I once saw Gibson Les Paul custom "Randy Rhoads" go up by multiple sellers, from different countries, within an hour. All the same photos used. Some of them sold. I reported each one to Reverb.
@@CormacTunstead im just looking around and find these ridiculously low priced top items. You gotta flag them. Somebody may fall for that crap. Reverb shouldn’t allow it but their AI ain’t smart enough
Online scams are out of control, it's a problem. Just last week someone I knew died, and I got a friend request from a "memorial page" for them. I thought nothing of it and accepted it, and then they messaged me asking for donations for funeral expenses. I contacted the family and asked if it's legit and it wasn't. It was literally a scammer using someone's death to scam people lol.
Frauds have no consciences at all. I have a family member who was scammed by someone and she is wheelchair bound, and they clearly knew that. They had two people in their "cast" who could mimic voices, had a LOT of background info that a stranger should not have, and it turned out the police knew of eight other people the same frauds had scammed during just the previous two weeks.
I used to buy and sell everything off reverb, but i sold a prs to a guy for a really good price, i threw a nice tweed case in, the case was around cig smoke at some point , so he said it smelled like cigs, and wanted 75 dollars back, i rufused i gave him the case for free, im not going to give 75 back for a free case i gave u. Then i sold afew other things on there, it was 400 worth of stuff, by the time the fees and tax everything came out i only made 300, that was it for me, i deal with sweetwater now and prefer it.
Really good advice on the Google searches. Photo and text searches are a huge ally in protecting yourself from getting scammed. Not totally foolproof, but that’s also where common sense needs to be applied.
Thanks for posting this, dude - I haven’t been shopping actively on Reverb lately but it’s good on you to show buyers how to be cautious when viewing listings. We appreciate it!
Also if you're a frequent Reverb seller, watch out for DMs telling you your account needs re-verification and will be shut down! Some of them look like shit but others are done very convincingly
Yeah these guys must have laid the groundwork by mailing each other stuff or something. Like you guys said , it was hard with reverb, first sales were held until buyer verified receiving item I think. It was a long time ago for me though I have had my reverb account forever ,maybe there is a way around it now?
sad part is im having trouble finding work and might have to try to let go some of my gear at a "sell it now" price. ive never made a reverb acct before and am pretty sure people will just think i am a scammer. sucks for everyone involved.
Be honest, say right up front that you've never sold anything on Reverb before and say you'll answer all questions if asked. Hope you don't have to mess with it though, best of luck.
You can easily prove you are (most likely) not a scammer by being willing to take requested photos from people, to prove you at least actually own the guitar. Not a guarantee, but it shows you are willing to play ball at least. Also works the other way, always make people prove they own the gear they are selling. If they are, they'll be happy to do so.
I was terrified I walked into one of these scams when I bought my graffiti yellow Strat. Because almost all the red flags were there. But... it eventually came. But the fact that these types of scams can give such anxiety to the market when searching for deals is really unfortunate.
Such as the OxBox in mint going for $500 from Japan, and the pair of mint Distressors mint for around $1600 from the UK. I notice the names on the accounts have changed in a matter of days.
You comment about accounts that have existed for a few years, and have at least a review made me think of the following: I watch YT vids of some american cable channels that stream when I'm asleep here in Tasmania. Pirating these shows is of course naughty and YT takes them down when they find out. However, there seems to be a small group from SE Asia and Eastern Europe that buy up fairly popular accounts from SE Asians and use these accounts to post. At the moment the trend is to offer money to Thai, and Indonesian girls with knitting channels that have 200K+ subs and use these channels. It's weird, but must make money from advertising while they last. So, that may be what is happening with old Reverb accounts, people buy them (or hack them) to use to give authenticity. Thanks for the heads up on this.
I agree these are good things to look out for, the only thing I would say isn't always an indication of a scam is gaps in sales. I go through phases where I'll spend a couple years buying equipment, then after 2-3 years I'll start selling off the stuff I don't like or use that often. Once all that's sold I'll start buying more equipment and my Reverb shop will sit there empty for another few years until I start selling off equipment again.
The scams really aren’t that hard to spot. Still the best place to buy used gear imo. Just have some common sense. If you’re dumb enough to buy a 70s Les Paul for $1300 or a 90s Parker Fly for $750 as shown in this video, That’s on you.
@allstopblue5717 yeah. Scams are always easy to spot. To good to be true pricing, or they want you to send payment some other way, or a deposit first...etc. Just buy from known sellers, or know what questions to ask those with little history.
@@allstopblue5717 I've never been scammed on Reverb. I've bought some things that I had to return but I've never been scammed. Actually I think Ebay is better but Reverb has more sellers now.
I recently saw a rare guitar I sold a month back, pop up on reverb for less then half of what I sold it for. The listing was all my pictures and exact description text. I don't recall what the Seller's Feedback was but it seemed to have been taking down within 10 mins. I assume it was caught and no one tried to buy it hopefully.
I hesitated on a Jackson, and I was offered a lower price. The person was in the middle of nowhere, U.S. but I am glad I did because other 48 watchers did not go for the lower offer. It was pulled a couple of days later. Thanks for the update.
Great tip to search the description, the next step for the scammer is to chuck the old description in chatGPT ask it to rewrite it. So you cant search the listing anymore.
Thanks for the heads up. I was obsessed with Parker Flys years ago and really upset when they went out of business. So, seeing one for such a ridiculously low price, even though I would have been skeptical, might have been too tempting to resist.
I only look at guitars within pick-up distance of where I live or sellers who are established, UK based and have adverts on other platforms, loads of reviews and their address details.
