The "Reverb Scam" Gets Scarier

the Reverb scam is getting scarier welcome back troglodytes to your daily dose guitar information the troglies guitar show you're scouring Reverb like you do every day looking for interesting models or things that are a very good price and you come across something like this 1978 Gibson Les Paul Standard 800 box so you click on the listing you look at the photos the Top's looking good we've got the Nashville style Bridge none of the standard chips and style stuff knobs look of ok quality it's got wear and tear associated with a vintage guitar it's got a Volute and an accurate serial number although those tuners are definitely suspicious and 100 replaced but overall it's real yes this is an authentic guitar in the photos sometimes they'll be smarter and actually Target a price that's maybe just a thousand dollars less than what it would normally sell for so for example 78 standard regular Market somewhere between 2 800 and 4 000 so they might Target a price like 2 000 very good deal territory but not too unbelievable but my friends we've talked about this a couple of times but I have an update on what they're actually doing and let me tell you it's getting scary now this time this is not firsthand I actually got this story by a viewer of the show who I've talked with a few times throughout the years because he likes to collect high-end guitars like me for example he was one of the guys who bought the 50 000 greeny he also purchased the 20K he's had some of the high-end Custom Shop Adam Jones he's not new to this game but they still got him so let's take a deep dive here outside of just enticing prices they've been targeting rare limited edition models and the reason why I pointed out that everything that we've seen in these photos is legit is the fact that they're just stealing these photos from dealers so for example this fake listing right here we just talked about this exact guitar a couple of rock or not episodes ago it is a real Les Paul listed by the guitar broker down in Florida they've just lifted his photos and listed it like this but nine times out of ten these guys will be listing them internationally now you might think hey if somebody's trying to scam you wouldn't it be easier to make you think that they were within most buyers Home Country because a lot of people are leery of buying overseas because of custom import duties taxes if the guitar arrives and it's broken or it's just not as described returns are so much harder internationally what used to happen is you would buy it and they would send a package to a different address within your city typically overnight usually they would ship it to like a restaurant or a hotel in your town and or city and it was usually like a magazine or something that they would just think it's junk mail and get rid of it anyway that way the package would just get lost and you can never recover it so it cost the scammer like 30 bucks for a chance to win whatever money that they took from you so usps's tracking which show delivered in your town because usps's tracking page doesn't show you the exact address so that makes you think that hey the post office has lost the package or somebody has stole it and they're trying to bite out the time that Reverb gives you to say hey something's not right here or waiting out PayPal's case Clause because sometimes PayPal will in error side with the seller in these cases because they have a verified tracking number that says delivered in your town that's good enough for them so what what you used to have to do is go to the post office give them the tracking number and get the postmaster to verify that no that was never actually given to this address here's what they're doing now the reason why they're establishing that it is an overseas transaction is it forces PayPal to be used you might not know this and you're going to learn it the hard way one day if you don't hear it from me if you pay via PayPal on reverb Reverb cannot help you at all because PayPal has the final say sure Reverb will back you up and help you with the PayPal claim But ultimately they do not have the final say PayPal is the final say but that's standard on all overseas payments on reverb anyway so it's not necessarily a red flag but trust me if you can use Reverb payments that's where you want to be because then Reverb is the processor and they can have a lot more control unfortunately they've recently updated that you have to tell them that there's an issue within seven days which honestly I don't feel that's right because if you don't take it to your luthier to check and notice that it has a twisted neck within seven days you're gonna be out of your money and unfortunately replaced Parts Twisted next or hidden repairs that you might not see right away sometimes it takes more than seven days but again I'm just trying to arm you with the knowledge if you're trying to make an online purchase things to keep in mind so say you purchased this using the PayPal here's what they're doing next since most shipping couriers ask for some sort of an email Reverb about a year ago started to use these temporary emails so they will use that to contact you directly and sends you