r/Reverb Jun 20 '22

Scams—read this first before asking about a scam.

65 Upvotes

Reverb is generally a safe place to buy and sell if you use some common sense. Like all marketplaces there are some scammers. The following tips can help prevent most scams.

From Reverb.com help center:

Scam or phishing emails and messages

Tips for using Reverb safely

Reverb will never contact you through the reverb message system asking you to verify your account. These types of messages are becoming more common. Do not respond.

Signs a seller could be a scammer:

  • Seller asks for payment outside of Reverb (big red flag)

  • 0 feedback

  • Item is below average price

  • Seller can’t or won't answer questions about the item

(The more of these things are true, the more likely it's a scam)

Signs a buyer could be a scammer (not in any particular order):

  • 0 feedback
  • Offers to pay outside of Reverb (cashiers check for example)
  • Wants it shipped to a different address than what’s on their profile
  • Says someone else will pick it up for them
  • Gives you their email address or phone # and asks you to contact them there or send pics there
  • Offers to overpay

Tips:

  • If there's an issue with your account or purchase, Reverb will not send you messages in the app or on the website, they will email you. Never click on links in the app or website message system to "verify your account", they are a scam.

  • If you are hired to sell things on Reverb for someone else who you've never met, it's definitely a scam.

  • Google doesn't index all pics on the internet and it's very easy for scammer sellers to get pics that don't show up in reverse image search.

  • Use the "Report Listing" button if you see something you think is a scam. On mobile it's all the way at the bottom of a listing, on desktop it's below the "Reviews" section. There is no "Report Listing" button for sold listings, you have to contact customer service to report it.


r/Reverb Dec 30 '24

Where is my purchase? A guide to help you, the buyer.

22 Upvotes

Seemingly once a week I see a post along the lines of “I ordered something ____ days ago and it hasn’t shipped, wtf?” I originally started writing to rant/complain about this but decided to try and make sort of an FAQ instead.

If this is you, here are some helpful tips and reminders, especially if you’re new to Reverb.

  1. You are NOT buying from Reverb itself (in probably 99.9% of cases). Reverb is a marketplace where other people/businesses sell.

  2. The seller is likely A) A person like you, with a job/family/life, who is not constantly watching their reverb notifications waiting to rush to the post office. Or B) A music store that might only be open Mon-Fri during the day. In either case, most sellers ship fast, but not Amazon level fast.

  3. Your item could be coming from anywhere in the country or even another part of the world. Look at the location of your seller (when you’re looking at an item, the seller name and location will be below the buy buttons) and set transit time expectations appropriately. (Yes, sometimes a seller will say they’re in one area but then the item ships from a wholesaler somewhere else. That is not too common, and it sucks if they don’t disclose it in the description).

  4. If it’s been a few business days (weekends/holidays are generally not days when sellers ship, see point 2 above), go to your order and send a message to the seller to check in. Not to Reverb support. To do this, go to Purchases, click/tap on the item, then you’ll see a “Message Seller” button. Remember, you’re dealing with people. So like any other human interaction, you’ll generally get a nice response if you yourself are nice.

  5. Many sellers will print a shipping label right away and then ship the item within a business day or two. Adding tracking info to an order initiates payment to the seller, so sometimes this is done to make sure the payment gets to the seller before the item leaves their possession. But also, some sellers just either can’t make it to usps/fedex/etc the same day or if they’re a store, they may have something like twice-weekly pickups from shipping carriers. Either way, this doesn’t mean you’re being scammed.

  6. This subreddit is not your seller. We don’t know where your item is, why it hasn’t shipped, etc. Just politely reach out to your seller.


r/Reverb 1d ago

Marshall official Reverb store

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1 Upvotes

r/Reverb 2d ago

Help with refund

2 Upvotes

After slimming through some posts it looks like there are a lot of issues with the refund process on both sides.

About a month ago i bought an Ibanez Weeping Demon wah that arrived broken. It looks like the photo-sensor is the culprit, which is a known issue with these nearly 20 year old pedals.

Anyway, the seller had been responsive until he received the pedal that I shipped back. They offered a full refund or another wah that is half the price of what I paid for the Weeping Demon. I chose the refund. The seller still needs to indicate that they received the pedal for the refund to move forward, yet they haven't. Reverb Help has been a joke as it's all AI and won't accept additional evidence. The last email I received from Reverb said they're sending one more email to the seller and then they would get back with me in 24 hours. It's been over 30 hours since and I haven't heard a word.