@KDH. That’s pretty informative, as usual, that Reverb is still having to deal with scammers. I lurk around to see what looks good to me, but am on a gear buying hold due to needing to perpetuate my existence over buying gear at the moment. I, too, am a Reverb seller. I haven’t sold much (1 guitar). I believe I priced it fair enough to pay for the quality packing and shipping plus a small enough profit (I believe that I worked for it). Due to needing to perpetuate that existence, I have to sell some of my collection. Not the best of times (right now) to be selling. But, I can use the money. Not the consummate musician as you and so many are other things keep the coffers filled on my end. More gear to buy later. What about a video describing what actually goes into selling gear on Reverb, Marketplace, or even eBay (though I don’t have much confidence in selling on that platform)?
If I am ever interested in potentially buying an instrument online, I ALWAYS do a reverse image search. I think the description search is a brilliant idea also!
I have a couple of Murphy Lab Gibsons for sale. I have never used Reverb and they would be my first items for sale. Without any history on my account, I can 7nderstand why people might be suspicious of me. What do I do?
Couple things I wonder now- are sellers regularly using filters on their pics? I bought an olympic white Tele a while back and in every photo the fretboard was so dark it looked ebony. I really like that look alot, seller had like 50+ seller ratings that were 4+ stars. So I bought it. When I got the guitar the fretboard was no where near what the pics looked like. Light to mid brown fretboard at best. No lighting could have made that much difference. And is it just me or are there alot more sellers who do not respond at all to legitimate questions you might have about their guitar for sale? I don't buy that many guitars and don't ask questions just to ask them but when I am interested in buying it's normally VG - NM older vintage guitars. So when they don't have a good description/didn't mention something I want to know about like maybe a truss rod issue or is guitar all original I might ask about it. And quite often now I get no response. So I move on.
I saw a custom shop USA Dean ML for like 2k from sweden, immediately wanted to buy. Turns out that guitar was in australia and sold on ebay for 4k a week before the scam upload😂
saw one last night...seller in NZ listed an "original RG-550" claiming it was a 90-91 for about $600 with free shipping...from New Zealand. The serial number dated the guitar in 2021, and it had the 5 piece neck they didn't have in the early days. Two other listings, both great deals, no stars. FWIW, the listing appears to be gone now.
When posting a new listing, Reverb says it does a check of the photos to prevent stealing photos and doing a potential fraud. Looking at the Parker Fly photos, looks like they're lying a bit.
In many cases, looking up photos means that they're looking up images' EXIF data (which is a lot easier to do in bulk). If a scammer alters it or completely removes it, even Google would have a harder time tracing its copies. It's not impossible, but a lot harder.
One problem you have is that legitimate sellers will often post multiple listings of the same item at different prices. I think they do this to make you think you're getting some kind of special discount. I've noticed that a lot.
I think it just takes a little time. I had a guitar listed once that had a few shots of mine and pro studio shots from the seller I bought from after my photos. I clearly stated it in the listing to not be shady. Reverb disabled the listing with a message within a day or two. I had to remove the pics that weren’t mine and the listing went back up.
I thought there were scams again! Julian Lage’s signature Collings goes for around $8k mint, and a mint one popped up last week for $4.5k. I added it to my cart, about to buy on credit, but I decided to check the user. They didn’t have a single review. I went back to the shopping cart knowing it was a scam, and then received a notification that the guitar had sold. I don’t think the sale went through though, I’ve been checking the recently sold, and none sold for that ridiculous price
The last guitar I sold on Reverb, the guy that was interested, said to me: Ok, I'll buy it, but are you willing to take a piece of A4 paper and write the words: "Steve This Is Your Guitar" and place it under the strings! So I then photographed it and sent him the photo as he requested. (In fact, I even left the piece of paper still in position when I shipped it) Now, is it a complete cure for dubious dealings? Probably not, but I would say it certainly might put a lot of scammers off! And I was happy to oblige. I think it's a great idea and every buyer should request this as it only takes 5 minutes!👍
I've noticed a dubious sell for a 60's Selmer amp: Pictures of a croc-skin with pots at the lower part, video of another model with pots at upper part and if the title is for the 50W version, in the description, you were seeing the 6W model of amp, thus it has been changed after I signaled it... still odd: which version is it?
I think about selling stuff on Reverb all the time but I have that issue where I have no feedback. If I price things at the "going rate", no one has any reason to buy from me when they can get it from a seller with a reputation. On the other hand, if I price the item(s) too cheap, people will think it's a scam. It's a catch 22 in my situation.
Just undercut the lowest offering, even if by one dollar. Do a very nice listing though, good photos, good description. Be Nice. You’ll get going in no time. I sell on reverb all the time.
While I only had 10 feedback when I started selling on Reverb, I would post clear photos, and link a short performance video that's on RUclips. Then, when it sells, I do another performance video just as I'm about to pack it, then show myself packing it up. This way they can't claim it was broken when I shipped it. I message the seller on Reverb with the link to the video the day that I ship.
I wanted to buy a BC Rich bronze Mockingbird and people are selling them for ridiculous prices when they are worth $150 on average and yet people sell them for $700 on reverb thinking they are Korean made when they are Chinese made
I sold a guitar on reverb last year, not a expensive guitar just a standard range Ibanez, the buyer got the guitar and say he want to return the guitar simply because he don’t really like it. I think it’s normal that when you try out the guitar and don’t really like it and I don’t really want to have a potential meaningless argument with him so I approved the return and got the guitar back. Since I don’t really use that guitar I didn’t do any inspection. Recently I decided to sold the guitar so I did some maintenance and found that the trust rod is broken and the neck bend like a fking bow. That guy didn’t mention any of these problem when he send the refund request. Be careful guys when you saw the buyer is a fresh account, don’t let other abuse your kindness
I have seen that on eBay where it’s an account from years ago suddenly active offering side deals, against eBay rules, and generally shady things. Very strange. I think it’s hackers getting access to accounts that have been orphaned.