something that looks like this I hope this email finds you well we're reaching out because the guitar that you just purchased there was a bit of an error in our records about the origin of your payment so they're basically just saying hey can you help us verify this transaction send a screenshot of your PayPal of which I think they're trying to get your real email at that point it's really just to get the conversation started because what happens next is you're going to get an email directly from PayPal now if I understand his story correctly is spoofed that says there's unusual activity going on with your account next you'll get a phone call from somebody saying there from PayPal saying that they've noticed some unusual activity on your account and secure it and then after talking to them you get that typical security code sent to you via text and then they ask you for that code and from there they basically hack your PayPal they close any claims that you might have opened to get your money back and they'll just steal anything in your account or anything that's linked into your bank they're going for more than just the guitar at this point they are trying to literally take all your money out of your bank so in a roundabout way they're trying to get that secret code that allows them to log into your account so if you ever get a message something like this remember stay on reverb if the transaction started on reverb they start contacting you outside of that it's a red flag especially if it was a brand new seller with no feedback I know a lot of it might seem like common sense but these scams are getting more scary every day and there's many different ways that they can take it but this is definitely a new one on me but that's why I always suggest if you're sketched out ask for a very specific phone photo for example there was a rare or less Paul than I was buying and I knew this guitar had been sold on reverb once before so it could potentially be duped photos I asked him to put trogly on a piece of paper and date it and this is what he came up with trogdor but he forgot the beefy arm so I'm a little bit sketched out but hopefully it arrives okay but don't be scared to ask for things like that because I do it all the time but for the rest of this this is really an open letter to reverb you guys have gotta do something to stop this because it is getting bad it's very prevalent late at night early in the morning and all the time on the weekend when people are most prominently shopping I know it would be a big pain in the butt and Reverb would get less users but if they could verify your identity if you have to scan your ID or verify your address in some other way or if you're selling a guitar over a certain dollar amount that they'll need more verifications from you unfortunately I think it is a needed step now I know scammers in the past have stolen ID cards to get around security measures like that so it wouldn't be perfect but it would weed out the experienced criminals from the newbies that are currently flooding Reverb with these fake listings and if Reverb doesn't want such sensitive information stored on their servers due to security reasons maybe just verification of the person address would be useful you pay him a dollar they'll send you a letter that has a code to your physical address that you have to live there to get and then you can finish signing up your account from there sounds like a real pain but it would keep people more safe because you'll never be able to get rid of all scammers on the platform but it doesn't seem like Reverb adding more support on nights and weekends is necessarily within their budget now Reverb has recently established some new account security features when logging onto the site via your phone they were asking me for a code sent to my email and that's good because that's the next step to this scam if they make it harder to make an account if scammers will hijack existing trusted accounts that do have some feedback to use as their scam platform we see this happen all the time on eBay the hijack 2000 plus 100 feedback counts that they've purchased or stolen being used as a driving force to trick people into trusting them when it says in the description contact me at XXX email and buy it now for too cheap of price or perhaps cameras will still sign up and just buy and sell five low dollar items to get an account that looks a little bit more trusting just ask for a specific photo if you're unsure of the seller and you'll be able to weed all this out instantly real sellers typically quickly oblige as long as you're not asking for something way too crazy ask him for a character on a piece of paper or maybe have their hand make a specific sign because once you ask for that fake sellers will ghost you give you a silly excuse as to why they won't or they'll send you something that's obviously been photoshopped you gotta be careful there because sometimes they're good at photoshopping that I also want to bring up I've seen scammers Target rare models increasingly more now but at realistic prices to fish slash wait for a buyer to come for full retail value to make it not seem like such an obvious scam so yeah it