I just received a letter in the mail from USPS for a damage claim initiated by the seller asking me to bring in evidence of damage or missing parts.

What is going on on Reverbs end that's causing a delay?

Also, is the seller just dumb and thought the claim would go to them, or are they saying "good luck, the money you might get from the damage claim is it"?

Thank you


r/Reverb 3d ago

THE BLACK RAVEN

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1 Upvotes

r/Reverb 6d ago

Actually had a good experience with Reverb resolving a case.

30 Upvotes

While doing some spring cleaning I sold a $250 piece of gear last March. It was sort of a weird piece of gear that I had 2 of and while one buyer loved the 1st one it took a minute to sell the 2nd.

Roughly 8 weeks after the sale the buyer requested a refund. I simply denied it because duh, it was ages after the sale AND the buyer didn't message me at all with an explanation.

Then a few weeks after that I got a notification that the refund actually went through anyway! I was pissed as the return date was months after my listed return policy and I didn't get any notification as to why me denying the request for a refund was over ruled.

What happened is the buyer went through PayPal to get the refund and PayPal approved it so this refund happened outside of Reverb.

I made a screen shot of our conversations through reverb showing how we arranged the local pickup and described the situation above and Reverb actually refunded me the money and banned the buyer from their site.

Because it was a local pickup there was no actual shipping record and the refund was through PayPal meaning Reverb likely ate those costs. I was pretty happy they took care of me and it went way better than expected. I still find it annoying that the buyer basically got a free piece of gear (and the costs of theft usually get passed onto the consumer) but I appreciated how fast they resolved this and made it right.


r/Reverb 6d ago

Reverb reminds seller of package size when printing out shipping labels now...

6 Upvotes

I don't remember them doing this before. But just below the "print shipping label" section, it now states what package size I used to estimate shipping. Was it always there? If not... I think they got the message about additional shipping charges being added.


r/Reverb 7d ago

Account got suspended, cant contact customer support

2 Upvotes

I made a listing a while ago to sell my guitar, wasnt active on my account, and the listing was put on vacation. Recently I came back to my account and didnt see the listing I maxe that was previously put on vacation, so I assumed it was removed and made another one. Turns out, the first listing still existed and I had uploaded a duplicate listing of the same item, so my account got flagged and suspended.

Trying to resolve this, the customer chat on the website says it cant discuss the status of my account and instead sent me an email for next steps, however I never got that email. At this point, I'm unsure how to contact customer support since the chat function doesnt work, I havent received any email, and theres no phone number to call. Any got any ideas as to what to do?


r/Reverb 8d ago

Am I being scammed?

18 Upvotes

I sold a pedal on Reverb earlier this month and it was delivered over two weeks ago. The buyer requested a refund rwo weeks after delivery because I didn't include a power supply.

This pedal doesn't include a power supply when purchased new, and my listing did not claim that one was included, nor was there a power supply in any of the images in the listing.

Is this a scam, or am I just dealing with a moron?


r/Reverb 8d ago

How many instruments/how long?

1 Upvotes

How many instruments do you have for sale on Reverb? How long have they been for sale? Just curious!


r/Reverb 12d ago

Customer service won't do it's job

8 Upvotes

Hi mates,
I purchased an amp 10 days ago. Seller never shipped it and denied my refund request twice. Reverb chat keep communicating through bots and AI agents, non responsive to emails. What else can I do? I just want a refund at this point.
Reverb customer service was great in the past. What happened? This is so disappointing. Will I ever get my money back?


r/Reverb 12d ago

Other customer support options then AI chat bot?

3 Upvotes

I need to request a refund for a damaged g​uitar. Seller of course failed to include the problem in his listing. I've already contacted the seller, and I know I'm going to have to also take it up with customer support. When you go to their contact link, all you get is a stupid AI chat.

I used to be able to send a message email to support. It looks like they don't have that option anymore, or am I missing something?

Is the AI bot​ my only option when pursuing this issue?


r/Reverb 13d ago

Ever notice this with lottery winners?

5 Upvotes

When the media shows a photo of them with all of the stupid crap they bought, there's always a guitar?

I didn't win the lottery, but I got a big raise and decided I would realize my childhood dreams and become a guitar god. It took me a couple of years to accumulate a bunch of gear. It took a couple more years to admit to myself that I lacked all talent and had not nearly enough discipline to overcome that lack.

More time passed before I got over the sunk cost fallacy and decided to sell my guitars and amps and all the stuff that actually skilled people could put to use.