I have been hankering for a particular amp, but even the ONE availabe there with all the right price and postage was "a bit off", so no, no mega deals, no dodgy listings, no nothing. It's not some elite hand wired amp made with adamantium wiring. The Big T in Germany has them for less than 1k, I was just hoping to pick one up from the UK. But NOPE. Thanks KDH for the quality investigations and the videos.
There's tons of small bricks & mortar businesses selling used gear. You can call them, drop in, visit their web pages, make offers blah blah. Why buy off random folk? I like to ask a question or ask for an extra photo. A shop drove an hour & a half to deliver my last purchase. An LP that they had dropped the price on, and I'd lready played. Great deal, great guitar, great buying experience.
I fell into a similar trap 2 years ago in German Ebay for a guitar. I even hesitated a lot before making the payment. But once the money was transferred, no answer whatsoever from the scammer. I went to the police. But of course nothing came out of it. Try to have a video or phone chat with the seller before your purchases.
Who's to say that the people who have these fake listings in their cart aren't also just the same scammer with alt-accounts putting the gear in their cart, just to make really mess with that FOMO that some guitar players clearly have?
I bought a Helix floor on one of these. Reverb refunded quick. You want to make sure you are using a credit card and not paying with Paypal. If you buy though Paypal reverb has to go through the paypal resolution center and Paypal likes to ignore things going to the wrong place with the wrong weight/size as being an issue so long as it was the right city.
Yup. And actual credit card, not a debit card (even if your debit card is from the same bank as your credit card...I know from experience that it's *much* easier to fix credit card purchases). Paypal is good for sending money to friends or small shit (if you lose a $10 trinket it's not the end of the world), but don't use Paypal for major purchases (if you lose a $2000 item, it's a BIG fucking deal).
Happened to me on Reverb, the tracking number scam, I wish i had known, PayPal sided with the scammer even though i had good evidence, i kept getting emails from PayPal saying i had closed the claim when i hadn't, took months of headaches, sleepless nights, emails, phone calls everyday finally got the money back but it was a nightmare. Deleted PayPal account and won't use Reverb again. You have to be really careful these days.
Reverb should be able to automatically check photos and descriptions of new listings against their own data of past listings. Wouldn't be difficult technically, and could be a positive use of AI. Scam listings like these could be blocked before they even go live, and the scam accounts frozen. There would still be scams with pics and text gleaned from other sources, but it would block one easy path for scammers and help Reverb's rep.
If a buyer is taking hours to pay, most likely is a scammer. They will message you and say that they will pay in the next week (one trick they use). Also, some scammers work together with multiple accounts in an attempt to confuse the seller by sending different ways of making offers and changing their account names. I had one of these issues today. All the accounts had reviews but I feel that they were fake. Reverb helped a little but being aware helped me as a seller in this case.
For the Americans, put a filter on yours for only stuff in the US and you’ll rarely see any scam stuff. They’re all based in other countries. Not to say you can’t get scammed from someone in the US, but I’ve never seen one scam account from here
How established does the account need to be? I ordered speakers 4/27, didn't ship until 4/31, and has since gotten lost for days at each sort facility. Account had a few years and seemed to be selling reasonable items, but its just from one big city to another down the interstate a few hours and now I'm wondering why usps lost them twice in a row
Not related on topic but, what is with guitars that are cut all the way up to either the trem or bridge tuners in the body? EVH said he ruined the sustain of his destroyer by cutting the shark mouth in there(so we should know better) and if anyone wants to sit in classical and play, it makes it rest on the leg....can't believe that design makes it past RnD on anything, especially these days, albeit a little more understandable that Ibanez did it 30+years ago
I bought a used violin off Reverb, and while it was the right model, it was not the one in the picture. Wrong scratches, a fine tuner was missing and was there in the pic. I won't shop Reverb again. I'd rather just by new from Sweetwater and get it over with instead of trying to save a buck on used.
What did you do about it? That's a shady seller, not Reverb's fault. Also could be a simple mix-up with a seller who had a few of the same model (I also buy/sell TCG cards, and have had a seller on TCGplayer [the card game version of Reverb] send me the wrong printing of the right card a few times [things got rectified when I brought it up]).
Used stuff on Reverb was bad during Covid but now it's back to where you can save a good bit. I wouldn't buy used unless it's a third cheaper than new.
@@joeking433 look at other places such as the gear page. No crappy taxes and fees. Better people on their since most are actual musicians and not generic mindless customers that reverb has. I been selling/buying through with ease and even made good friends/conversations through there. It reminds me of what reverb used to be, back when it was actually owned by and used by mostly musicians.
I came across a nice custom shop warrior for about 2k less than it cost new. I realized the factory date on the guitar was literally 2 weeks ago, so somehow the guitar managed to make it to someone, and that someone decided to sell it at that big of a loss in 2 weeks? I sent him a message asking him to send me a picture of the guitar with his name in the photo. Obviously there was no response. This seller only had 2 buyer reviews.
the other day i saw on reverb a les paul custom for 2120euro, it was listed in my hometown athens greece, so i messaged the seller to ask for local pickup, he answered immediately, and told me that his account was hacked, and he doesnt even have a guitar like that...
I thought you had to have at least one sell before they would start releasing the money when you provide a tracking #. For that first one you won't get the money until the person actually receives it. Either way, I only sell every 2-4 years so I'm one of those people who has no recent feedback. I thought there would be alot of other people like that; not everyone sells multiple times per year on reverb.
