Hello, I realise this will be a long way from the first discussion over counterfeit fender guitars produced/slapped together and then sold on ebay.

I've just been stung by an ebay seller guitars1001001 .he should have know better given his experience, but hey, there was USD$120 of overseas freighting involved, and some play on the fact buyer protection usually requires unhappy buyer to send the crappy product back 'at the buyers expense/loss' .Not surprising this guy , Tony, is also pathetically trying to water down the paper trail by using his wifes name for some online transfers and falsifying US customs documents.

ebay seller guitars1001001 , based in Coatesville PA claimed to be selling a 1997 genuine USA Fender Stratocaster California Series Electric guitar , ebay item # 250615938584 .
He also said the original pick guard was changed out for a recent USA greasebucket HSS type..which was understood before purchase. In fact emails to and fro before purchase also had seller stating the body & neck were original...( amazing to have a 2004 non fender manufacture neck stamp on a 1997 model ??? ) used fake logos on a non genuine brush painted neck, a 2004 neck stamped non fender body, swapped out all USA nickel parts and replaced with cheap chrome ones,right down to all the screws...even the plastic rear cover was wring type.

This guy thinks his superman ! Since stated he is poor and needs $6400 to operate on his dogs 2 legs

ANYWAY...I have paid professional $171 to now strip instrument down, next to a mint version of same instrument, and photograph and document all the details, from wrong body routes, to brush painted lacquer runs, to incorrect headstock logo ( wrong color/transparent not gold, and wrong font sizes ) ...NOW I AM WONDERING & ASKING FOR SOME ADVICE FROM THOSE ON THIS FORUM (given i am in australia), IS THEIR ANY DIRECT CONTACT TO A SPECIFIC PERSON or DEPARTMENT WITHIN FMIC USA WHO ARE INTERESTED IN RECEIVING ALL OF THESE DOCUMENTS HELD REGARDING WHO & HOW THIS PERSON IS COUNTERFEITING THEIR PRODUCT ?

As for anyone else who may be interested in this information as to possibly assist their own cause, please contact me and I'll zip up the approx 20 pages of evidence thus far, and send it off to you.

I feel for you mate, there's nothing worse than that sinking feeling in the pit of your gut when you've put some trust in someone and they screw you over like that.

Maybe try PMing one of the Fender staff that frequents this site and tell them your story and maybe they could pass your details on to someone internally at Fender (Mike Eldred is one name that comes to mind). I think it's important to report it and I would hope Fender has some mechanism in place to deal with such piracy.

Also if you can prove they have falsified US Customs documents then be sure to notify US Customs as well.

Good Luck.

Cheers,

Snowy.

Thanks Snowy....right down to the smallest of screws...and even then he couldnt match the size of the cheap substitutes as the pickguard screws had diff head sizes ! you'd think you'd at least try.....he must be living it large on the money he pulls from those genuine nickel screws ! lol

I've filed info with a few departments & am far from finished, but I posted here more wanting to know if matters like this...and it is VERY OBVIOUS in documents, photos,emails,LIES etc etc ...are really of interest to anyone at Fender.

I've actually worked in the international instrument manufacturing biz for the past 9 years , and still do...+ alot of xtra experience ( as we all have ) ...and MANY times I have seen or been offered copy SM58's (offices in Guangzhou), 'copy' fender necks from various Asian factories... BUT AT LEAST THEY SELL THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE.

I think it STINKS when people lie about an item like that.

I recall seeing a second hand dealer sell at auction a copy fender...a young guy...all "musical & starry eyed" spent his saturday waiting for the auction, and spent his $'s on this instrument, and stepped out of the auction room thinking he was now invincible.....it sickened me to the core as i saw the 2nd hand dealer smirk over the bucks he'd just pocketed

....(shhh ... i had a mumble something on my way out)

Contacted FMIC via general contact window, so I will soon see if they have any interest.

well..again thanks Snowy.

I hope Fender do take an interest because it's really Fender that has to send the message out to these people that Fender will not just turn a blind eye, especially if someone doing this is handed to them on a platter and is regularly marketing the product for sale as Genuine Fender.

Fender employees need the company to act and so do loyal Fender customers.

Hopefully Karma will eventually kick in and sort this guy out.

Take it easy mate.



Cheers,

Snowy.

Sorry I double posted.

Post a link to the scumbag's ebay auction on this thread. Then send a link to Brad by clkicking the report button on this thread. FMIC are interested in counterfit guitars.

Being as though he's in the same country they will likely prosecute.

Please post a link anyway cos I want to have a look for myself and probably jerk the seller round a bit.

