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Neg Feedback Deserving Behavior

Reading the item description tells you that the seller is not an uninformed or “the average” player that some are trying to make them out to be.

From the item description:

Gorgeous lightly played, custom made, with FENDER LICENSED Warmoth neck and body Jazz Bass. Poly finishes are both by Warmoth. Well in excess of $1,400.00 worth of parts here, but must sacrifice. Too many guitars. Hurts to let this one go, but can only play one at a time. Swamp Ash body, Birds Eye highly figured maple neck. Pau Ferro fingerboard. Barely a mark on this instrument and definitely NO chips. Hip shot vintage classic reverse wind tuners with matching drop tuner and additional matching regular tuner included. At one time had standard Fender 5 hole bridge with traditional Jazz bridge cover. Could easily be reverted to that. Those covers are readily available on line. Originally wired for 18V active preamp. Decided to go with the more organic sounding passive harness. Hipshot badass style bridge with brass saddle inserts. Bartolini B Axis hum cancelling pickups sound incredible. Head stock logo done with laser cut vinyl by a sign shop using the same material as car graphic wraps. 3 dimensional and beautiful. It’s not OEM Fender, though the quality is much better. Imagine the cost of getting Fender’s custom shop to put this together. also new tweed case

shipped to continental usa only”
Sounds like they know a lot about the bass... At the very least it sounds like they would know if it had electrical or mechanical issues like the OP asked...

Scenario could have been the seller is selling for someone else who wrote up the description. Still, the seller was unmotivated to do any legwork to answer. He was polite about it, though, and the OP escalated it to a pissing contest.
 
Me: You can't answer ANY of my questions? Do you actually have the bass?

uh-phrasing-quick-meme-com-19968228.png

I understand your incredulity, but you're practically accusing the seller of fraud in only your second message to him.
That said, I don't in any way condone his name-calling in response.
 
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You miss my point. The average person is not as obsessive. To a lot of sellers, asking a lot of questions like that would make him seem like a tire kicker. If we were buying a used Toyota Yaris, we probably would be asking about compression ratios on the engine, and what brand tires and oil filters were on it.
But you have to ask more questions when it's a PITA or impossible to do a return. Maybe the question on action was a little much, but the others seemed very reasonable to me for a custom build where there are no standard specs.
 
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looking at what was being asked:

neck taper and bracing rods material = pretty specific stuff, not unreasonable to not be able to provide this info if you didn't commission or buy the parts originally.

weight = pretty standard on TB but some sellers might not be used to it / might be unable to answer. not everyone has scales!

"can the action be set low" = this is kind of an unanswerable question as "low action" is somewhat subjective and it's not like the seller is going to re-set up the bass just to answer the query.

mechanical / electronic faults = totally reasonable to ask and should be an easy answer (i.e. no, if it's being sold as working)


Don't get me wrong, I don't think the buyer did anything wrong by asking. And he did bookend the list of questions by explaining why he was asking.

However: faced with 5 separate bits of info of varying levels of ease of answer, I don't think it's surprising that the seller (who it seems got the bass to flip) just sent a link to the product site – which in the case of Warmoth isn't hugely helpful.

Sounds like the sale was DOA but probably no need for escalation on either side.
 
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I looked at the ad for 30 seconds. I would bet anything that the item description was cut and pasted from another ad. The seller clearly wrote two sentences (ad title and condition description) and misspelled "awsum," "deffinately" and "giged." Yet there are no misspellings in the paragraph-long item description. Run, don't walk in the other direction.

But to answer your original question, no transaction, no feedback.
 
Right, you could answer them because you're the original owner of the bass and you know what you bought. But I don't know that every seller is anywhere close to that knowledgeable about the things they're selling. So it's kind of a crap shoot. If you're not able to answer those questions, what are you supposed to do? Lie?

Here's the seller's description:

Gorgeous lightly played, custom made, with FENDER LICENSED Warmoth neck and body Jazz Bass. Poly finishes are both by Warmoth. Well in excess of $1,400.00 worth of parts here, but must sacrifice. Too many guitars. Hurts to let this one go, but can only play one at a time. Swamp Ash body, Birds Eye highly figured maple neck. Pau Ferro fingerboard. Barely a mark on this instrument and definitely NO chips. Hip shot vintage classic reverse wind tuners with matching drop tuner and additional matching regular tuner included. At one time had standard Fender 5 hole bridge with traditional Jazz bridge cover. Could easily be reverted to that. Those covers are readily available on line. Originally wired for 18V active preamp. Decided to go with the more organic sounding passive harness. Hipshot badass style bridge with brass saddle inserts. Bartolini B Axis hum cancelling pickups sound incredible. Head stock logo done with laser cut vinyl by a sign shop using the same material as car graphic wraps. 3 dimensional and beautiful. It’s not OEM Fender, though the quality is much better. Imagine the cost of getting Fender’s custom shop to put this together. also new tweed case

It appears he knows a lot about the instrument he's selling, right down to brass saddle inserts.
 
