Mike's Oud Forums

need your opinion on sellers behaviour

rojaros - 11-5-2008 at 01:52 PM

Hi dear oudists,

I'd like to hear your opinion on following issue: I bought recently through German Ebay a turkish oud made by Mustafa Copcuoglu (I presented picture of this instrument in another thread).

This is basically a quite nice instrument. The seller reported that the oud had a 'loose peg box' that he claimed to having repaired through a violin maker in Hamburg.

The pictures showed also a round spot on the face.
I asked the seller what this spot is and he claimed it is a trace of a pickup that had been mounted on the face. He wrote it could be easily sanded away as the face was not varnished.

It turned out that the pickup had been glued(!) to the face with some kind of a hard glue. The face has turned out to be varnished indeed - I contacted Copcuoglu and heconfirmed that it is finished with a cellulose varnish.

Also there are cleare traces of sandingpapering on the whole face that had not been reported. There is no way of removing the trace of the pickup by sanding without leaving clear marks on the finishing coat...

I also explicitely asked the seller whether there are any cracks which he denied.

So I bought it and the oud came.

Looking closely I found that it had a severe crack in the neck (so the peg box hadn't just been loose and fixed; it was broken out and this rapture was accompanied by a longitudinal crack in the neck). The repair work is poor - I barely can imagine any luthier would hand it out and not have red ears...

two days later, when I changed strings, I discovered also an unrepaired longitudinal crack (almost full length) in the face part of the finger board. It was completely hidden from sight by one of the lower strings.

I reported all thes foundings to the seller and he excused himself of not having described the repair properly. He said he'd just be a playing musician and he didn't pay much attention to the damage, he just got it repaired ...

He claimed, the crack in the finger board wasn't there before, I't was my fault of not having reported it immediately after arrival as being a transportation damage.

The weather during the shipping (within Germany) was not bad, neither too cold nor too hot nor too wet. Also the packaging was goood enough so that it's unlikely that the crack came bacause of a hit.

Anyway, even if I assume he didn't know about the fingerboard crack, he clearly misinformed me (to say the least) about the graveness of the neck and tuning box damage (I provide pictures for all this further down).

I communicated to him that I was not very happy with the situations though I basically like the instrument. I proposed him to at least repay some amount of money which I proposed to agree on, as a gesture of reparation.

He declined.

I wrote him, I', not going to pingpong arguments back and forth and I finish the affair from my side...

Why I'm writing this?

I found in a freelancer forum he's planning to deal with oriental instruments, also with ouds of his own design. So this man can't be so naive and not be able to distinguish a loose peg box from a completely broken and then poorly repaired neck.

At the moment he has a turkish oud on german ebay that looks (is!) identical to an oud that has recently been offered through the 'buy and sell ouds' forum. That makes me a bit worry. Of curse it can be an accidental coincidence though both sellers are based in the same town.

I don't want to communicate yet the forum or ebay names of the sellers, I'd rather first like to hear your opinion on the whole thing.

As I wrote in the begining, the oud I bought is basically a nice instrument and is playable so I didn't make a complete loss, but this kind of behaviour among musicians dealing with instrument that can be almost only bought through long distance shippment makes me really sad.

I think we all need a basis for a trustful relationship and these people seem to undermine that.

I'm starting to fully understand people who react very sceptically when new sellers appear out of the blue on the forum!

best wishes

PS Would you consider this as a professional repair by a luthier?

rojaros - 11-5-2008 at 02:01 PM

Here is a picture of the longitudinal crack in the neck. It's almost half of the neck length.

rojaros - 11-5-2008 at 02:03 PM

This is the finger board crack (almost whole length of the face part of the finger board)

francis - 11-5-2008 at 02:19 PM

I lived a similar bad experience last summer....and with an oud which doesn't look like the offer and was unplayable...
I don't want to speak again about this, just add that we are in a complex affair when the seller plays a bad game, and the pleasure we have to buy this new instrument is taken away after that

rojaros - 11-5-2008 at 02:24 PM

Hi Francis, yes I've seen that story on the forum. Sorry for that...

luckily it's not that bad as yours, but still there is some kind of bitter taste to it...

best wishes
R.

