Beware of People selling FAKE guitars on Carousell!

[Keitake]

Recently, I've been seeing and been offered trades with several guitars which looks really genuine on picture, but my advice is for you to ask the picture of the headstock, close-up of the bridge, the back of the headstock (for serial number), the part where the neck connects (neck plate, set-neck differences), the back of the guitar and ALSO inside the backplate. If possible, ask them to show the bridge block too, as some of the original and more pricey ones have typical texts written on it where the fake guitars are always missing out.

If you are worried that you might have been offered a fake guitar, feel free to PM me or just reply to this thread and the kind members will be free to help out!

I have already seen at least 4 fake guitars and the typical thing they will do is:

• Give you an excuse of why the pickup is different
• Change topic when you ask for more pictures
• Tell you they are rushing
• Wants to trade with your lower-retail price to their "higher-end" guitar without top up

 

[mechanevil]

There are also scammers trawling through the soft buy/sell forums looking for people to hoodwink.

A typical thing they will do is PM you and ask you "Is IT still available?" without naming the item and ask you to get in touch with an email address (not a phone number) to discuss "shipping or pickup". Usually these guys will not be willing to pay you in cash even if they arrange to have someone pickup the guitar and will look for a payment method that can be reversed after they have the item in hand.

I'm also extremely wary about ads on carousell offering "pre-purchase" of items. Usually once you pay the money, the seller disappears as well.