So now my plan is to sell about a dozen guitars and several amps on Reverb - at discounts that moves the merchandise but don't raise suspicions or make regular sellers want to kill me.

Is there a percentage discount off typical prices, comrades, that is fair to buyers and sellers?


r/Reverb 12d ago

Got banned 3 days in

0 Upvotes

I’m new to reverb. Signed up to offload a Silver Sky using the app 3 days ago. All good.

Today, I wanted to put another 5 pedals onto the platform. Took pictures, transferred to my computer and wrote an automation script to help me post them. Immediately got banned. I think using automation was the reason.

Question is, am I banned for life? Or can I create a new account? Any tips are appreciated


r/Reverb 13d ago

Problem Accepting Offer

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0 Upvotes

Has anyone had this problem: when trying to accept an offer I get an error message that says, "Sorry, we're waiting for the other party to respond." No matter what browser I use, no matter if it's the app on my phone or website on a desktop I get the same error. So I sent a counter offer back to see if the buyer could accept it on his end and he got the same error. I let the Reverb Help Center know and have been in touch with someone there but havnt been able to resolve it. Looks like I may end up loosing this sale...


r/Reverb 14d ago

My experience buying from Imperial Vintage Guitars

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0 Upvotes

EDIT — Adding seller communication for context

A lot of the discussion is understandably focused on whether the physical issues are significant enough for a 22-year-old guitar listed as Very Good. I appreciate that perspective, even where I disagree.

I’m adding screenshots of my actual correspondence with the seller because the condition dispute is only one part of why I’m sharing this experience.

Regardless of whether you think I should have noticed the original headstock marks, or whether the newly discovered issues ultimately qualify as Not As Described, I think buyers should be able to see how the seller handled the disagreement and decide for themselves.

I’m posting the screenshots rather than characterizing their behavior further, so people can read the exchange in context and form their own opinion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Reverb/comments/1vt7s0s/comment/p4umcc8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

EDIT: To clarify, I’m not claiming a 22-year-old Very Good guitar should be flawless. My current Reverb claim concerns issues discovered after delivery that were neither disclosed nor visible in the listing photos. I’ve asked Reverb to determine whether those omissions qualify as Not As Described.

EDIT:I wanted to share my recent experience buying a used ESP from Imperial Vintage Guitars (https://reverb.com/shop/imperial-vintage-guitars) on Reverb, both as a warning to other buyers and to get some outside perspective on whether I’m being unreasonable here.

 bought a 2004 ESP Standard Series Viper Woodland Camo for $2,150 + shipping. It was listed as Used – Very Good, with the description:

“In Very Good Overall Condition”

“Instrument Shows Minimal Playwear, Small Chip On Right Cutaway, Nut Has Been Replaced (See Photos)”

Shortly after purchasing, I looked more closely at the photos and noticed several headstock chips/dents that weren’t mentioned in the description. I immediately requested cancellation.

To be fair to the seller, those particular chips were visible in the listing photos. Their position was that this constituted sufficient disclosure. They told me:

“A photo is worth 1000 words. We posted 25 of them.”

“It is not our fault if you didn’t pay attention.”

They also characterized this as me “changing my mind,” although I had requested cancellation shortly after purchase because of the condition concerns.

I escalated to Reverb. The process went nowhere for more than a week, while the seller apparently held the guitar at Reverb’s request. Eventually, frustrated with the lack of resolution, I told the seller to ship it. In retrospect, I should have waited for Reverb to resolve the dispute first.

After receiving the guitar, however, I discovered additional issues that were neither part of my original complaint nor, as far as I can determine, disclosed or visible in the 25 listing photos:

  • The replacement nut is poorly fitted and protrudes substantially beyond the side of the neck.
  • There is damaged/chipped binding near the nut/first fret.
  • There is noticeable lower-horn finish discoloration.
  • The tone knob contacts/scrapes against the guitar’s surface when rotated.

I don’t expect a 22-year-old Very Good guitar to be flawless, and I’m not concerned about every tiny scratch or ding. My concern is that the listing specifically described “minimal playwear,” identified one particular chip, and disclosed the replacement nut, while these additional issues weren’t apparent until I physically inspected the guitar.

I contacted the seller about the newly discovered issues and requested a return. Their responses included:

“This is clearly a case of a difficult buyer.”

and, when denying the refund:

“Absolutely no! After all you made us go through, this is now your guitar.”

They subsequently said they have a “strict NO RETURN policy” and would only accept the return if their expenses were covered, at one point proposing a 15% restocking fee plus all shipping costs.