One time i was friends with a guy i used to jam with, and he made a lot of bad decisions when he drank and he left my house without telling me to drive to a girls drunk, anyways he JUST bought a PRS for around 3400$ and had to try and turn around and sell it for his legal Fee'. It was half the retail price BRAND NEW. 3 days old fresh out of the bag and NOBODY wanted to touch it. It was a transpart description but it's common sense. If its too good to be true it probably was.
as im watching i opened up reverb, and sure enough first result is a american performer telecaster (msrp 1400usd) selling for $516 brand new. posted 6 minutes ago. no reviews, only one listing on the seller.
They are likely using stolen data to log into all accounts that have not been used for some time. It seems that the same group doing this on Reverb is also doing it on eBay with a slightly different methodology at different times.
I saw that exact Parker guitar for sale for the same price but in Danish Kroner on a Danish second hand site and I do remember thiking "wow that's a good deal"
When I read the title of this video, I thought it was talking about "reverb" the guitar effect. I just had to know how an audio effect was scamming people!
This in the end is what AI and automation will bring us more and more. We are lightning fast approximating toward what was somewhat memeful have been described as the dead Internet hypothesis.ywats ago. More and more bot and scam activity. It's the unfortunate truth, that the incentive to do things online which has scam risks is slowly lost. Buying used gear is one of those fields. :-(
I’m just heart broken for all those ladies whose husbands were found to have cheated on them, prompting them to sell the pristine PRS or Fender CS they purchased as a gift. Infidelity is out of control among couples with exceptionally generous spouses.
It doesn't surprise me that so many of these scams on reverb, eBay, Gumtree (or whatever you have in your locale), but that there are so few! There should be so. many. _Moorrrree !!_ 🙆♂️
Either the site was hacked and these accounts are being used to sell gear due to the fact that there is some positive sale a while back (makes a future sale more trustworthy)... or just the accounts were hacked as they used simple to guess passwords.
Idea: People could post pics with the account name in the picture, like written on a piece of paper held next to the object so it's hard to Photoshop out. Thanks for the heads up.
I don’t understand how these scams are even supposed to work. Doesnt reverb or PayPal automatically hold the funds in an escrow account for new / suspicious sellers?
I have to admit that I'm slightly impressed by Reverb being somewhat proactive about killing these listings and accounts.
Credit where credit is due, they are actually quite good at it!
Unfortunate that the bar is so low nowadays that dealing with scams promptly is impressive :/ (no offence meant to you, this is just my observation)
@@delusion5867wtf do you want them to do
@@delusion5867 someone has to make this comment every single time, like yeah, we get it
If suspicious I always ask the seller for extra photos from specific angles. If they can't provide them then I move on.
I do the same thing. At times, I've asked for a pic of the item together with the front page of a current newspaper.
Just had that happen the other day.
@@rosewoodsteel6656a current newspaper 😂.
Sometimes you get the guy who gets all upset about having to take extra pictures too😂
@@HimothyBurton If someone is upset about adding a few pictures, which can make a sale easier for them, I would move on.
I once saw Gibson Les Paul custom "Randy Rhoads" go up by multiple sellers, from different countries, within an hour. All the same photos used. Some of them sold. I reported each one to Reverb.
I flag at least 5 listings every week with fresh accounts selling cool gear for ridiculous prices
They’re all ridiculous prices
My dude doing gods work haha
Fair play bud!
Yeah, it happens a lot in the States. I always wonder what happens to the person scammed. Maybe it's just one of his buddies and it's just a game.
@@CormacTunstead im just looking around and find these ridiculously low priced top items. You gotta flag them. Somebody may fall for that crap. Reverb shouldn’t allow it but their AI ain’t smart enough
Online scams are out of control, it's a problem. Just last week someone I knew died, and I got a friend request from a "memorial page" for them. I thought nothing of it and accepted it, and then they messaged me asking for donations for funeral expenses. I contacted the family and asked if it's legit and it wasn't. It was literally a scammer using someone's death to scam people lol.
I hate scammers. I hope I never run into one for their sake.
Sorry for your loss.
Frauds have no consciences at all. I have a family member who was scammed by someone and she is wheelchair bound, and they clearly knew that. They had two people in their "cast" who could mimic voices, had a LOT of background info that a stranger should not have, and it turned out the police knew of eight other people the same frauds had scammed during just the previous two weeks.
Sad but true: all this stories are the reason why i am only buying new stuff. Thanks to show this. You are really a great help!
Thank you!!
I used to buy and sell everything off reverb, but i sold a prs to a guy for a really good price, i threw a nice tweed case in, the case was around cig smoke at some point , so he said it smelled like cigs, and wanted 75 dollars back, i rufused i gave him the case for free, im not going to give 75 back for a free case i gave u. Then i sold afew other things on there, it was 400 worth of stuff, by the time the fees and tax everything came out i only made 300, that was it for me, i deal with sweetwater now and prefer it.
Really good advice on the Google searches. Photo and text searches are a huge ally in protecting yourself from getting scammed. Not totally foolproof, but that’s also where common sense needs to be applied.
Thanks for posting this, dude - I haven’t been shopping actively on Reverb lately but it’s good on you to show buyers how to be cautious when viewing listings. We appreciate it!
Also if you're a frequent Reverb seller, watch out for DMs telling you your account needs re-verification and will be shut down!
Some of them look like shit but others are done very convincingly
Reverb will NEVER message you via the messaging system, it's not their policy and no matter how legit it may look, it's a scam if "they" DM you! 😬
When i created my reverb account i didn't get paid for a few listings until the item was delivered to make sure i wasnt a scam
Yep. Same here. Can take you a little longer to get your money but reverb make sure you are somewhat legit.