doesn't sound fun to have to do any of this to set up an account nor is it fun to bug the seller asking for specific photos but Reverb could quickly get overrun with these things and it's nearly getting to that point but some additional security measures would at least boost people's confidence in Reverb I offer private help sessions on my website if you're thinking of buying a guitar and you just want me to vet it for you real quick because right there just refresh the page had a mini heart attack there's the red sparkle 70s Deluxe I'm after 4300 is a great price okay now this one's legit it must be a refinish yep by Marty Bell this is the true problem with these scams floating the marketplace I find myself on edge for any listing anymore when I click on it I've lost my blind trust that I used to have on the platform because sometimes new sellers are where you get the deals but anyways this is my PSA on the matter please stay safe but we've got some time left today so let's Go guitar hunting and see what we find continuing on with this cool red sparkle I still have a Basalt blue in my collection I still need to clean it up but there was a gorgeous rocket red sparkle in exceptional condition I think it was about a year ago however I was contemplating it but somebody had booked a private help session on it to see if it was worth it and at that point professionally I have to stand back and let them make their decision whether they want it or not usually I'll end those private help sessions with if you decide you don't want it let me know I might be interested but until I hear back I don't want to step on anybody's guitar if they're trusting me to give them good information and unfortunately he didn't buy it he decided to pass and then it was gone to somebody else I'll find one one day no worries but this one somebody's put shower tuners on it at one point in time now it's back to an original Gibson style however the downside to that is you have these washer rings around it so that's why usually when you replace tuners on these old Deluxe it's technically a non-reversible modification but Marty Bell is known for doing poly refinishes he doesn't do Nitro because Nitro and Sparkle flake doesn't play very well I would say he did a pretty good job at capturing the original rocket red sparkle paint job that's cool that we don't have a pickguard on this one at all but that one's at space tone music they're asking 4 400. if that's exactly what you want and you can't afford the Vintage Originals I mean it might be worth it ah here's a good one I was just talking about in theory you could find somebody listing a 58 reissue from 1997 for that that price but it's just a little bit too good of a deal and it's coming out of Japan so they've got the forced PayPal thing going on this is one of the hard to spot ones but man that is a nice stop but a little bit beat up on the head stack yeah normally a guitar like that would be between four and five thousand and would you look at that they're even stealing the demo shops pictures that's why if you've ever tried to sell a demo shop guitar and you use Gibson's photos and Reverb takes your listing down this is why because you need to prove you actually own the guitar now this one doesn't follow the usual formula because they're actually still within the USA so that means they're probably going to try to pull that sun package to other address in your town type deal that we were talking about earlier because 1200 bucks is way too cheap for one of these they're 2500 brand new but it's a good example of it's not as obvious here's another one I mean this is all just my recently listed it's just flooded it's possible this could be a realistic probably not but hey this thing's actually not a bad deal don't want to leave Flying V standard from 2016 kind of like Les Paul Standard mixed with flying v58 style I like this mineral streak that they've got going on there with all the flame figuring Les Paul style layout toggle switch right here oh that's cool plect in-house at Sweetwater I like how it has a little bit of a burst right here on the edges wait oh that's got nice mahogany wood grain on the back too but that is a fair deal for a mint conditioned one but now let's check out a fun player's grade was listed as a 72 ebony custom 3800 box that would be a good deal except for somebody's definitely played with the pickups however it looks like we might be back to the original t-tops somebody has put a kaler in it this is one of those times where just because it's Gibson brand it doesn't mean it's factory stock hailers weren't out at that point in time if this is truly a 72 somebody's put a mini toggle switch at this at one point in time here's what our headstock's looking like it had a lock nut at one point in time but somebody took it off okay you kind of need one of those with the kaler but all right and we've got Grover tuners lots of buckle wear back here yeah this might be an early 70s one that somebody put Grovers on because you can see the original imprint of the waffle back tuners it's still a mahogany neck so that tells us it's 1975 or before because 75 is a transitional year into Maple that doesn't mean you don't find