Too Good to be True?

Mossman · Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:03 pm

I was thinking about the new Squier Affinity line, and was curious if MF had posted any pics of the "Limited Edition" Affinities yet (I think these are exclusive to MF/GC, as nobody else seems to have them listed).

They had not, so I went on a search to see if I could get a peek at these models somewhere else, and I came across a site called Artfire.com: https://www.artfire.com/ext/discover/?s ... lter_type=

It looks like ALL the guitars on this site are priced between $85 and $99 regardless of brand, make or model... At first, I just thought these sellers were blowing out their inventory of old Affinities, but they have some of the new ones too, for about $95!:

And some "Contemporaries":

I even found some Classic Vibe Jaguar basses for under $100:

These are being sold by different sellers, but they all have the same selection of guitars, so I'm assuming these are all multiple seller accounts held by the same person. If you go to their stores, they have about 120 pages of products ranging from cheap jewelry, to domestic products, to music gear, and EVERYTHING is under $100, no matter what it is. The listings look like a lot of copy and paste with inaccurate details. For example; check out this "Race Green" Jazz bass:

The color is listed as "black" further down the page.

Also, if you look at the seller information, all these sellers have few to no sales on this site, and all the pictures are of young girls in their late teens to early 20s.

I don't know... what do you think, Wu?

aullucci · Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:13 pm

I wouldn't go anywhere near that. That smells 100% like $88.97 for a fake tracking number that will never arrive.

toomanycats · Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:03 pm

This thread could turn into the sequel to the great Glarry bass fiasco.

Mossman · Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:14 pm

aullucci wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:13 pm I wouldn't go anywhere near that. That smells 100% like $88.97 for a fake tracking number that will never arrive.

Yep... I did a little more digging and found out this site has a HORRIBLE reputation. Nothing but terrible reviews from people who got ripped off. It seems the two major scams that these sellers run is to either take your money and send you a box of face masks (soooo many reports of that), or they give you a tracking number that shows a delivery to your city or town, but to the wrong address. Shipping companies only disclose the city of destination upon third-party inquiry, and not the actual address, so when PayPal, or your bank checks the tracking, they see it was delivered to your town and consider the case closed.

Artfire has absolutely ZERO interest in protecting buyers from their sellers. If you register a complaint with Artfire, they'll tell you that since they don't process payments, they have no way of getting you a refund, and direct you to deal with PayPal or your credit card company to get your money back. More often than not, sellers vanish from Artfire after they've scammed enough people. I've read numerous accounts where people said that by the time they registered a dispute with Paypal, there was nobody there anymore to get a refund from. Either that, or they take the item down and claim they never sold such a thing to you.

Oddly, this gyp-joint is based in Tucson, AZ and has been in operation since 2008! Hard to believe, when even a casual search brings up nothing but scathing reviews for as far as the eye can see.

Mossman · Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:16 pm

toomanycats wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:03 pm This thread could turn into the sequel to the great Glarry bass fiasco.

I think I must have missed that controversy.

toomanycats · Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:28 pm

Mossman wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:16 pm
toomanycats wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:03 pm This thread could turn into the sequel to the great Glarry bass fiasco.
I think I must have missed that controversy.

I think it may have went down before the new forum. eBay seller with P basses for sale for a ridiculously low price. I mean like $17 or something like that. Some reviews online said they were a good cheap bass, so a feeding frenzy ensued. The whole thing turned into a giant scam. There were threads on AGF and TalkBass about it.

uwmcscott · Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:17 pm

If you have to ask the "too good to be true" question the answer is almost always known before you even ask it

Regarding artfire in particular, I'd place them deal in the "if you are dumb enough to put your credit card in the slot, you deserve to lose your money" category. Glaring ( glarry? ) red flags all over the place - most of the sellers have very low feedback and the first 3 I clicked on all had comments about sending payment and never receiving product, etc. I understand that there is a sucker born ever minute, but man, this one doesn't even look remotely real.

Partscaster · Sun Jul 18, 2021 8:58 pm

Box of face masks instead of a guitar.
So, if you are hoping to just get ripped off in a bad guitar deal, this is not your best bet.

mighty_duck · Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:19 am

I fell for one of these sites, buying roller blades for my daughter.
I was lucky in that they sent me a tracking number to my city, that was sent a couple of days BEFORE i made my order.
PayPal was quick to refund me.