Yeah these guys must have laid the groundwork by mailing each other stuff or something. Like you guys said , it was hard with reverb, first sales were held until buyer verified receiving item I think. It was a long time ago for me though I have had my reverb account forever ,maybe there is a way around it now?
I get paid once shipped, but I am a Pref Seller.
@@fortheloveofnoise same.
Always watching out for us! You’re a gem KDH!😃👍
Right on time KDH.
Maybe more prominent in the guitar market, but vintage keyboard reverb spaces are pretty true-there’s an occasional scam but it’s easy to see through
I got caught up in a scam like this, the seller had a lot of reviews, but none for at least 2 years. It was a headache getting a refund too!
Scammers flood facebook with crap!
FB is just maga lunatics anyway, should be avoided
Yes they do and that crap's gotta change
And if you report it, because most of the scams are paid or ‘sponsored ads’ FB says ‘nope, not a scam, we got paid so it must be good’
FB account deleted. Much better now!
sad part is im having trouble finding work and might have to try to let go some of my gear at a "sell it now" price. ive never made a reverb acct before and am pretty sure people will just think i am a scammer. sucks for everyone involved.
Sorry on all fronts! I hope things get better soon- and before you have to sell off too much gear :/
Be honest, say right up front that you've never sold anything on Reverb before and say you'll answer all questions if asked. Hope you don't have to mess with it though, best of luck.
You can easily prove you are (most likely) not a scammer by being willing to take requested photos from people, to prove you at least actually own the guitar. Not a guarantee, but it shows you are willing to play ball at least. Also works the other way, always make people prove they own the gear they are selling. If they are, they'll be happy to do so.
What are you selling? I might be interested
yeah my business is 1/3 of what it used to be, sucks
Thanks for the heads up . I'm putting my vintage JCM 800 on the market this week . Locally at first , To many scammers out there .
I was terrified I walked into one of these scams when I bought my graffiti yellow Strat. Because almost all the red flags were there. But... it eventually came.
But the fact that these types of scams can give such anxiety to the market when searching for deals is really unfortunate.
I like to reverse image search the sellers pictures which also helps determines if its a scammer or not.
Thank you for posting this. You are providing a great service.
Well done to you for making people aware, I hope hope you save this last guy from getting ripped off.
I see & report them too since you published this video. Thanks for the lesson!
Such as the OxBox in mint going for $500 from Japan, and the pair of mint Distressors mint for around $1600 from the UK. I notice the names on the accounts have changed in a matter of days.
For note, this happens on Vinted as well
You do have a keen eye and that was a smart move of copying the description for cross check.
You comment about accounts that have existed for a few years, and have at least a review made me think of the following: I watch YT vids of some american cable channels that stream when I'm asleep here in Tasmania. Pirating these shows is of course naughty and YT takes them down when they find out. However, there seems to be a small group from SE Asia and Eastern Europe that buy up fairly popular accounts from SE Asians and use these accounts to post. At the moment the trend is to offer money to Thai, and Indonesian girls with knitting channels that have 200K+ subs and use these channels. It's weird, but must make money from advertising while they last. So, that may be what is happening with old Reverb accounts, people buy them (or hack them) to use to give authenticity.
Thanks for the heads up on this.
I agree these are good things to look out for, the only thing I would say isn't always an indication of a scam is gaps in sales. I go through phases where I'll spend a couple years buying equipment, then after 2-3 years I'll start selling off the stuff I don't like or use that often. Once all that's sold I'll start buying more equipment and my Reverb shop will sit there empty for another few years until I start selling off equipment again.
I stopped shopping on Reverb because of the scams.
Same. Unless it's a shop I know or one I can locally verify.
The scams really aren’t that hard to spot. Still the best place to buy used gear imo. Just have some common sense. If you’re dumb enough to buy a 70s Les Paul for $1300 or a 90s Parker Fly for $750 as shown in this video, That’s on you.
@allstopblue5717 yeah. Scams are always easy to spot. To good to be true pricing, or they want you to send payment some other way, or a deposit first...etc. Just buy from known sellers, or know what questions to ask those with little history.
@@allstopblue5717 no it's not. It's on the scammer still. Regardless of your high opinion of yourself.
@@allstopblue5717 I've never been scammed on Reverb. I've bought some things that I had to return but I've never been scammed. Actually I think Ebay is better but Reverb has more sellers now.
I recently saw a rare guitar I sold a month back, pop up on reverb for less then half of what I sold it for. The listing was all my pictures and exact description text. I don't recall what the Seller's Feedback was but it seemed to have been taking down within 10 mins. I assume it was caught and no one tried to buy it hopefully.
Just googled and found someone also tried to sell it on Craig'sList :(
I hesitated on a Jackson, and I was offered a lower price. The person was in the middle of nowhere, U.S. but I am glad I did because other 48 watchers did not go for the lower offer. It was pulled a couple of days later. Thanks for the update.
Thanks for this! I love guitarists helping other guitarists.
Thanks for the alert and great idea on the description cut & paste.
Great tip to search the description, the next step for the scammer is to chuck the old description in chatGPT ask it to rewrite it. So you cant search the listing anymore.
Thanks for the heads up. I was obsessed with Parker Flys years ago and really upset when they went out of business. So, seeing one for such a ridiculously low price, even though I would have been skeptical, might have been too tempting to resist.
Yeah, have you seen Ken Parker's RUclips channel? I just bought a NiteFly and it's supposed to come today. I think they're the best guitars out there.