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Usually if there is an item I am interested in and the seller is unable to provide needed info I might take a chance on buying it if the seller has a return policy. However, if I am the seller and someone responds the way the OP did I will probably block them before they have a chance of buying as they have revealed themselves as someone I do not want to deal with.
 
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Here's the seller's description:

Gorgeous lightly played, custom made, with FENDER LICENSED Warmoth neck and body Jazz Bass. Poly finishes are both by Warmoth. Well in excess of $1,400.00 worth of parts here, but must sacrifice. Too many guitars. Hurts to let this one go, but can only play one at a time. Swamp Ash body, Birds Eye highly figured maple neck. Pau Ferro fingerboard. Barely a mark on this instrument and definitely NO chips. Hip shot vintage classic reverse wind tuners with matching drop tuner and additional matching regular tuner included. At one time had standard Fender 5 hole bridge with traditional Jazz bridge cover. Could easily be reverted to that. Those covers are readily available on line. Originally wired for 18V active preamp. Decided to go with the more organic sounding passive harness. Hipshot badass style bridge with brass saddle inserts. Bartolini B Axis hum cancelling pickups sound incredible. Head stock logo done with laser cut vinyl by a sign shop using the same material as car graphic wraps. 3 dimensional and beautiful. It’s not OEM Fender, though the quality is much better. Imagine the cost of getting Fender’s custom shop to put this together. also new tweed case

It appears he knows a lot about the instrument he's selling, right down to brass saddle inserts.

Or did he cut and paste from the person he traded with?
 
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When a buyer starts asking a ton of questions like low action, that's subjective and I tend to shy away from them because that would be the kind of thing where a buyer files a claim and wants a partial refund. I don't know their setup skills or their playing style.
 
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Maybe this has been answered, but, you bid on the bass, THEN started asking questions about it ? Why not ask questions first before you bid ?

I threw $450 at it for the instrument at face value based on the crappy pictures and the ad description. I would take a chance at that price. In the event bidding escalated, I needed to know more information so I knew whether to stop at $600, $800, or $??
 
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There is a recent thread discussing negative feedback and whether a particular seller deserves it. I cast my thoughts in that thread and would like to share an experience that happened just today. THIS is what Negative Feedback behavior looks like:

The Item:
warmoth bass guitar awsum build with new artist tweed hsc | eBay

The Dialogue:

Me: Hi:
I have a questions about your jazz bass:
Is the neck standard taper or slim taper? Does the neck have steel rods or graphite rods?

How much does the bass weigh?

Can the action be set low without buzzing and other playability issues?

Are there any mechanical or electronic issues?

Sorry for so many questions. I can't hold it and play it so I have to ask.

Thanks,
Bob

Seller: hi bob I really cant answer your questions as I took this on trade. but heres the warmoth site may help a bit

Invalid Link Removed

Me: You can't answer ANY of my questions? Do you actually have the bass?

Seller:
lol your an ass remove your bid plz

Seller: plzz renove

Me: This bass didn't sell last time you listed it. I was prepared to spend good money on it but NO WAY I'm getting involved with an ass like you. Pls remove my bid.

True story.


Lmao so this guy has a bass and knows no info then gets upset when you ask the reasonable question or do you have it?
The guy is clearly a jackass.
 
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The seller says he took it on trade, so probably not a musician. Maybe a pawn shop, something like that. This whole conversation is equivalent to something like this:

For sale: 2010 Corolla in great shape

buyer: Hi, how much does the car weight? What’s the compression ratio of the engine? Is it an aluminium alloy? Is there drive ability issues I’m 3rd gear? Can I accelerate from 0-60 without squealing the tires?

Me: I don’t really know, I’m not really a car guy. Here’s a link to the specs

buyer: You ass! Do you even have the car??? Negative feedback!!

I don't think this is really a good analogy at all. It would be more like if it was a home built car from custom spec parts and the seller was the second owner.

My feeling on it is that the seller should have been able to answer at least the question of if it has any mechanical or electrical issues. As an eBay seller myself, I would never treat a potential customer the way this seller did, even if I did find the question a bit tactless. But oh well, in the end I think it's just important to conduct yourself professionally and if the seller is not answering your questions in a way that would make you confident moving forward with the purchase, just consider it a dodged bullet and move on.
 
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