_________________
No no and no

I am with niki.I like having giving these guys a hard time and see him get what he deserves.Its amazing how many Ebay sellers are selling guitars with socalled rare colors these days.I just saw one that had a "rare" teal metallic,only to realize its really aquamarine metallic, which came stock that year, but was very unpopular.But now they think they can charge extra for it.

*** ALL HISTORY & EVIDENCE RETAINED PERTAINING TO FOLLOWING

ebay seller user id : guitars1001001

sold counterfeit instrument via ebay item # 250615938584

( a quick look at the color of the neck should have told me...but no,...''blamed the lighting i did" )

Item purchased knowing pickguard and electrics had been changed

-can see in his recent history some of the parts he was buying(IMPORTANT is the fact he bought neckplates -then denies building the instrument...obviously has the experience ,AND EYES, so he should have seen that 2004 neck pocket stamp...one would think )

EXACT comm's with seller BEFORE purchase :

16th April 2010 I asked :

Good Day, May i ask if there are any nicks,dings,dents or scratches worth yof mention, also is the gig bag a fender bag ...dlx or standard type ?

ah..best ask, any hang tags, user manuals or availability of original tex mex pick ups ?

I am assuming the body and neck are both original to each other/cali series ?

thanks for your time...best establish details now rather than later.



16th April 2010 guitars1001001 replied in email :


Hi. It's in nice condition with no mentionable nicks, dings or scratches. No original pickups. I might be able to find some kind of hang tag, but I'm not sure. The gig bag is heavy duty padded with zippered copmpartment. Yes, the neck and body, and everything else but the loaded pickguard are all original. Thanks


SURPRISING is how this person has sold so many instruments, seemingly ok...perhaps trying to 'move up' a notch...or maybe trying to sneak out a quick $1k here or there....just doesnt add up...but the facts are OBVIOUS, hence maybe why he's not so good at covering his trax.

Lets see if this works, I had industry professionals pull down what he sent me, alongside an unplayed genuine usa 1997 california series stratocaster, photographing & comparing the parts he said genuine all the way.
Picture do not show the text that was later added, highlighting difference in logos, paintruns, incorrect parts, incorrect dates etc, and I will cut out the business entities letterhead for now...so you good folk can be the judge of what he lists, and what is being received, and exactly what is coming out of PA at present....

(i acknowledge pic's are bare as seen but best at this stage re public forum upload- received counterfeit on top / comparison geuine photgraphed below)

-also has sellers falsified doc's ...perhaps good for their annual taxation, and PERHAPS true to the REAL value !

anyway, i good exercise in sharpening the eye, and for waring others

sellers original ebay listing, photos & description :
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0615938584
(and if his recent feeback seems harsh, well, it's only the truth, & there's more than one )




























http://s924.photobucket.com/albums/ad85 ... ent=30.jpg


...and this guys best effort to date...was this in email -

" .... Today was a very tough day for us. We had to take our dog to the vet today because he can't walk. The news we received is that he tore ligaments and cartilage in both legs and needs surgery in both legs. Unfortunately the operation costs 3200 for one leg and we could never afford that. It's hard to watch your dog suffer. Do you have any pets? "


Being the optimist I am thinking the old stick of a dog still has two good ones ! I hope those other two legs stay strong, lest he need to knock out a few more "Benders" and rip of people o/s for a few more golden canine legs.


OH, and this garage maestro act has emailed me and stated he has spoken with FMIC USA and they have verified the serial number ( shown in the top photos ) .
I asked the name of the FMIC employee.....eaxct text comm's :

Dear guitars1001001,

Tony, can you also forward time of call and first &last names of FMIC employee who verified the serial number to you ?

I would like this to be included in information.



response :
I called today late afternoon. They're sending me verification.


no further word from him.


CLASS ACT !!!

as seen this person declared the value of this instrument as USD$99, when it can be seen I paid USD $599 + airmail freighting for.

charged me $USD120 to send, not the sub$90 they paid, but thats ok.....there dog needs legs...but truly...i never have an issue with the time people take to prepare and send goods out safely.....Lord knows i spend too much time on my knees doing the same myself.


IN NO WAY WAS THIS PERSON ASKED TO FALSIFY DOCUMENTS.

In fact the USD$719 I paid falls way below any Aus import tax threshold therefore is delivered to my door no questions asked ( limit is AUD$1000 )

.. ..seemingly the perfect purchase....so something had to go wrong.


I did ask seller to not send for a couple of days, which they did for me....hoping that didnt give them time to 'rethink' their end of the bargain.


for a 'part time collector'....and i've been stung a few times recently..... it's starting to be more trouble than it's worth.