Thanks for the alert. It is greatly appreciated!
Got my 2 WALKER cd's i recently ordered to Canada, great stuff! Thanks for this video too!
Thank you very much for this information 👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks for making this video, you're a scholar and a gentleman.
Being old fashioned and paranoid is a good way to avoid internet scams.
Buy in person, pay cash
I only look at guitars within pick-up distance of where I live or sellers who are established, UK based and have adverts on other platforms, loads of reviews and their address details.
@KDH. That’s pretty informative, as usual, that Reverb is still having to deal with scammers. I lurk around to see what looks good to me, but am on a gear buying hold due to needing to perpetuate my existence over buying gear at the moment.
I, too, am a Reverb seller. I haven’t sold much (1 guitar). I believe I priced it fair enough to pay for the quality packing and shipping plus a small enough profit (I believe that I worked for it).
Due to needing to perpetuate that existence, I have to sell some of my collection. Not the best of times (right now) to be selling. But, I can use the money. Not the consummate musician as you and so many are other things keep the coffers filled on my end. More gear to buy later.
What about a video describing what actually goes into selling gear on Reverb, Marketplace, or even eBay (though I don’t have much confidence in selling on that platform)?
If I am ever interested in potentially buying an instrument online, I ALWAYS do a reverse image search. I think the description search is a brilliant idea also!
I love your channel it’s got a lot of different stuff so it very entertaining thank you for your hard work
I have a couple of Murphy Lab Gibsons for sale. I have never used Reverb and they would be my first items for sale. Without any history on my account, I can 7nderstand why people might be suspicious of me. What do I do?
Couple things I wonder now- are sellers regularly using filters on their pics? I bought an olympic white Tele a while back and in every photo the fretboard was so dark it looked ebony. I really like that look alot, seller had like 50+ seller ratings that were 4+ stars. So I bought it. When I got the guitar the fretboard was no where near what the pics looked like. Light to mid brown fretboard at best. No lighting could have made that much difference.
And is it just me or are there alot more sellers who do not respond at all to legitimate questions you might have about their guitar for sale? I don't buy that many guitars and don't ask questions just to ask them but when I am interested in buying it's normally VG - NM older vintage guitars. So when they don't have a good description/didn't mention something I want to know about like maybe a truss rod issue or is guitar all original I might ask about it. And quite often now I get no response. So I move on.
I saw a custom shop USA Dean ML for like 2k from sweden, immediately wanted to buy. Turns out that guitar was in australia and sold on ebay for 4k a week before the scam upload😂
Thank you for this information!
saw one last night...seller in NZ listed an "original RG-550" claiming it was a 90-91 for about $600 with free shipping...from New Zealand. The serial number dated the guitar in 2021, and it had the 5 piece neck they didn't have in the early days. Two other listings, both great deals, no stars. FWIW, the listing appears to be gone now.
When posting a new listing, Reverb says it does a check of the photos to prevent stealing photos and doing a potential fraud. Looking at the Parker Fly photos, looks like they're lying a bit.
In many cases, looking up photos means that they're looking up images' EXIF data (which is a lot easier to do in bulk). If a scammer alters it or completely removes it, even Google would have a harder time tracing its copies.
It's not impossible, but a lot harder.
One problem you have is that legitimate sellers will often post multiple listings of the same item at different prices. I think they do this to make you think you're getting some kind of special discount. I've noticed that a lot.
I think it just takes a little time. I had a guitar listed once that had a few shots of mine and pro studio shots from the seller I bought from after my photos. I clearly stated it in the listing to not be shady. Reverb disabled the listing with a message within a day or two. I had to remove the pics that weren’t mine and the listing went back up.
Just bought a Kramer “The 84” for $480+shipping. Supposed to arrive tomorrow. Now I’m a tad nervous.
I thought there were scams again! Julian Lage’s signature Collings goes for around $8k mint, and a mint one popped up last week for $4.5k. I added it to my cart, about to buy on credit, but I decided to check the user. They didn’t have a single review. I went back to the shopping cart knowing it was a scam, and then received a notification that the guitar had sold. I don’t think the sale went through though, I’ve been checking the recently sold, and none sold for that ridiculous price
The last guitar I sold on Reverb, the guy that was interested, said to me: Ok, I'll buy it, but are you willing to take a piece of A4 paper and write the words: "Steve This Is Your Guitar" and place it under the strings! So I then photographed it and sent him the photo as he requested. (In fact, I even left the piece of paper still in position when I shipped it) Now, is it a complete cure for dubious dealings? Probably not, but I would say it certainly might put a lot of scammers off! And I was happy to oblige. I think it's a great idea and every buyer should request this as it only takes 5 minutes!👍
I've noticed a dubious sell for a 60's Selmer amp: Pictures of a croc-skin with pots at the lower part, video of another model with pots at upper part and if the title is for the 50W version, in the description, you were seeing the 6W model of amp, thus it has been changed after I signaled it... still odd: which version is it?
I think about selling stuff on Reverb all the time but I have that issue where I have no feedback. If I price things at the "going rate", no one has any reason to buy from me when they can get it from a seller with a reputation. On the other hand, if I price the item(s) too cheap, people will think it's a scam. It's a catch 22 in my situation.
Just undercut the lowest offering, even if by one dollar. Do a very nice listing though, good photos, good description. Be Nice. You’ll get going in no time. I sell on reverb all the time.
While I only had 10 feedback when I started selling on Reverb, I would post clear photos, and link a short performance video that's on RUclips. Then, when it sells, I do another performance video just as I'm about to pack it, then show myself packing it up. This way they can't claim it was broken when I shipped it. I message the seller on Reverb with the link to the video the day that I ship.
