i found this, please pay cash... sounds like a big scam to me...

http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/109336...uitar.html

Product Origin: Indonesia ??????

and it's $1300 US. It sounds like it may be a counterfeit to me.

I spend a great deal of time in the Far East. My brother is head of Brand Protection for Cisco Systems in Singapore.

Basically you can get any guitar or bass copied in a couple of weeks. they will be very good copies as far as the shape etc. but obviously they will be the same shape and that's it!!!

A friend is brand protection too for another company and he showed me a set of Callaway carbon golf clubs for about $100. i could hit a ball just as far with the copies!

Big business.

never buy from the Far East.

Well if it a copy it is a bl**dy good one! It would be very expensive for them to tool up to make a graphite neck and the bridge looks authentic.

The golf clubs things is a big issue. They make them out of alloy instead of steel and they often break during use.

It doesn't look like a scam to me. The dude who's selling lives in Indonesia. So the product is now in Indonesia. It could be that his English is not that perfect, and that he doesn't know what "origin" exactly means...

And if you forget about this little origin-line in the ad and look at the rest of the information -like the pictures. It all looks and smells Status to me.

The fact that the Minimum order is 5 and that there are 2 identical items for sale would sugest to me that they're fake.

And why would a man in Indonesia have 2 (or would that be 10?) new 5 string S2 basses to sell at considerably less than retail price? Doesnt exactly work out in his favour :P

I wouldn't worry too much about the photo... you can get those anywhere!!! Rob doesn't 'supply' to people in that way. 'minimum order 5' is just not right. they will look very much like Status but they will be 100% wood and a bit dodgy!

Trust me. They can copy anything they want.

it could be interesting to refer to rob, cause if it's counterfeit, that cause damage to status...

Guys

All you have to do is walk around the Frankfurt or Namm Music fairs to see copies of legit products being traded. I've worked in the Pro-Audio industry for the past 15 years and have lost count of how many times companies I have worked for have taken far-eastern type companies to court for copyright infringement or there abouts..... it's rife....

The bass in the picture looks like a status.... and probably is a status.... I don't think that whatever is being sold is a status..... and you would have to be mad to take a chance on it!