Mossman · Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:06 pm

uwmcscott wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 7:17 pm If you have to ask the "too good to be true" question the answer is almost always known before you even ask it

Regarding artfire in particular, I'd place them deal in the "if you are dumb enough to put your credit card in the slot, you deserve to lose your money" category. Glaring ( glarry? ) red flags all over the place - most of the sellers have very low feedback and the first 3 I clicked on all had comments about sending payment and never receiving product, etc. I understand that there is a sucker born ever minute, but man, this one doesn't even look remotely real.

To us seasoned and shrewd guitar buyers it's obvious, but what if you're a newbie, or some soccer mom looking to get a guitar for their kid? I have a hard time saying they deserve to get took due to their naivete. Keep in mind; these sellers don't just sell guitars. They sell frickin' EVERYTHING (or so it appears). If I were looking for say, a ratchet set or something, and I saw one by a reputable brand at a good price, I could have been snookered too. The most oft-repeated phrase I read in reviews was: "I used PayPal, so I thought I would be protected". I have to admit, that thought has put my mind at ease on more than a couple of occasions.

But Artfire shouldn't turn a blind eye to this activity. According to the reviews I read on the BBB website and elsewhere, these issues have been brought to their attention numerous times, and they keep giving the same lame excuse. That makes them complicit in my book (I'm sure they don't mind collecting seller fees for these fraudulent sales). Even if nobody ever reported it to them, It doesn't take a genius to tell there's something hinkey going on with all these sellers setting up shop, then disappearing like a fart in the wind shortly thereafter. I perused the site a bit, and it looks like they're trying to be a competitor to Etsy, and the site itself looks legit. I didn't get the sense that it was some skeezy operation. They also have a LOT of informative/instructional media (articles, videos) regarding various crafts, supplies, tips for sellers, etc: https://www.artfire.com/blog/making-the ... -easy-way/. That's an awful lot of on-going content generation for a site that's nothing more than a den for scammers and thieves. And they've been in operation for about 13 years.

uwmcscott · Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:05 pm

Mossman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:06 pm
To us seasoned and shrewd guitar buyers it's obvious, but what if you're a newbie, or some soccer mom looking to get a guitar for their kid? I have a hard time saying they deserve to get took due to their naivete. Keep in mind; these sellers don't just sell guitars. They sell frickin' EVERYTHING (or so it appears). If I were looking for say, a ratchet set or something, and I saw one by a reputable brand at a good price, I could have been snookered too. The most oft-repeated phrase I read in reviews was: "I used PayPal, so I thought I would be protected". I have to admit, that thought has put my mind at ease on more than a couple of occasions.

I guess that's where we will have to agree to disagree

In this particular case, the sellers have items listed that are brand new, and in some cases models that haven't even become available yet, for well under 50% of MSRP. That in itself should be a glaring red flag right of the bat. Zero and minimal 1 star feedback with reports of paypay disputes is the second. And there are a ton more after that.

Maybe I did go a bit overboard by saying that people deserve to be ripped off, but honestly if you just blindly see something and buy it without doing any research there's not many legs to stand on when things go south.

Mossman · Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:13 am

uwmcscott wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:05 pm
Mossman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:06 pm
To us seasoned and shrewd guitar buyers it's obvious, but what if you're a newbie, or some soccer mom looking to get a guitar for their kid? I have a hard time saying they deserve to get took due to their naivete. Keep in mind; these sellers don't just sell guitars. They sell frickin' EVERYTHING (or so it appears). If I were looking for say, a ratchet set or something, and I saw one by a reputable brand at a good price, I could have been snookered too. The most oft-repeated phrase I read in reviews was: "I used PayPal, so I thought I would be protected". I have to admit, that thought has put my mind at ease on more than a couple of occasions.

I guess that's where we will have to agree to disagree In this particular case, the sellers have items listed that are brand new, and in some cases models that haven't even become available yet, for well under 50% of MSRP. That in itself should be a glaring red flag right of the bat. Zero and minimal 1 star feedback with reports of paypay disputes is the second. And there are a ton more after that.

Maybe I did go a bit overboard by saying that people deserve to be ripped off, but honestly if you just blindly see something and buy it without doing any research there's not many legs to stand on when things go south.

I don't think we're completely in disagreement. I'm just saying that for somebody who doesn't know what the prices are supposed to be, there's no suspicion that gets triggered when they see something that's irrationally under-priced. And apart from these bad actors, the site appears to be generally trustworthy, but yeah, people tend to be impulsive and quick to click "Buy it Now", before scrutinizing the seller, and thinking Paypal will always get their money back if things go awry.