@@gunkyzip Do you know if I'm allowed to put a link to my eBay profile to show I'm not a scammer? I have 600+ feedback and 100% positive.
@@gunkyzip Great idea! I always take photos of the item as it's being packed. If I need the photos, I have them. I haven't needed them yet.
People will buy what you're selling at a good price. I never had any trouble.
you are spot on , they do a trick called password reset to take over old accounts (lot of old yahoo emails accounts are hacked or duplicated)
I wanted to buy a BC Rich bronze Mockingbird and people are selling them for ridiculous prices when they are worth $150 on average and yet people sell them for $700 on reverb thinking they are Korean made when they are Chinese made
Imo, not worth $75.
Shitty toy guitar, get something else
I sold a guitar on reverb last year, not a expensive guitar just a standard range Ibanez, the buyer got the guitar and say he want to return the guitar simply because he don’t really like it. I think it’s normal that when you try out the guitar and don’t really like it and I don’t really want to have a potential meaningless argument with him so I approved the return and got the guitar back. Since I don’t really use that guitar I didn’t do any inspection. Recently I decided to sold the guitar so I did some maintenance and found that the trust rod is broken and the neck bend like a fking bow. That guy didn’t mention any of these problem when he send the refund request. Be careful guys when you saw the buyer is a fresh account, don’t let other abuse your kindness
I have seen that on eBay where it’s an account from years ago suddenly active offering side deals, against eBay rules, and generally shady things. Very strange. I think it’s hackers getting access to accounts that have been orphaned.
I have been hankering for a particular amp, but even the ONE availabe there with all the right price and postage was "a bit off", so no, no mega deals, no dodgy listings, no nothing.
It's not some elite hand wired amp made with adamantium wiring. The Big T in Germany has them for less than 1k, I was just hoping to pick one up from the UK. But NOPE.
Thanks KDH for the quality investigations and the videos.
There's tons of small bricks & mortar businesses selling used gear. You can call them, drop in, visit their web pages, make offers blah blah. Why buy off random folk? I like to ask a question or ask for an extra photo.
A shop drove an hour & a half to deliver my last purchase. An LP that they had dropped the price on, and I'd lready played. Great deal, great guitar, great buying experience.
always remember the good old mantra: if it looks too good to be true it usually is
I fell into a similar trap 2 years ago in German Ebay for a guitar. I even hesitated a lot before making the payment. But once the money was transferred, no answer whatsoever from the scammer. I went to the police. But of course nothing came out of it. Try to have a video or phone chat with the seller before your purchases.
Who's to say that the people who have these fake listings in their cart aren't also just the same scammer with alt-accounts putting the gear in their cart, just to make really mess with that FOMO that some guitar players clearly have?
It used to happen on eBay once upon a time. Then they started dotting out letter in names which made any name hunting tricky.
I bought a Helix floor on one of these. Reverb refunded quick. You want to make sure you are using a credit card and not paying with Paypal. If you buy though Paypal reverb has to go through the paypal resolution center and Paypal likes to ignore things going to the wrong place with the wrong weight/size as being an issue so long as it was the right city.
It wasn't even that cheap. That was the worst part.
Yup. And actual credit card, not a debit card (even if your debit card is from the same bank as your credit card...I know from experience that it's *much* easier to fix credit card purchases). Paypal is good for sending money to friends or small shit (if you lose a $10 trinket it's not the end of the world), but don't use Paypal for major purchases (if you lose a $2000 item, it's a BIG fucking deal).
Happened to me on Reverb, the tracking number scam, I wish i had known, PayPal sided with the scammer even though i had good evidence, i kept getting emails from PayPal saying i had closed the claim when i hadn't, took months of headaches, sleepless nights, emails, phone calls everyday finally got the money back but it was a nightmare. Deleted PayPal account and won't use Reverb again. You have to be really careful these days.
Yeah, the scams are usually of the hottest and most well known items on the market like the Helix or a Gibson Les Paul or something.
Since they are poaching the pics, would searching using Google Lens help?
Reverb should be able to automatically check photos and descriptions of new listings against their own data of past listings. Wouldn't be difficult technically, and could be a positive use of AI. Scam listings like these could be blocked before they even go live, and the scam accounts frozen. There would still be scams with pics and text gleaned from other sources, but it would block one easy path for scammers and help Reverb's rep.
If a buyer is taking hours to pay, most likely is a scammer. They will message you and say that they will pay in the next week (one trick they use). Also, some scammers work together with multiple accounts in an attempt to confuse the seller by sending different ways of making offers and changing their account names. I had one of these issues today. All the accounts had reviews but I feel that they were fake. Reverb helped a little but being aware helped me as a seller in this case.
For the Americans, put a filter on yours for only stuff in the US and you’ll rarely see any scam stuff. They’re all based in other countries. Not to say you can’t get scammed from someone in the US, but I’ve never seen one scam account from here
Agreed. I've never had a problem with this and I've been selling/buying on Reverb for years. Has to be a thing outside the USA.
I always do that!
Thank you for doing this, many of us would trust this was a good thing, obviously a money grab by fender.
How established does the account need to be? I ordered speakers 4/27, didn't ship until 4/31, and has since gotten lost for days at each sort facility. Account had a few years and seemed to be selling reasonable items, but its just from one big city to another down the interstate a few hours and now I'm wondering why usps lost them twice in a row
Prolly just heavy ass speakers and the employees at each part of the chain went “ahh fuck it we’ll move that one tomorrow”
Not related on topic but, what is with guitars that are cut all the way up to either the trem or bridge tuners in the body? EVH said he ruined the sustain of his destroyer by cutting the shark mouth in there(so we should know better) and if anyone wants to sit in classical and play, it makes it rest on the leg....can't believe that design makes it past RnD on anything, especially these days, albeit a little more understandable that Ibanez did it 30+years ago
I bought a used violin off Reverb, and while it was the right model, it was not the one in the picture. Wrong scratches, a fine tuner was missing and was there in the pic. I won't shop Reverb again. I'd rather just by new from Sweetwater and get it over with instead of trying to save a buck on used.
