[gibiphone]

Originally Posted by yr990099

hi..i have just purchased an epiphone les paul custom black from ebay for £150 brand new with £30 postage..the seller said that its coming directly from epiphone factory in china ..im a bit worried that the guitar is fake as the price i paid was quiet low for a brand new epiphone..do chinese also make epiphone or is it just the koreans who make the genuine epiphones ? please help..
here is the link
EPIPHONE LES PAUL BLACK CUSTOM GUITAR on eBay, also Epiphone, Electric, Guitars, Musical Instruments (end time 09-Jun-08 22:42:09 BST)

A recent post from Diceman summed up this question:

"Factory Direct" = FAKE
Just to make this a little more "out in the open," our MyLesPaul forum inside guy from Gibson (with appropriate handle of "Inside Guy") stated the following in another thread today:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Inside Guy View Post
For the record, Epiphone does not sell directly from the factory in China.
Some more good research was done by member Gibiphone, who also posted today that:

Quote:
Originally Posted by gibiphone View Post
Heard back from Gibson... They state categorically that no guitars from the Gibson Epiphone factory go anywhere but back to Tennessee for eventual invoicing to authorized dealers.
Moral of this story is: DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM AN EBAY SELLER WHO SAYS THAT THEY WILL SHIP YOU A GUITAR DIRECTLY FROM THE EPIPHONE FACTORY - IT SIMPLY DOES NOT HAPPEN.

In addition, the seemingly legit "invoices" that may accompany these guitars are fraudulent as well. Gibiphone had also checked a forum member's invoice with Gibson - they said that it was not authentic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gibiphone View Post
...that invoice you were given by the first seller was as phoney as the git you ended up with...
I just wanted to get this right out in front - for people to find, and as an easy reference thread to link when the question arises again.

Thanks to McVeyMac, who found this out the hard way - but made all of the information that he'd gathered available to all of us here on the forum - to Gibiphone for the research - and to Inside Guy for the inside info.
__________________

Sites such as www.paylessguitars.com and MUSOLAND are a couple of places where you can look at some pretty authentic looking (but FAKE!) Epiphone forgeries...


Sorry for your pain. Can you stop the transaction? Do so!!

gibiphone

just north of the mexican line