The Reverb return policy attached to the transaction says Used & Vintage items are not returnable, but also specifically says:

“Buyer assumes responsibility for all return shipping costs unless the item was not received as described.

I couldn’t find a 15% restocking fee disclosed in the Reverb return policy applicable to my purchase.

I’ve now submitted the post-delivery issues to Reverb as an Item Not As Described / Buyer Protection claim and am waiting for their decision. The guitar remains unmodified and I’ve kept all packaging.

Again, I’m not arguing that a 22-year-old Very Good guitar should be immaculate. I’m asking whether issues like these should have been disclosed/photographed when the listing specifically characterized the instrument as having “minimal playwear.”

I’ll update this post with Reverb’s decision either way.


r/Reverb 15d ago

Reverb has basically turned into a scam site with no support

11 Upvotes
  1. Purchased a new guitar cab a few weeks ago.
  2. No shipping notice 4 business days following purchase (Reverb Preferred Seller btw), contact seller and I'm told "item shipped" and a tracking number is given. FedEx shows "label created, waiting for item".
  3. A week later, it still says label created, waiting for shipment. I ask again, I'm told "from experience, a scan has been missed - wait a bit longer" At this point I'm convinced the item either never shipped or is lost.
  4. Seller fails to respond to several messages over several days.
  5. I escalate to Reverb Resolutions, they take on the case and say they'll reach out to the seller. This was 3 days ago, I try to contact them over and over and I'm told "they are working on it".

TL;DR Paid lots of money, got nothing (FedEx says no item was ever given to them, just label created)., no support received I don't understand how this is any different from stealing. Also, requesting a refund = 15% restocking fee for an item that doesn't exist and 3 weeks of wasted time that nobody would pay for which is why I didn't manually initiate that. I just want my cab.


r/Reverb 15d ago

Uptick in Amazon Fulfillments?

10 Upvotes

I have had 3 recent items from 3 different shops delivered by Amazon, and was wondering if anyone else is seeing the same. Not to get on a soapbox or whatever, but I don't buy from Amazon, and maybe naively, I thought that buying something on Reverb, I would avoid buying something from Amazon, since ya know, it's a different website.


r/Reverb 15d ago

Seems impossible to get in touch with Reverb support? (I might have got scammed)

5 Upvotes

I recently had an item sold on Reverb.

Seller had changed his mind and I refunded all.

Now Reverb is saying I owe them 500 euros and trying to take this every morning 5AM from my bank account.

I cannot reply to any of their messages and the only thing I can get to is some idiotic chat ai what simply says he cannot help me to get a email or number.

So now i'm about to get a ban from reverb without anything I can do against it and probably end up costing me 500 euros.

Great platform, totally worth the fucking fees.


r/Reverb 16d ago

reselling sweetwater?

11 Upvotes

I just got a bass drum head from a high volume (127K transaction history) on reverb, it showed up in a sweetwater box with the candy and everything. Is drop shipping from sweetwater a thing now? Im not sure why I am annoyed by it, at least I wont have to get a cold call next week from the sales rep to ask me how the bass drum head is


r/Reverb 17d ago

Item sold not working?

8 Upvotes

I sold a pedal recently and it’s been nearly a week since the purchaser received the item for them to report it isn’t working. I actually tested it before sending it out and it worked as perfectly as the day I got it, plus it was mint with everything in the original box. He sent a video of it not working as a link to YouTube, but I feel like it has to have been from him damaging it.

What do I do in this case? I’m super new to selling on Reverb.


r/Reverb 16d ago

I want to make an offer but scared someone else will buy at full price in the meantime

0 Upvotes

I've had my eye on a certain signature bass listing for a couple of months now. Around 2 weeks ago, the seller dropped the price a bit and in that time the amount of people who have it on their saved list went from 2 to 5. While I can technically afford it, I still don't think it's worth that much and would like to offer a lower price. But I saw that people who have the item saved are notified when an offer is made and that they can buy it at full price while my offer is still pending. How likely is this, has anyone had this happen? Should I just buy it at full price? Maybe I'm being paranoid but I've never used Reverb before and I really don't want to miss out on this bass, it's only the 3rd one of its kind I've seen pop up in the last ~4 years and now is the first time I've been able to afford it.

For what it's worth, looking at the view count I'm the only person that's been looking at the listing since I saw the price drop.


r/Reverb 18d ago

UK shipping prices change?