some 74s with it but generally speaking 75 is that transition year pot codes are the best way to date early 70s guitars if you still have them this is the 42nd week of 1971. so it's probably safe to assume that's a 72 which ah man this probably originally had the Gibson embossed pickup covers on it and that is a later case than the guitar if you don't mind kalers it could be fun here's a couple of other good ones that have came up a tie in with our theme today so I do want one of these celebrity Firebirds in my collection because I collect early 90s Firebirds typically Custom Shop Edition Custom Shop original it's the rare burst colors and the celebrity series is just kind of a cool one with an ebony fretboard and a black and white design they also had Les Paul Classics and SGS within the series and a couple others but I've been waiting for a particularly clean one and generally really I'd like to be around the three and a half to four thousand dollar range because people ask a lot for 90s Firebirds but trust me I've had to sell a couple of them because I decided to swap them out for other stuff and the market is fairly limited on these things so I thought about making an offer on this one but what stopped me is no feedback I'm not saying this Dave guy in Poplarville isn't legit but I have more to worry about than I used to before every single fake listing was there and right there reverbs missing out on sales because I no longer trust the website fully that's why I hope they do something about this and next up a Paul Landers signature showed up so I reviewed and documented this model and then it sold on my website and the darn guy stole it from me using credit card fraud basically he used a stolen credit card and it turned out he was like a 12 year old kid and ever since that day I had to add credit card fraud protection to my Paypal account so if that ever happens again I will be reimbursed am I say strongly why didn't you make a video about that I didn't want to give the scammer the satisfaction of it because that's exactly what he wanted me to do and I'm sure it would have been another number one hit but it encourages copycats that's why this story is a little bit later in the video you're watching during loyal viewer hours thank you for staying tuned to the end he claims he donated it to charity but I doubt it that is the the sad story of mine which really sucks because I would have rather just kept that guitar I didn't really even want to sell it because they're so rare and it's the signature Du Hast guitar Rammstein another kind of interesting dual EMG pickups single volume control is built for one thing and one thing only for the most part at the time of recording it's available but things like that usually sell quick the same seller also listed a thunder horse Explorer so he's definitely cleaning house of some rare guitars my problem with this listing is it didn't take enough photos friendly advice for anybody listing stuff on reverb they give you 25 photos use them I suggest a full body shot front and back then try to get your sides the best you can get your head stock front and back try to show a couple of the fretboard the back of the neck you know just take a general tour there's no reason to only have six photos on your listing all from far away not showing any type of anything and that can hurt you as a seller because sometimes an example of this thunder horse these guitars change changed during the run early ones actually have a Gibson mother of pearl logo whereas later ones have a flat silver decal I only won a first run one if this was a first run I'd make him an offer but since I can't tell I just moved on and you might make the argument hey I know my guitar is mint I don't need to take as many photos still take them anyways it's good to prove it because if somebody buys this and they don't like it they might put a scratch on that one area that you didn't put and then say you didn't say it you got to protect yourself is what I'm saying but alright chocolate nights I think that wraps up tonight's episode please be careful on reverb it is a nice spot to buy gear but it's not without its problems and that's not saying ebays perfect as well as Facebook Marketplace and Sweetwater's Gear Exchange things like that it's everywhere I just need you to be aware all right chocolate nights I hope you enjoyed tonight's episode don't forget to like comment and subscribe and we will catch you tomorrow on the next episode take care if you enjoyed tonight's episode consider subscribing I post videos like this every day and you might even enjoy this next one

Channel: The Trogly's Guitar Show

Views: 302,037

Keywords: the trogly's guitar show, trogly, trogley, gibson, gibson les paul, fender, fake reverb listings, Reverb Scam Listings, Reverb Listing, Reverb Scam, fake listings on reverb, too good to be true pricing, the troglys guitar show, the troglys guitar show gibson les paul, the troglys guitar show telecaster, the troglys guitar show fender, the troglys guitar show stolen, the troglys guitar show collection, the troglys guitar show buckethead, fender stratocaster

Id: r17391B0cs4

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023