Sorry to hear about this. One eBay tip I'd like to point out for the benefit of others, NEVER take correspondence (before or after the sale) to email. Always use the eBay Messages system. If there is a dispute, eBay can read those messages. But if it happened via email, their position is it didn't happen at all (rightly so, they've set up the messages system to protect both buyer and Seller, and have no way to verify if an email occurred at all, or was falsified).

A note on checking out the Seller (again, for the benefit of others, and of course hindsight is always 20/20), it is obvious through recent transactions that this Seller buys and sells parts. That'd be a red flag for me if I were considering buying a whole guitar claimed not to be of parts. And the fact that the guitar had completely changed loaded pickguard/electronics would be a HUGE red flag for me. I'd be thinking "what else has been messed with"? I'd have to look VERY closely if considering spending any real money on such an item, especially if it were to be shipped halfway 'round the globe.

Lastly, not trying to defend this Seller at all (sounds like a sub par creep!), but you don't know for fact that he built this, or even was aware of what all parts were non-original/fake. Fact is, he sold you something that was not as described. Despite the costs, I'd have shipped it back and gotten a refund (you'd likely have been reimbursed shipping at least one way in an eBay dispute, and as noted, it was less than $90). Could have left feedback warning that it was a fake.

As it is, you've got $170 into having the evidence documented, plus your loss on the guitar. Your call, and good on you to "take one for the team" and continue to get the word out on this one. Admirable use of time for which you're likely to see no benefit. But again, can't be certain he put it together, or even knew what he had (though the latter is likely at least). Proof shows he sold an item not as described. Good enough in my book to see him barred from eBay (I doubt Fender will get involved, but I may be wrong).

Again, sorry to hear you got stung!

_________________
"If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music".
Keith Richards

There are some very good points here that are work reiterating since this has been a hot topic in general here lately. There seems to be this growing idea that if someone is selling a "fake" instrument on Ebay that they must be trying to commit fraud and the truth is that's not always the case at all. Even a person who buys and sells a lot of parts (such as myself) doesn't always know the inconsistencies and nuances of each and every last instrument they may buy or sell. Is it possible this person was trying to commit deliberate fraud? Yes. Is it possible they were simply selling something and weren't aware that it was a fake? -Yes-. If we were talking about one of these China importers that pops up from time to time around here where their whole inventory is apparently fake, then yes...certainly that's fraud. However with an individual seller, proving that is going to be tough at best...and if you're wrong, it could come back and bit you in the arse. In other words, just because the OP is angry and just because he is accusing the seller of fraud, doesn't actually make that the case.

Now with that, just looking at those Ebay pictures alone, the guitar does indeed look fairly authentic. The California Series was basically a joint effort between Fender's Corona facility and their Ensemble factory...even though it says "USA" on the headstock, it's not completely a USA model. As such, I would expect a few inconsistencies on this model in any case...no offense to the OP or his "expert" but the mis-aligned serial number for example don't mean squat...no indication there of a fake logo just because it's mis-aligned. Some Fender serial numbers are properly aligned, some of them appear to be applied with a bit more "haste". That said, the tuners and even the bridge are certainly consistent with this model (at least based on those pictures) and the neck plate certainly looks like what came on my MIM (and again those California Series -are- part MIM!). Just looking at those Ebay pictures as a whole, if we assume that the seller didn't actually assemble that himself (which may or may NOT be the case) we could also assume that said seller never pulled the neck or pickguard and wasn't aware of the incorrect date in the neck pocket or that the body routing was off.

To provide some illustration, here's an alternate scenario... Let's say that someone at some point did in fact build this guitar out of parts (someone other than the seller. Maybe the instrument was even a repair of some kind...something happened to the neck and they replaced it with what looks like a California Series neck or maybe they had the nice neck and just used a similar body to match). Said person later sold that guitar for whatever reason...maybe because they were trying to make a few bucks or maybe they were even just sick of the guitar and maybe the guitar has even been sold a couple of times now before this seller actually received it (hey...if that neck really is a '91, it could have been around the block a few times) . Said seller replaced the pickups (or maybe they were already replaced) still didn't really care for said instrument (or maybe even picked it up as a "bargain") and because this person clearly buys and sells lots of guitar stuff, just decided to get rid of it without looking at it too closely. Think of it this way, "Hey...it looks like a decent California Series...I already have several Strats and don't really like this one...screw it, I could use the money anyways". -Nothing- there to indicate any intentional sense of fraud at all.

