ebay's cheapo copies

[peaveyuser]

Well I'm pretty sure we've all seen these, the cheap Gibson and Ibanez copies from China that claim to be the real deal & whatnot but are really fakes. A lot claim it's a scam and even the manufacturers are aware of it and have stated they know there are fakes and to watch out for them. Now my question is, has anybody here actually played one, are they really THAT bad?

Also it seems that they're not as abundant as before on ebay, did something happen,was there a lawsuit filed against ebay?

[fenderhutz]

Someone locally to the Wash DC area was also taking them around to my local pawn shops. They got one of the pawn shops for 600.00. The pawn shop wasn't smart enough to check the serial number online. It was a copy of a Gibson Les Paul custom. The serial stamp was off center and the whole guitar reeked of cheap.

They tried another pawn shop where I know the owner and he told the guy, "look, I just checked and the serial isn't listed as a Gibson serial, I will give you 100.00 for the guitar for the benefit of the doubt."

It was two guys, with a guitar blue book showing the value of the guitar.

Shady.