Quote:
Originally posted by francis
I lived a similar bad experience last summer....and with an oud which doesn't look like the offer and was unplayable...
I don't want to speak again about this, just add that we are in a complex affair when the seller plays a bad game, and the pleasure we have to buy this new instrument is taken away after that

Josh - 11-5-2008 at 02:37 PM

why are there so many dis-honest people selling ouds? I myself have had to make good a bad oud bought from ebay that was sold as 'proffessional quality' I have never had this problem before buying anything from ebay!

paulO - 11-5-2008 at 02:42 PM

Dear Rojaros,

What a drag man. Hopefully, you have a good repair person within a reasonable distance. The pegbox "repair" looks very poorly done. Sorry for the trouble; one of the other builders and repair folks will have to comment on the other cracks. Too bad man, at least the oud's a decent one. Take care.

Regards...Paul

dubai244 - 11-5-2008 at 11:47 PM

Hi Rojaros,

This repair is bad made and this unprofesstional behavoir from some seller. My advice to you and to all people well to have good quality oud is:
1. dont buy any oud from seller unless you know him very
2. Buy oud from maker that has good reputation. and they are some many good maker that care about there reputation.
3. Take is as invesment. In your example you will keep paying for this oud and repair and once you start repairing any oud, the quality of sound will degaraded.

I have got two ouds for 10 years now, and never have any problem with them, because they are good quality oud and professionally made. When ever i buy oud i put in my mind that this oud will be with me for ever.

Some of the seller, they sales oud with more than $2000. with this money i can get professional oud quality bran new one from maker and according to my specification i request.

Finally, I have oud i need to repair since last year, i already spent $2000 and i am still not happy about the result. and i gave up and now my policy that i never send my oud for repairing.

Keep it simple, order good quality oud from good maker and you will be happy for ever.

Thanks

Ararat66 - 11-6-2008 at 01:00 AM

Hi Rojaros

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I don't think you are unreasonable to fill upset by this, I got a new oud this year from Greece to UK and it came in perfect condition and boy did I inspect it. This is natural, we take pride in what we do and this sort of experience is upsetting. The things you point out are definate and absoloutely NOT your fault - the loose peg box is obviously a bad repair - a good repair would have left barely a line to show where the original break had occured. I think the seller should arrange for it to be fixed properly at their cost.

Best of luck

Leon

Marina - 11-6-2008 at 01:47 AM

Hi there!

Mustafa is very well known maker. So, just take it to proff. luthier to fix the diletant repair work and you will get great oud.

It is so upseting to receive something desapointing, but, look at the bright side. When you repair it again, you have an oud for life.
;)

rojaros - 11-6-2008 at 04:40 AM

Thanks, you're so right. That's what I will do from now on...

best wishes
Quote:
Originally posted by dubai244
Hi Rojaros,

This repair is bad made and this unprofesstional behavoir from some seller. My advice to you and to all people well to have good quality oud is:
1. dont buy any oud from seller unless you know him very
2. Buy oud from maker that has good reputation. and they are some many good maker that care about there reputation.
3. Take is as invesment. In your example you will keep paying for this oud and repair and once you start repairing any oud, the quality of sound will degaraded.

I have got two ouds for 10 years now, and never have any problem with them, because they are good quality oud and professionally made. When ever i buy oud i put in my mind that this oud will be with me for ever.

Some of the seller, they sales oud with more than $2000. with this money i can get professional oud quality bran new one from maker and according to my specification i request.

Finally, I have oud i need to repair since last year, i already spent $2000 and i am still not happy about the result. and i gave up and now my policy that i never send my oud for repairing.

Keep it simple, order good quality oud from good maker and you will be happy for ever.

Thanks

rojaros - 11-6-2008 at 04:46 AM

Thanks everybody, folks ...

I will take your advices and do so. In futre, if I by an oud it'll be either new from a trustworthy maker or from somebody else trustworthy...

The thing I'm worrying about is that this guy may misuse this forum for his business. I see him selling the same oud on ebay as somebody on this forum. See

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:ME...

See for this also http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=8134

It might be actually the same person (of course I don't know for sure and don't want to antagonize anybody).

Take a carefull look!

best wishes to everybody and thanks for your moral support...

Robert

MatthewW - 11-6-2008 at 05:49 AM

Rojaros- this does not look like a professional repair job at all.
Dubai offers sound advice which anyone buying an oud ought to consider, and his advice ought to be in the FAQs section!
There have been too many recent postings on bad sellers and/or those selling/reparing ouds who let you down in one way or another, everyone needs to be aware of these sellers.