The Danger of Buying Musical Instruments on eBay

Maybe you're like me. I don't know beans about musical instruments, but my kid found one on eBay that was the "bargain of the Century" and screamed and cried until I bought it. And maybe, like me, you were stupid enough to make not one, but two purchases of cheap worthless musical instruments on eBay before you figured it out.

Or maybe it is not too late, and you can learn from my mistakes before you fall into the same trap I did.

There are many worthless or nearly worthless musical instrument-like objects being offered on eBay. The sellers are large operations that move hundreds of instruments a month. They appear to have many satisfied customers.

Be very, very afraid.

Check their Feedback:

One of the most offensive of these scammers has a phenomenal Feedback rating of 66,117 with %99.4 positive feedback. But that %0.6 Negative Feedback represents hundreds of customers who were really teed off about their purchase right out of the box. It doesn't even include the customers whose instruments broke a few weeks later.

When you ship 100 instruments a week, negative feedback can move down several pages in a hurry, but go through the trouble to look at the feedback very carefully. At the bottom of the Feedback page, you will see a little "Items Per Page" counter. Change it to 200, and look at ALL of the seller's negative feedback.

Look at the Neutral Feedback as well. Most people are like me - too chicken to post Negative Feedback, and feel partly responsible for being stupid enough to get scammed.

Beware of Excessive Shipping Costs:

I paid $95 for shipping and handling on my son's drum accessories . Was that too much? Well, when I went to return them, packed in a very heavy microwave oven box (the box I received them in had fallen apart in shipping), the shipping and Insurance was $21. This is where the scammers make money. When they charge excessive shipping and handling, which is not refundable (and the will also charge you a "restocking" fee), they make a nice profit on the item, EVEN IF YOU RETURN IT!

Be Aware of Poor Packaging:

So - how do you know in advance that your instrument will be poorly packaged? Easy - LOOK AT THE FEEDBACK! Scammers aren't going to change their spots just because 40 or 50 people complain.

Both of my purchases, from different sellers, had the same packaging MO. The instruments arrived in boxes made of thick, but very lightweight cardboard. I am sure there is a name for it, but it is stuff that you can easily punch through with your finger. Basically it is packing material, used to keep a big box of a dozen instruments from knocking into each other when being shipped to the eBay seller from China. It was never intended to be used as a shipping box for an individual instrument, and it WILL NOT FUNCTION AS SUCH.

So How Bad can it Be?:

Pretty bad. I ordered some small side drums for my son's drum set. Instead of being made of wood or a high grade laminate, the bodies of the drums were roughly cut from BLACK PVC SEWER PIPE! Of course they arrived in the original Made in Pakistan "Packaging". Then I was dumb enough to order a Cello for my son's girlfriend. It arrived with a cracked neck, in the same extremely poor packaging as mentioned above. The non-refundable shipping fee was actually more than the cost of the Cello. No point in trying to return it.

Conclusion:

I am sure you can find some very nice high-quality musical instruments on eBay at competitive prices. And I know people who have made some smart instrument purchases on eBay. But a) they knew what they were doing, and b) they bought a good used instrument that was a name brand.