Fuck me.
Listed the guitar on Reverb. Another scam attempt. 
Bloody hell, I always thought that buying/selling used equipment is a breeze in your parts of the world. In my parts of the world, it comes down to haggling but I don’t think that any of my mates has run into outright frauds.
ebay or kleinanzeigen for me here in Germany. Never had a problem over the years.
I was actually negatively surprised by KZ. I have a friend in Germany who explained that there’s no realistic protection mechanism aside from PayPal and he refuses to buy from anyone who doesn’t want to pay or be paid via it.
Also, two out of three guitars that I wanted to buy got flagged as fraud and removed within a day after we contacted them. Either I’m a jinx or very lucky!
Anyway, it didn’t stop me from scouring KZ for Schecters and LTDs literally every day. As I live and breathe, I’m getting a guitar from KZ one day!
(Will check eBay, I can’t believe I forgot it!)
Kleinanzeigen does have a buyer’s security system with various payment options now. I only use kleinanzeigen for direct, in person deals though. Everything else ebay.
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I think the market is flooded after the pandemic where everyone thought it would be a good idea to try and learn guitar. But the scam method I’ve encountered twice now is flexible enough for anything.
They respond to your advert and say they will pay via Paypal. Names, email addresses, gen. info dont tie together very well (Red flag 1). They say will arrange collection or postage in really short order, far faster than what is considered normal (red flag 2). So you give them your Paypal address and they then say they’ve paid. Nothing appears in your Paypal account of course but you get an email with a Paypal logo (not from a Paypal email address) saying that the payment has been made but they’ve over paid by say £200. You need to send them £200 to complete the transaction.
Anyway, I still have the guitar and considering sending all the correspondence to the authorities. Not that I’m expecting anything from it.
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All of these instances happened over the course of last year, though, I haven’t found anything that fits my lack-of-knowledge-to-quality-to-price ratio.
And it should probably be KA, not KZ as an abbreviation, right? 
Not every seller offers the security payment option. I would never do a paypal deal directly with some complete stranger over the internet.
And yes KA much better…
Well, that’s elaborate enough! The worst I had it here was that people wouldn’t post the picture containing the serial number/country of origin, not mentioning it until I specifically asked them to (like in the case of Japanese/Chinese Gibson clones or South Korean/Indonesian ESP LTD guitars).
Thanks for the tip, though, that should come in handy!
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Always feel free to correct me, you know I don’t speak German.
Well, almost all of my equipment purchases were blind ones. I put trust in people sometimes, I guess. A few weeks ago, I finally found the little footswitch for my Blackstar HT-5R. It turned out to be broken and I contacted the seller - he immediately offered to return the money or pay for repair. I took the second option, it went without any issues.
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Tbf, it is probably a lot easier if you live in a reasonably big city like me, with loads of musicians and even more wanna-be musicians.
But again, just old school ebay is fine for me for everything else. Maybe I have been just lucky, but it always worked for me. Usually avoid the too-good-to be true deals though.
I find Ebay the best. Sold my Hamer last month and guy even picked it up
Just bought a Jet JS400 in Olympic White for £199 delivered Nice little strat style to mod.
Gonna change scratch plate to something as guitar is too white!
Been recommended a guy on ebay but he is currently away until early Aug
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I’ve sold the tele at last. Via Reverb. Got stung a bit as the fees are a bit tasty. Just need to post it now.
Having a gentle look round now with very little idea what I might go for. Not going to rush into it but I’m leaning more towards something a little more traditional shape wise and not too wild on tte finish either. Neck dims will be important too.
There’s part of me that likes a Les Paul junior for example but i’ll have to watch the budget.
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You know how people who play the guitar don’t judge but rather encourage people who buy guitars, even though they suck at playing? See, I bought another guitar but only because I bloody loved it at first sight and the asking price was great.
It’s Schecter E-1 Custom - I’ve always wanted an Explorer-shaped guitar and Schecter’s E-1 models were something I’d looked at a lot (and I can’t emphasise that enough). Vintage Sunburst finish isn’t something I thought I’d like (yeah, it always had to be some dark colour) but I was surprised by this one. Maybe I’d be happier if all the hardware was black rather than chrome but I can’t bloody put it down.
My friend-in-a-band gave me a set of DR Strings Pure Blues 10-46, so I cleaned the guitar the other night, put them on, lowered the action a bit, tuned it to E standard (and subsequently tuned my EC-1000 to Eb and Solo-II to D standard because let’s buy a guitar for each standard tuning!) and it sings! I got used to Ernie Ball Heavy Bottom strings, I liked this change, to be honest.
It’s been a while since I’ve had passive pickups, though, there’s a bit of hum, it’s not bothersome but maybe it means that I should take it to someone to change the wiring a bit. Any advice is welcome!
Thats a huge thing. If you love the look and feel of it you’ll play it. If you’re fighting it you’ll eventually put it in the case and it wont come out again.
In some ways sound (almost) comes second.
On hum, short of better cables, or a noise cancelling pedal i’m a bit short of ideas sorry.
No hum with my other two guitars (which use active pickups)… I don’t think I need a noise gate or something like that because it’s really not that strong but I thought it might be a simptom of another issue, hence me asking.
I’ve suffered with hum from cables in the past.
Given its a Schecter im assuming it cant be the pots etc. in the guitar. I’m also assuming the cavity is properly lined etc.
Forgot. Check the bridge is earthed.
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Gary is the reason I bought a guitar.
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He was brilliant… Here is Saturday night bonus track :0)
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