prowla

I think most players are either (a) causing damage or (b) avoiding damage by exercising their fingers.

🙂 Well, regarding that question, that goes back to the thread title...

Yep. Anyway, on this one I wasn't going to drive 2 hours to turn up an say "nah, mate!"; the issue was not about paying, but about paying in advance with no SNAD protection. The auction houses allow (or even expect) you to pay in person on collection, thereby saving the hassle of dealing with couriers. However, if I turned up and it had a neck like a banana, I would not have gone ahead with it, of course.

It certainly wasn't my intention to haggle over the price; indeed I bought a(nother) Warwick a couple of weeks ago and paid the seller the pre-agreed price when I went to collect it.

Well, there's a condundrum there, because ebay won't let you make contact with the seller to see the item before the end of the auction. As far as checking it out, there could be an undeclared issue with it which you would only find out when you saw it. But in this particular case, the item was listed as collection only and the seller implied they couldn't trust me to go and collect it, but expected me to trust them to be there when I drove 2 hours to get there.

Is it the school holidays?

The only bad technique is one which produces bad tunes.

There is no right or wrong way to play. I used to do stretching exercises for my left hand and indeed it does stretch wider than my right. IMHO, there are two types of bass players (regarding left-hand technique): i. those who play "correctly", with their thumb elegantly placed on the back of the neck, etc. and ii. those who do what they like; if you look at the top players with their own recognizable style, they tend to be the latter.

Special added capacity.

The screw ends sticking up at the 5th fret are an especially ingeneous feature.

Ideal for a musician taking those first steps...

Wow - it got no bids at £100!

The seller is delusional.

I'll leave it to someone else to have that/those.

OK - I'm just saying it's easy for people who specialise in something to look down on others ignorance. However, in this case, I think the various folks here certainly did their duty in flagging up the issues!

I do take your point about the buyer thinking they're getting a deal. But what about if you bought a car which had an issue, or found you'd bought fake Levis, or any other suchlike - would you just accept you were a mug for not searching on google?

Actually, the ad still shows a Fender logo, which is illegal, especially since the seller is a business. I do feel sympathy for someone who has probably bought it thinking they've got a rare Fender; it's all well and good for those of us who have some idea to look down our noses at someone who is too dumb to know better, but it could easily be someone buying it as a gift. Given the number of ads where people can't even transcribe the brand name Squier properly, there are a load of people who could be taken in.

I like the 2 pole piece horizontal pickup that's been added there. (Yes, I know it's a thumb rest really...)

Well, without the Fender logo & s/n, it's not worth the asking price.

Yep - I’ve been to see her a couple of times. I remember her as a wreck from my childhood.

They’ve cancelled the sale, as requested.

I agree that you do need to take appropriate care, but I have to say I’ve not had a problem selling or collecting. In this case, the seller listed it as collection only, so I guess they were ok with buyers turning up. In this case they’ve lost the sale, so they’ve made more hassle for themself. (I was going to make a day out and see the SS Great Britain.)

I think ebay/paypal want their cut, so they're happy to have the option there. I wonder if Paypal records the location of the transaction, so if it's from their house, then that would say you were there and paid. But yes, paying in advance and collecting it would not give the seller any particular protection. Since they've said in their comms they'd refund if it wasn't OK; that would cover me trotting off with it and then saying I'd rejected it and was waiting for my refund. I guess the point is that in a transaction as soon as one party starts mentioning mistrust, they've opened a whole can of worms. @Mudpup's somment about it having been sold already earlier in the year has tweaked my suspicion-o-meter a bit.

@Mudpup @Ricky 4000Yep - Bristol. @paul_c2 Nope - no mention of cash on collection, but I've previously done Paypal from a seller's place, using mobile t'internet thingy (and cash, if accepted, avoids fees). @Beedster Well, since I was planning to do a 3-hour round trip, I would be taking it on trust that they would be there. And of course, since the whole trust thing is being questioned, having got my money, they could simply say I'd been and collected it.

Well, I won an auction to buy a Warwick bass on ebay and arranged to go and collect it from the seller next weekend. I then got a payment reminder, so I messaged the seller saying I assumed that was an automated reminder and were we still on for next weekend? I got a reply: Well, that hacked me off a bit. I didn't like the premise that I should pay upfront because I might be a timewaster. I've replied to say so, and that I'm bailing from the sale. Grrr. Still, I did go and collect an Epi LP neck and body today (white), so I'll console myself with putting that together into a guitar (I have a set of pickups & hardware for it).