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Shipping Damage: Lost For Words

It may be a tricky angle but the E string on the guy's pic looks mounted through body, while on yours it's top strung. It's a shot time to restring a bass.

Damn Jazz Ad, that's some Sherlock Homes skills, right there! And, it's pretty damning evidence. No one restrings a bass he's about to return.

Also, UPS is sometimes careless and incompetent, but they don't go around opening packages and playing with the toys.
 
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Damn Jazz Ad, that's some Sherlock Homes skills, right there! And, it's pretty damning evidence. No one restrings a bass he's about to return.
Nah, tough angle. red herring. Still strung as orig IMHO of course.
May need to change my HO. Really not sure revisiting the photo,
could be a smoking gun.
 
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Tewest is a stand up guy. I once brought from him and returned with ease with solid communication. My feeling is if the case shows damage then it’s the carriers fault. But if for some reason the buyer thinks he can pull a fast one then it’s up for Reverb to decide. Sad when these things happen!
The damage to me just looks way too focused. Someone did something!
 
Without 100% proof, we can only speculate. That's not enough to call the buyer a liar to his face. That would be wrong.
As a seller, you have to do what is right. That means giving the buyer the benefit of a doubt.
It is in Reverbs hands and I believe they will make things right.
Be polite and patient and just let Reverb do their thing.
But I still smell a rat:D
 
My eyes aren’t good enough to say the way the strings go through the bridge have been changed.
REALLY looks to me like it's been changed, but it's a tough call. There are LOTS of reasons to want more photos of the bass - and the case - from the buyer. Assuming he/she isn't reading this thread, my suggestion would be to ask for them without specifying "I want to see how it's strung" to see if you can get a better look at that.
 
Dude, no way. For one, the OP would have had to of made a huge blunder. Nobody in their right mind would not think to check for loose items before shipping an expensive bass such as this. Secondly, I believe it would take an immense sudden impact to create that kind of damage from a loose item against a padded case.

But, they do ship acoustics quite often without the end pin installed. So, good thought, but I just don’t think it’s probable in this case.
I agree it’s unlikely unless it was severely mishandled and mispackaged,(and judging by the sellers ratings I highly doubt it) but it was about the only thing I could think that would even be possible. Like I said, I wasn’t blaming the OP, just exploring all avenues.
 
I smell a rat.
I recently bought a Pelham Blue Epi Thunderbird off Reverb that shipped UPS Ground from NY to CA in an Epi hard case. There was minimal packing in the box the case was inside of. Nothing in the case beside the bird. It arrived in perfect mint condition. That being said, I was nervous, UPS is terrible. I once shipped an iPhone to my daughter. When it arrived, the box was empty.
 
It may be a tricky angle but the E string on the guy's pic looks mounted through body, while on yours it's top strung. It's a shot time to restring a bass.

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Good eye... even better...

... the B, E and A (on the pic you say is his... I'm betting the D and G, as well) look as though they were 'through body'...

... and only the E is 'through body' on the bass you say is yours.

I hope guilt haunts them tonight, and every night forward... but I doubt it'll happen.
 
Very strange. Just dropping it on the floor, even a hard floor, wouldn't cause that. Something semi-rounded/slightly pointed did that and it looks to me like the same thing made both dents (not the long one, just the other two). My guess? The case has rivets or similar fasteners along that side under the padding. It got dropped hard during shipping and the padding collapsed allowing the fasteners to poke into the bass. I did a fly gig once where I had to check it, so I put it in it's gig bag and then put that into an SKB 'reading glasses' hard case. When I took the bass out it had a long dent along the side caused by the ZIPPER on the gig bag when a baggage guy tossed it. Yup! Betcha.
 
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I only string the B string through body. That was item one in my evidence bag but it’s really hard to tell. I haven’t told anyone yet because I don’t want him/her to retake the picture.
Ya it would be helpful to get a pic that shows whether he/she restrung the bass, but without implying you've noticed the possible string change. We're all rooting for best possible outcome for ya
 
That’s true. However, I packed it the exact same way Fender packed it when I bought it new. Same everything. I keep all the original packing.

I have sold a lot of gear on reverb and only had one piece get damaged and there was no physical damage to the outside of the package. I had shipping insurance through reverb and they felt with the entire problem. I believe a customer dropped a preamp and shattered a knob and bent a rack ear in the process and was trying to claim I did not pack properly. It was double wrapped in big bubble bubblewrap.

To me the damage in these photos looks like he smashed it off a table or cab while carrying it by the neck.
 
Had a similar problem with the last bass I sold on Reverb - but the guy claimed that the preamp wasn’t working and that it looked like it had been ran over by a truck - I asked for pics and they looked exactly like it was when shipped... I have another of the same hard case and almost took it out in my driveway and drove over it to say ‘this is what a driven over case looks like!” Instead I handed it over to Reverb and didn’t hear anything further. Hope this goes well for you.
 
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