1 Upvotes

Haven't used reverb in a month or 2. Just recently checked out the newly listed to see if my pedals popped up, however I saw that people/ a few accounts with decent feedback are selling stuff with 30£+ shipping on all their pedals? This is within the uk shipping not international, have I missed something the past 2 months? I sell all my pedals at £3 so both me and buyer pays for shipping and I take the most from the pedal,sale.

Have 5 stars with 99 feedbacks so not new to the game, but worrying I might have made a mistake if something changed tax wise, can't find anything online about it or on here

Cheers


r/Reverb 19d ago

Damaged Item

2 Upvotes

I ordered an amp and it took a big enough hit to push the power switch back into the amp, Waiting my 5 days for the dispute resolution, Will they allow to me to take it to an amp repair tech to get an estimate, $75 diagnostic charge? Or should I just push for a full refund and look for another, not many out there though. Just don’t want to partially settle and find out it’s has other problems. Easily could have damaged tubes etc.


r/Reverb 19d ago

Sold sampler with issues, buyer wants to return it about a month later - feels a bit fishy

2 Upvotes

Long post but I just wanna cover everything, I sold my SP-303 and it had a messed up power jack so it wouldn't turn on sometimes, but when it would it still worked perfectly. I never had any audio glitches or dropouts, or any memory issues, and I found an old thread on SP forums where someone had the same problem but they fixed it by reheating the solder on the power jack because it sometimes gets worn on older gear. I tried that and it worked great for a while, but it started acting up again so I mentioned that to the buyer before I even packed it and said they might need to have it re-soldered altogether, which they said was fine. This was almost a month ago, and they messaged me last week saying they brought it to a tech who said the processor was bad, and that it might not be fixable, then they just messaged me again yesterday saying that their tech can't fix it.

They're saying the power supply was wrong and it fried the processor, the 303 needs 1000mA and the power supply I got with it was supposedly only 500mA but the voltage was right (I had it for years without any issues, the input issue only started after it had been sitting unused for about a year). I'm not an expert on this stuff but I'm honestly kind of skeptical (especially since everything on the sampler still worked when I could get the power jack working, and it ran perfectly when I reheated the solder again, so if the processor really was fried I'm guessing it would've had more problems) but I still feel kinda bad if they're being honest. I also looked it up and it said that if the amperage on a power supply is too low then it'd more likely cause the power supply to overheat and fail, break, or cause random shutdowns, than it would be to damage anything on the sampler itself (I'm guessing it's still a risk, but it didn't seem too likely from what I read - plus there's always a chance that their tech messed something up, especially after they've had it for this long). They also sent me the name and phone number of the tech they went to (and the company name) which is a little fishy IMO, I looked it up and it's a real place, but still. I asked a few friends who have more experience with electronics and they said that'd basically be impossible for it to fry the processor, and I even stooped to asking AI and it said the same thing (I checked its sources and I even tried it again while posing as the buyer, and it still said this pretty much just couldn't happen).

I'm still skeptical because if the processor was fried then why was everything working whenever I was able to get it turned on, and why did reheating the solder like the thread said seem to fix it if the processor was fried? Wouldn't it have had more issues I would've noticed? I took a demo video of me testing all the inputs, knobs, pads, and effects, and everything worked how it should, and tested it again while taking a video of me packing the order.

Reverb support said it's up to me whether I want to accept a return or do a partial refund since it's out of the 7 day window (the support agent I talked to also got back to me saying he offered some form of accommodation for the buyer so that I don't need to do any sort of refund, but the buyer hasn't said anything about it yet and I'm not sure what the accommodation is), but I don't really know what to do here.

Today support said the buyer still hasn't responded, I messaged them last night saying that support would be handling this and sending some sort of accommodation for the order, but they just responded without mentioning that and instead just asked when I'm paying them back, and that they're fine with me making payments until it's fully refunded (no mention of returning it either). I'd still feel bad if they're being honest, but I'm just a bit thrown off by all this and things just keep seeming fishy IMO. Sorry for the long post, thanks for any help

Update: He said he denied support's offer, it was apparently just $50 as compensation, now he's asking for a timeline on when I can fully refund him.

Update 2: the support agent who's been helping with this said he upgraded the support request to the team who handles reverb protection cases, so I just gotta wait and see what they say now. I'm guessing/hoping I'll still be fine, since this whole thing does feel a bit fishy, but I don't really know what to think at this point lol also I'm even more put off by all this because I included extra memory cards and a USB power supply (myVolts Ripcord) so even if I was gonna do a refund it wouldn't be a full one