The truth of the matter is that there have been at least a couple of threads that have gone past this forum where someone has bought a fake Strat...owned the guitar for a while and didn't know they had a fake and then turned around later to sell it again (and found out it was a fake from the new buyer...talk about getting burned twice!). One of the problems with buying guitars on Ebay or the internet in general is that we not only assume that a given seller is going to be "honest" about what they're selling, that they are some kind of expert and took the bother to actually research what it is they were selling...but that's not usually the case now is it? Come on...let's be honest here. -If- I were selling a real vintage instrument...say a '62 Strat, then yes, I will make sure I have that instrument authenticated to the best of my ability and provide documentation. On the other hand we could be talking about an instrument that's worth several thousand dollars and that's a very different thing from selling an average "used" instrument, even of supposedly American origin. Would I do the same thing with a $600 instrument? Probably not.

With that, I've said it before and I'll say it again...no one forces a buyer to hit that bid button on Ebay. I could be wrong but I strongly suspect that no one was standing there holding a gun to the buyers head forcing them to buy this instrument. This is just my opinion as always but personally I just can't feel sorry for someone who get's burned on a transaction such as this. Ok...fine people who commit fraud are "bad people"...woo-hoo. That said, if people didn't allow themselves to be taken advantage of, there wouldn't be nearly as many scammers out there. There have always been "snake oil salesmen" around and there always will be...you just have to make a conscious choice not to buy their stuff. "Ohhh...ohhh...someone should protect us from the bad guys"...come on...just learn to cover your own butt and you'll be fine. Personally while I do quite a bit of business on Ebay and I do buy quite a few "guitar parts", I'd never buy a guitar...at least not a supposedly nice guitar from Ebay (maybe an el' cheapo Squier or something). It's not that I'm concerned with fraud...if you handle the transaction correctly you do have some degree of protection. For me it's simply every guitar is different. I simply don't buy a guitar unless I've played it first. Even -if- I were to buy a nice guitar on Ebay, you can bet I'd pay for it with a credit card through Paypal, that way if by some off chance I did get burned, one call to the credit card company and problem solved. So again, if someone got burned or just even didn't get what they thought they were getting, I can't blame the seller...at least not completely.

Either way from what I've seen posted here both in pictures as well as the email responses, I really don't see anything at all that indicates intentional fraud on the part of this seller...if anything by admitting to the pickups having been replaced, it would seem to indicate that the seller was showing some degree of honesty...after all, if said person was trying to deliberately perpetrate fraud, why say anything about the pickups? Why change them in the first place??? It's possible, yes, but there's no proof here at all.

To be perfectly blunt while fraud is certainly a "bad thing", so is libel and defamation of character. For all intensive purposes, this person may have simply been selling "a guitar". I could be wrong but in this case I -strongly- suspect Fender isn't going to have much interest in this. While some folks may think that a company such as Fender should go after anyone who replaces a screw, the fact is that perusing something like this would likely cause Fender more time, money and trouble than anything else...just to bust some guy who may or may not be guilty. Would you fork out the lawyers fees?

So to wrap this up, if the OP here is really convinced he got burned, by all means it's worth perusing a refund here and some degree of "customer satisfaction". Call your credit card company, contact Paypal and start processing that claim. However I would be very careful about making any direct allegations in regards to fraud unless you can -prove- [b]beyond any shadow of a doubt[/ib that the seller did indeed do this intentionally. Circumstantial evidence, such as the seller "buying and selling parts" is -NOT- proof. I may suggest something and it may raise a red flag or two (which is a good thing) but it's not -proof-. For that matter even the seller saying the neck and body were original isn't really even substantial...said person may have been told they were by the person they bought it from and never bothered to check. Also remember that an "opinion" (even an educated one) is NOT necessarily proof.



Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

Sounds like you may meet these requirements for resolution through eBay -> http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/buy ... ction.html

Hey,

Sorry to hear that, but not this is just one of many items that put out there to deceive people. I can't understand why they would go through all the hassle for just a few dollars, because bottom line is the money can only go so far and it totally ruins their credibility.

And, just hearing all you have said and done, his selling days on ebay are over. Once you get a bad rep.. your done, won't nobody buy from you.

I know I wouldn't, Anyways, wish you the best.

Carlos

Ouch!

I've had the same thing happen to me when I though I was getting a US version, it ended up being made in Mexico.

If you can't recoup your money here's hoping that someone at Fender at least takes a look at this.

You didn,t buy the guitar from fender so I don,t think they will care what you bought from e-bay. I just strengthen the point to buy from an authorized fender dealer.