What did you do about it? That's a shady seller, not Reverb's fault. Also could be a simple mix-up with a seller who had a few of the same model (I also buy/sell TCG cards, and have had a seller on TCGplayer [the card game version of Reverb] send me the wrong printing of the right card a few times [things got rectified when I brought it up]).
@@Kylora2112 its sold on reverbs website its their fault.
As a buyer, they almost always have full control in the transaction. If you contacted reverb they would’ve refunded you 100% and be in your favor
Used stuff on Reverb was bad during Covid but now it's back to where you can save a good bit. I wouldn't buy used unless it's a third cheaper than new.
@@joeking433 look at other places such as the gear page. No crappy taxes and fees. Better people on their since most are actual musicians and not generic mindless customers that reverb has. I been selling/buying through with ease and even made good friends/conversations through there. It reminds me of what reverb used to be, back when it was actually owned by and used by mostly musicians.
I've seen listing's that look like they're trying to sell miniature guitars, but use camera angles to make it seem like a standard size guitar
I came across a nice custom shop warrior for about 2k less than it cost new. I realized the factory date on the guitar was literally 2 weeks ago, so somehow the guitar managed to make it to someone, and that someone decided to sell it at that big of a loss in 2 weeks? I sent him a message asking him to send me a picture of the guitar with his name in the photo. Obviously there was no response. This seller only had 2 buyer reviews.
the other day i saw on reverb a les paul custom for 2120euro, it was listed in my hometown athens greece, so i messaged the seller to ask for local pickup, he answered immediately, and told me that his account was hacked, and he doesnt even have a guitar like that...
I thought you had to have at least one sell before they would start releasing the money when you provide a tracking #. For that first one you won't get the money until the person actually receives it. Either way, I only sell every 2-4 years so I'm one of those people who has no recent feedback. I thought there would be alot of other people like that; not everyone sells multiple times per year on reverb.
Why does Reverb not do it like eBay and wait for the verification of the buyer that the product has been received !?!
Good thing I stick with Sweetwater.
Appreciate the video though! Glad there’s people shining a light on this stuff.
One time i was friends with a guy i used to jam with, and he made a lot of bad decisions when he drank and he left my house without telling me to drive to a girls drunk, anyways he JUST bought a PRS for around 3400$ and had to try and turn around and sell it for his legal Fee'. It was half the retail price BRAND NEW. 3 days old fresh out of the bag and NOBODY wanted to touch it. It was a transpart description but it's common sense. If its too good to be true it probably was.
Thanks for this information.
as im watching i opened up reverb, and sure enough first result is a american performer telecaster (msrp 1400usd) selling for $516 brand new. posted 6 minutes ago. no reviews, only one listing on the seller.
Reverb commission stops me using them. Too expensive.
They are likely using stolen data to log into all accounts that have not been used for some time. It seems that the same group doing this on Reverb is also doing it on eBay with a slightly different methodology at different times.
Crazy the scams out there. Be safe for sure.
I saw that exact Parker guitar for sale for the same price but in Danish Kroner on a Danish second hand site and I do remember thiking "wow that's a good deal"
Dear Barnabas, why do I wear Adidaa no more? I'm still looking for that one Dean guitar, you and those others journalists. Namastè.
When I read the title of this video, I thought it was talking about "reverb" the guitar effect. I just had to know how an audio effect was scamming people!
This in the end is what AI and automation will bring us more and more. We are lightning fast approximating toward what was somewhat memeful have been described as the dead Internet hypothesis.ywats ago. More and more bot and scam activity. It's the unfortunate truth, that the incentive to do things online which has scam risks is slowly lost. Buying used gear is one of those fields. :-(
Happens locally on Facebook market places. Scammer would put up $2000 guitars up for $500 and labe it as "Lead Guitar"
I’m just heart broken for all those ladies whose husbands were found to have cheated on them, prompting them to sell the pristine PRS or Fender CS they purchased as a gift. Infidelity is out of control among couples with exceptionally generous spouses.
😂😂😂
Really good of a guy in Denmark to offer free shipping to continental united states XD
I experienced this with a "deal" listing for a Kemper. I was refunded after a couple weeks through paypal.
Flagged several Collings JLs listed with the same photos from new accounts. Madness.
Hey, KDH, from the US. Great job on this report, boy. I feel I can call you boy because I am 73. Still pickin' sometimes. Carry on...
It doesn't surprise me that so many of these scams on reverb, eBay, Gumtree (or whatever you have in your locale),
but that there are so few!
There should be so. many. _Moorrrree !!_ 🙆♂️
Either the site was hacked and these accounts are being used to sell gear due to the fact that there is some positive sale a while back (makes a future sale more trustworthy)... or just the accounts were hacked as they used simple to guess passwords.
Idea: People could post pics with the account name in the picture, like written on a piece of paper held next to the object so it's hard to Photoshop out.
Thanks for the heads up.
I saw a Murphy lab 59 listed for like 8k lol . One purchase from 2017, and the guy on Reddit came forward saying it was his guitar he sold a while ago
I don’t understand how these scams are even supposed to work. Doesnt reverb or PayPal automatically hold the funds in an escrow account for new / suspicious sellers?