Buying guitars over the internet?

[wintermoon]

Granted by the seller, or not, your "evaluation period" begins the moment a guitar arrives and you evaluate it. But it's incumbent upon you the buyer to have paid via CC, or Paypal, and the item sold not described as is, for you to avail yourself of a potential refund in the event a guitar was sold "not described as is."

Pretty simple stuff really. Personally I don't touch vintage guitars, as there's too much more that can potentially be wrong with them that I know nothing about. But I'd like to own one.

I'm guessing you touched your 70's Super 400 and your current avatar's Memphis @ some point, no?

[Jonathan0996]

I agree with the concerns about buying a guitar sight-unseen without a return option.

If I wanted to buy a $3-5K jazz guitar and I lived in Virginia, I think I'd drive up to New York City for a couple days and just play a bunch of guitars. There's a million of them up in that area. While you're there you can go to the Village and check out some of the world's best jazz musicians.

[2bornot2bop]

if a seller doesn't offer an eval period, he's hiding something. End of story.

Perhaps he's simply through with dealing with flakey buyers. They're everywhere. It's a sellers business not to provide an evaluation period. Private sellers aren't in the business of tryouts either. Some people expect way too much. They want a seller to absorb all of the risk. That's unrealistic

[2bornot2bop]

I'm guessing you touched your 70's Super 400 and your current avatar's Memphis @ some point, no?

I've touched that Japan remake every day since its arrival. I can't believe how well made it is and how great it plays.

[helios]

if a seller doesn't offer an eval period, he's hiding something. End of story.

This may sometimes be so, but certainly not always.
I never offered a return on the internet, but I also never sold anything that wasn't in pretty much perfect condition. I also tend to understate things (avoiding the folly of "mint", "dead mint", "super-duper dead mint", etc.). Buyers are happy.
If something is in less than perfect condition (and I still want to sell it), I sell on consignment (at a dealer) so the buyer has plenty of time for a thorough evaluation (I take the hit in this situation in terms of dealer commission).
Also, it never helps to be in a rush for things to happen.
There were a few times I made money (items bid higher than I paid), but mostly, guitar/amp transactions have been a money losing proposition for me, driven by a need of mine to find the best gear for my tastes.

[agentsmith]

Perhaps he's simply through with dealing with flakey buyers. They're everywhere. It's a sellers business not to provide an evaluation period. Private sellers aren't in the business of tryouts either. Some people expect way too much. They want a seller to absorb all of the risk. That's unrealistic

I don't mean to imply that these seller are scam artists but the sad truth is that 99% of folks selling guitars don't play well enough to even know if their instruments have issues. I got into a big debate once with a guy who sold me a guitar with a twisted neck who was blissfully ignorant about it. I got a luthier to evaluate it and write up a written report and regardless of the assessment the seller continued to insist that there was nothing wrong with it and that the strings did not buzz. I made a video of the guitar and demonstrated the string buzz and he still insisted that I was wrong and refused to allow me to return. It took me a couple months to get a refund through my CC company and it was a huge hassle. But this illustrates why you can't just go buy the seller's word on the issue. In most cases, they just don't know.