Music fans who want to buy a new guitar online and become aware of particularly cheap guitars in the “Guitar Center” online shop should be particularly careful! This fake shop offers well-known electric guitars for a standard price of €89. Using the logo of an American competitor, it gives the impression of working with one of Europe's largest mail order companies for musical instruments, the German company Thomann. That's not correct!

All guitars at one price

A real Fender, Gretsch or Gibson?! And all instruments for €89? An offer you can't refuse! But! You even have to refuse. Absolutely! Otherwise you will quickly fall into the fake shop trap. The likelihood of actually receiving an instrument, let alone a real one, is close to zero. Such high-quality instruments are usually significantly more expensive. A shop page with a few quality guitars on offer at this price might be fine. But a site offering all of these instruments at such a competitive price should set off alarm bells.

Screenshot of the fake guitar shop https:// www. pymds.com /
Screenshot of the fake guitar shop https:// www. pymds.com /

The online shop

In this specific case it is about the site of a “guitar center”. Caution! There is a reputable German site gitarrenzentrum.com. This also has nothing to do with this fake. At first glance, the fake shop also has a very serious appearance. However, if you take a closer look, you notice a few things.

There is no classic legal notice, as is mandatory for websites in Europe. The URL is pymds.com. Anyone who googles this address will be referred exclusively to this page. If you read the “About us” subpage, an all-round service is offered there. Whatever is needed, this provider can provide it. Please get in touch. If that were actually the case, Google would have to return a few hits. And it would be very unlikely, if this were the first business activity, that a company that, according to its self-description, is based in Kansas Missouri, would sell guitars to Germany with a very professional and linguistically inconspicuous website.

The logo

The shop front shown on the homepage shows the Guitar Center logo with a guitar. This is the logo of the global US company Guitar Center. Guitar Center deals, among other things, with musical instruments. The same logo is obviously being used improperly on the fake shop's website.

The company headquarters

A specific address in Kansas Missouri is mentioned. Google Maps actually shows a brick-and-mortar store there called Guitar Center.
The ratings are 4.3, there are over 400 positive descriptive reviews from customers. Hmm, should the online site be reputable? Spoiler: NO! The photo of the shop front on the fake shop's homepage also does not match the image in Google Maps. Although both brick-and-mortar storefronts have the same Guitar Center logo, there is no evidence that the online shop is related to the brick-and-mortar shop. Guitar Center has its own huge webshop at guitarcenter.com.

Rather, the online site is apparently trying to sail under the banner of the well-known US retailer Guitar Center.

MIMIKAMA
Screenshot Photo Google Maps “Guitar Center”

Shipping warehouse in Germany

In addition to the company headquarters, two storage locations are also specified, including one in Germany, namely in Bergbrach. And every real music fan in Germany should prick up their ears here. The town of Burgebrach, which has almost the same name, is the headquarters of Thomann GmbH, which claims to be Europe's largest music store and of course also has its own, very well-known online shop. Is it really a coincidence that there is an online music store or a warehouse in two different places that only have a minimal difference in name? There is the town of Burgebrach (Thomann location). Not the town of Bergbrach (supposed guitar center camp).

Screenshot pymds.com
Screenshot pymds.com

The name

The fake shop calls itself a guitar center. The stationary shop at the address in Kansas is called Guitar Center, i.e. the English guitar center. According to logical internet nomenclature, if you go to the guitarcenter.com website, a page from a real Bergisch guitar dealer loads. This may also affect the perceived seriousness of the fake shop among inattentive Internet users.

What does Thomann say?

The final security is an email to Thomann GmbH asking whether the Thomann company itself is behind the shop or operates a shipping warehouse for the advertised €89 guitars. The answer is not surprising: Thomann obviously has nothing to do with the shop and has taken countermeasures.

MIMIKAMA
Screenshot of the email

The email also makes it clear that the company has often been made aware of the issue. If you take into account that not many people bother to write to a company, you can assume that there is a high number of unreported music fans who noticed the fake but didn't pay any further attention to it. Is it then unlikely to assume that there are enough people who will ultimately fall for this fake, or have already fallen for it? Especially during the pandemic, many people have been looking for new hobbies that they can do at home. And who hasn't always wanted to learn to play the guitar?

Paypal buyer protection

It's not all that bad. After all, the customers, or rather victims of the fake site, pay with PayPal. With buyer protection you can easily get your money back. That's the promise, but unfortunately it's not as easy as it sounds. With PayPal it is crucial to pay attention to the conditions. Buyer protection is initially a goodwill service from PayPal and once a tracking number is available, it can become difficult to enforce a ticket. A PayPal merchant account can also be quickly deleted. An unpleasant phenomenon, especially with fake shops.

The attempt to use PayPal as a guarantee of trustworthiness is well known:

“Some fake shops allow you to pay with PayPal. This seems trustworthy to many customers. But PayPal is a user-controlled system. This means that the merchant can independently open a PayPal business account on the PayPal website - without verification. At PayPal you can contact the buyer protection program within a certain period of time if you do not receive the goods. Many fake shops are therefore playing for time. They put customers off, report problems and keep promising delivery.”

(HERE)

A look at the fake shop's return conditions shows that the seller has up to 180 days to make the refund. That's half a year! ( HERE )

The contact address

A final indication of the fake is the contact address. It is to be expected from a reputable online retailer that a contact email is based on a company domain. The email address given here is Kianberg593@gmail. com does not correspond in any way to this standard business practice. But that's not very cleverly done compared to the rest of the site. Why not a customer service address like service@pymds. com? No problem if you have your own domain with an attached web shop. At least in real shops.

Conclusion

The online guitar shop “Gitarrenzentrum”, which is available at the URL pymds. com promises to sell high-quality guitars from Fender, Gibson and Gretsch for the standard price of €89 is a fake shop. We strongly advise against placing an order. Even if this impression is given by the location of a German shipping warehouse, it has nothing to do with the online music retailer Thomann, which has its headquarters in the same place. He also has nothing to do with the worldwide music retailer Guitar Center, whose images and logo are used. The shop is fake.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )