I apologize for this message as all of you do not fall into this category but it has to be said. Since many comments make it clear they didnt make it past the 30 second mark, I'd like to make it 100% crystal clear this is NOT intended to be a replica of the Dean Annihilator 10k dollar guitar. I clearly stated this is a replica of the 2009-2011 Oktober/October Annihilator run in the first few minutes. So no, i wasnt expecting to get a 10k dollar guitar. Guitar Center was selling a fake of a guitar that originally struggled to sell for 699 msrp a decade ago. Oktober eventually dropped the price down to low 400 dollars before bankruptcy. Enjoy the video

I bought a Mesa Boogie 2:100 power amp from GC once. I was excited about it and watched the ups driver bring it up to the porch. The sob drops it right on its face on a concrete porch takes a pic and scurries off. I already knew the face was destroyed but when i opened the box, I was gutted. The box had about 6" on each side of extra room, maybe 5 pieces of popcorn and a strip of paper. This tube amp had been floating around unsecured in a giant box from new York to Detroit. So i look at it, confirm the face is destroyed, the rear only had 2 power tubes and one was floating in the box with it and somehow survived. The 2:100 comes with 8x 6l6 tubes. GC denied they sent it to me like that and even said they tested it first. I was fuming at that point but ended up getting my money back after a few weeks. never bought anything used from them again. They're crooks!

Former GC employee here. It’s the Walmart of music shops, one step up from a pawn shop. Set expectations accordingly.

I'm just happy to know there are still Misfits fans out there.

That tells me they knew and were hoping no one caught it.

I'm a guitar tech is San Antonio, TX. You wouldn't believe (or maybe you might) how many people call me to fix what GC screws up on their guitars. The entire company is a joke anymore. I very recently had to explain to a manager at my local GC what a guitar cable is. I wish I was making that up.

Wow, that's crazy. What an exposé. I wonder how many counterfeits guitar center has sold unwitting customers on the past 🤔

Bro give this dude some likes, doing the lords work over here lol fr thanks dude, I wouldn't buy that guitar if I did have the money, but putting these scam artists on blast is the right thing to do, and I mean guitar center as well as the crooks who made it

They do that all the time! I bought a stolen one, and I discovered it when looking into its measurements and year.

I am not surprised at all. You actually bought a guitar I returned. The silver Billie joe jr you unboxed was the one that was sent to me and I returned because of qc issues.

Guitar Center does next to no work on listing their used items. Sometimes it can be to your advantage though. They incorrectly listed a 90s MIJ Jackson Concert Bass as a Jackson Spectra, a much cheaper current production bass. I got it for only $150. It wasn’t playable at all out of the box as the saddles were lowered all the way and the neck needed adjusted, but a $50 setup corrected everything. Sounds ferocious and in great condition.

I can’t believe there’s a market for knock offs of that ugly monstrosity

There are guitars out there without serial numbers: Custom-made or vintage guitars Lower-end guitars Prototype or factory-reject products Employee models B-stock or factory second

When I was 12 years old I found a advertised red made in mexico strat on they’re used section it was 300 bucks I bought it with my Christmas money a couple weeks later it came to my guitar center and I got there and they were checking it over they noticed something off, the guitar was paper thin! And they ended up realizing it was a squire with a fender neck, I was devastated, this guitar center was cool though they called the store and flipped out and sold me a brand new attic white fender strat for a little over the same price

A couple of years ago I was at my local GC & saw a cherry Gibson ES-335 on their used wall. I was in the market for a 335 at the time so I took a closer look at it. Before I even took it off the hook I knew it was fake. Headstock angle was much greater than it should be. Once I had it in hand it weighed next to nothing. Then I turned it over & it had a SCARF JOINT. The fact that someone at that GC has the authority to buy in used guitars but doesn’t know that Gibson doesn’t use scarf joints is mind boggling. They’re Gibson dealers for crying out loud. I took the guitar to the manager & pointed out the issues to him. He was extremely embarrassed & said he’d handle it. Never saw the guitar again but I don’t go into GC very often, maybe once every couple of months to get strings or cables. I would never recommend to anyone to buy used gear from them without putting hands on it first.

I saw when they were selling what I thought was the legit guitar even last year. LIke 9K+. Now, I love Misfits. The world is a better place because they have been here, but I would never have guessed their fretwork would have been worth a signature guitar at all, much less one that expensive. Props for that insane design, though. Not surprising to learn there's fakes out there, but yeah, GC should have been able to spot that the minute someone tried to trade it in. Maybe not the electronics details but no serial number? Doing a lookup is step number one, I would think, even if you got a drummer covering the counter while the guitarist is taking a leak.

The difference in the neck carve is huge as well.

You have got to go to the house of guitars in Rochester New York if you ever get around this area it will blow your mind

First red flag should've been that it doesn't have a zombie skin guitar case

Thanks for the heads up on Guitar Center.👍🤘

Good on you for going to such lengths. You had no obligation to do so, but did anyone. Shows a lot of integrity.

Two months ago I bought my first GC used guitar. I knew I was taking a gamble because of similar stories to yours, but I was willing to take that bet. It's a specific 8-String that rarely comes up on the used market and usually new ones are back ordered. I didn't want a new one, so I've been checking out the used market for many months. Reverb has only sold 6 used ones in the last two years, so when I took a gander at GC for the hell of it after work one night I couldn't believe it. I bought it sight unseen aside from their potato cam pictures at 12:30am. I was lucky, there was no damage, but the two lowest string saddle posts had some slight stripping, so every new day I played, those two strings had to be re-tuned as the saddles kept moving towards the body. It took a few days to figure out what was going on, but I just ordered two new Hipshot saddles and it's GTG. (Side note, Hipshot takes forever to ship their parts.) I'll bet whoever had it before me was dealing with the same problem and couldn't figure it out. It's not just used guitars though. I bought a brand new Hagstrom Fantomen from AMS. It has an offset point on the headstock and they ship without a case in a double box. It took three returns before I got a fourth without a giant chip on the headstock point. On that fourth re-order, I specifically told them to check it, wrap it inside the inner box, add more padding on the headstock, and add filling to outside of the inner box so it wouldn't move and they complied.

If I was A manager at GC... I would say. Keep the guitar, and give you a full refund.

when I was a kid, like 25 years ago GC was king. Great prices, selection and cust service. I stopped going there like 15 ish years ago. I bought a guitar that was shipped and it was unplayable. Now it's all poor stock and mediocre prices, it's a shame it's nowhere near what it once was.

Dude, they had TWO $169 Grote guitars for sale for $699 each! Marked down from $899! They're $169 new! All they had to do was Google Grote T style and it came up on Google immediately. Somehow, they valued them at $899 initially. It took me emailing them at corporate for 2 weeks before they were pulled. I emailed the respective stores at first, even to get details, and they refused to reply. It was a crap show. $170 guitars for $700 😂😂😂

Some differences you didn't mention that could help someone in the future. 1) the space of the pickup and the floyd rose. The real one has a space. The fakes are much closer together. 2) location of the knob. Using the Floyd of the real one for reference. The fakes are too far back 3) pickup location in respect to the arching C curves on each side. On the real one, the top of pickup is nearly (just a tad under) halfway of the arching curves on both sides of the guitar. The fakes are further back 4) If you look at the end of the neck where the cutoff is on the real one. The metal fret markers specifically. The strings going from E to e ,each one is positioned in a way to cut an equal amount of the metal fret marker off. On the fakes, the amount is random 5) the part of the guitar that meets the neck. If you look at it. On the fake ones, it goes up to the 2nd bat. On the real one, it only goes up to the 1st bat inlay 6) the large wings of the guitar. If you look on the real one. They go up on each side to about halfway of the Doyle inlay. On the fakes, they are much shorter and do not reach to the same spot. 7) On the fakes, they have silver screws for the plastic pickup covers/braces/brackets or whatever those things are called. The rectangle around the pickups, lol 8) The shape of where the neck meets the body on the back of the fake ones are way too pointy and traingular 9) The tuning pegs on the headstock on the fake are not aligned perfectly. The 2 on top are misaligned. 10) The grey plastic ring around the tuning pegs. (The part you turn with your thumb) is like double to triple the width on the fake. The real is much thinner 11+) There is so much more, lol.

sometimes it can be to your advantage. They priced a 2nd gen sire bass as a 1st gen and saved a few bucks. Hope the return policy covers this good luck.

Guitar Center re lists all their returns without care. I've seen many of my returns re listed at the local store by the time I get home from returning them. Including one very obvious defective Fender Rumble 100 amp. I returned it for being broken, demonstrated as such when I returned it and an hour later it was relisted. I also called GC corporate who acted surprised but we now know that's just how they do business.

I bought a used Arturia KeyStep 37 through their site or app last year. It had a very busted knob with damage all the way down into the pot. I returned it. They re-listed it without fixing anything. The Jackson SL4X that I bought this year had several issues including missing trem arm and very loose tone pot and no instructions about how to remove those knobs. I found out how to remove those knobs days later on KZfaq. I returned it too. I live near the Kennesaw Guitar Center on Crater Lake.

That coffin shaped case is pretty cool.

I won't event buy strings from a Guitar Center. On another note, if anyone has an Oktober Prophet or False Prophet they'd sell, let me know! I was at one point talking with Oktober to be an endorsed artist but it was towards then end of their business and I opted to not follow through with the band I was joining that would have been noteworthy enough for such an endorsement. I really wanted a couple Prophets!

Welcome to GetScammed Center! You should parody their logo with their guitar outline and the name above on a sticker. Hand them to people at the brick and mortar near you with a link to your video. LOL

Another thing about guitar center that’s bad is they are very hit or miss on a proper setup.

Ngl all the guitars at my local guitar center feel like fake guitars, it's pretty crazy the quality of stuff they're willing to receive too. They had some used MIM fender strat that had a random chunk missing out of the side of the fretboard where the side dots are so if you attempted a slide you'd cut your thumb off lmao and it had a custom pickguard and knobs so you can tell it wasn't some B stock. The guitar center fall off has been rough on them

Yeah, they also put a significantly higher quality Ibanez 6 string picture on the used korean made SR506 ad that I got a while back. But it has been a solid bass over the last decade.

Thanks man, great post!

I had a similar experience a few years back guitar center sold me a fake ltd kh-202,frets were all uneven logo wasn’t In the right spot the Floyd rose wasn’t even branded a Floyd rose. Never bought a guitar from guitar center since

Great work on exposing the fake. I hope they did the right thing.. They sold me a Schecter they listed in "Excellent" condition, but was far from it. The fretboard was covered in finger funk, needed a cleaning, oiling, frets polished, and all the hardware on the tremolo was red and rusty, one of the pot knobs was missing when I came to pick it up. It was ridiculous and none of that showed up in the photos. As a guy that does his own setups, the only criticism I have is that you complained about something every guitar owner should know how to do for themselves. Truss rod / action height adjustments. I've never run across a guitar I couldn't reasonably set up unless the fretboard was separating from the neck or clearly twisted from some sort of heat stress like it had been through a fire.

This is a good reason to check the speakers in a used cab at guitar center. They dont check any of that stuf. Wind up with a mess with no celestions and some cheap speakers. My point being, no surprise they sold a wish/temu version thinking it was the real deal. 😂

Ever read the Yelp reviews on your local Guitar Center? The negative reviews of course. That’s some quality entertainment right there.

It is against GC policy to buy in instruments without serial numbers. The problem is that individual managers and stores will take shortcuts. I worked at a store in Murrieta CA, and I feel we really tried to change the perception of what GC meant to people. We constantly had compliments about people driving hours just to go to our store to avoid San Bernardino, Riverside, etc… I don’t say this to brag, I say this because our team including myself really made the extra effort to help everyone in the store. Buying customer or not, it was an amazing environment with people that actually enjoyed being there. Then corporate laid me off in the 2021 layoffs. No reasoning in the email either.

As a very amateur musician, this exact scenario was what I was worried about when I started seeing all these "I bought a custom ______ guitar from Ali Express" videos. I know stores like Guitar Center and other shady individuals will knowingly sell them at authentic prices, making it very discouraging to buy used guitars. Which in turn, will also discourage the beginner from buying a good used higher end guitar to learn.

anyone know a place i could get an anihilator for Cheapish? please reply im desperate

I bought a used bass online from GC.The guitar was severely damaged during shipping because there were barely any packing materials inside the box to protect it. I sent it back for a refund. I haven't spent a dime at GC since. They should have known that most carriers couldn't care less if they damage your property.

Same exact thing happened to me with a different guitar. I bought an Ibanez tod10 and they shipped it with the wrong pickups

The same thing happend to me whem i got a dimebag southerm cross got ripped off house got broken into rencent i feel for you frustrstion i lost a few guiars but the one the hurt me the most was the dean dime bag rust my mom got it for me its gone cant affirsna other one and now they are not made will you help me get one please

I see that exact guitar for sale on eBay all the time, from Chinese “custom shops.”

the music in the background was going perfectly with my jazz. also beautiful guitar, sucks it was a dupe :/

Tip. Guitar Center has no idea what they are selling many times. Sometimes it can go in your favor as you can get some great deals because of their lake of knowledge.

You're really out here telling everyone what literally everyone already knows about Guitar Center.

I bet you anything the kid who sold this monstrosity to gc told them it was a copy and gc gave them 50 bucks for it 😂😂😂

Wait you’re talking about the Allentown GC? They sold a former band mate of mine a fake Washburn a few years back too

I too was interested in the Oktober Doyle von Frankenstein Guitar back around 2010... but I didn't want to pay full price. And soon it was discontinued.... I also have bhad shady issues with G.C. and just some of their listings. Obvious mislabeled listings. I mean. If GUITAR is in your Company name.... You could at Least hire people who actually know Guitars... Now I know it's not all stores or employee's that are lacking. But. I've seen 8% - 12% of obvious flaws in their knowledge. And once I bought a Fender Squire Skull Showmaster . For the neck mostly. And the knockoff licenced Floyd Rose. Had a Short 28mm brass block (as I already had one and used it for those parts). I purchased it online. Then I received notice that they couldn't send it because the floating Trem was damaged .... I told them I didn't care about it. I wanted it for parts. I had bought it for $99.99 they eventually sent it and charged me only .99¢ for my troubles. Minus the trem

Also, the fake doesn't have a volute at the headstock

I have an original run Oktober Annihilator (when the were still 'October' without the 'K'), its a shame there are such crappy knock offs out there, I was hoping Dean would release a better quality import line but there really isn't as much demand for this guitar (and this is coming from someone who owns one!). Great video, I heard about how crappy Guitar Centre could be but I really didn't think they would be this shady!

It's so wild to see a fake get sold on GC when the one next to me wouldn't take a vintage hondo bass I was just trying to get rid of because it didn't have a serial number. Like they should've refused it on that alone lol

Thank You Sincerely! I just bought a Carvin and ugh….. what a nightmare. I have to go in and fight with them now. Too much bull going on. Shall I add they are also Musicians Friend

My dad and uncle grew up with the owner of Oktober Guitars. I got to go to his shop a couple times and play a bunch of his guitars and I remember thinking this was the most uncomfortable guitar I had ever played(I was sitting down though). They got the high school band back together one day in 2010-2011 to jam out in our garage(I believe they used to jam there as kids) A video exists somewhere from 2010-2011 of him, me, and my dad playing Santeria by Sublime. I would love to find that video, I was probably 16 at the time. But I love seeing his guitars pop up in articles/videos every once in a while. I think he shut down in like 2016.

One of their buddies brought that in and got a good high trade value.

I actually purchased one of these off eBay. It was actually really well made and plays great. I actually had a custom lefty order from Oktober guitars when they first announced these but never received it. So I was stoked when these started popping up on eBay. Not looking like dean is ever gonna really make one for customers and oktober guitars is long gone and never met Doyle’s quality.

I received a bass from GC that was completely unplayable, the trussrod was rattling and the strings were almost a half inch off the fretboard while laying flat against the pickup if fretted past the 12th, the electronics werent working either due to a disconnected wire. When I left a review they asked for an email and then emailed to ask for a phone number because "we want to make it right". Never heard from them after that. After setting it up it plays really nicely but it was a wreck when it came in "play tested".

I grew up in Maryland Like a couple of hours from the Oktoberfest warehouse I remember the XP model they had I ended up finding one from a guy on Craigslist about 4 hours away It was a great guitar except whoever built it glued the neck on crooked and the treble strings were almost off the end of the fretboard Some QC problems but it was a great guitar Tbh wish I kept it An explorer with a Floyd is sick

At least you got a cool case and an Awesome Frankie knob head.

Good job knowing your guitars ❤

Still looks kinda cool. How does it play?

That's crazy they would sell knowing it's a fake wtf

No more Guitar Center for me. Just imagine how many other musicians got long stroked, believing what they thought they were buying was top-notch gear.

Could be a bad employee swapped out a real one for a fake one he owned thinking he could get away with it. Meaning guitar center might have passed all the requirements and the swap took place afterwards. I could be wrong but as a businessman I know my business just like guitar center does. This wouldn't get past the test.

this is SAD = I always wanted one of these = looks like I'll have to build it myself as usual

This used to be a problem with dimes guitars, it died down but now I fear it will resurface with the tribute tour..

I've gotten some incredible deals on great used guitars at GC but they definitely make mistakes which probably has to do with how knowledgeable the person/people taking in the item are. I once saw them list a Les Paul Studio as a Les Paul Standard and price it as such. Someone had replaced the truss rod cover with one that said Standard but it didn't have binding and was in a color only available on Studios at that time so it should have been obvious to anyone remotely familiar with Gibsons.

Any business working with the public gets screwed and in return may screw someone else. It is indeed shitty but a real problem as well. With every wharehouse from Amazon to Walmart opening their doors to "sellers" as well buckle up the counterfeit age is upon us.

Twice I've come into GC with a few grand looking to spend and no one really addressed me. Even after telling them what I was looking to spend. They just stood there chatting. They also spent over a month with my guitar to be setup and new pups installed. Took a whole month to call me. Didn't even ask about action or what tuning I was looking for. Just "your guitar is done". I've given these guys multiple opportunities. They charged me twice for an order. Then when it got reversed, a day later the extra charge happened again. I had to do another reversal and remove my card on file. One more reason Sweetwater is the best. Just wish they had more locations.

There's a slim possibility it's not a fake...oktober guitars were so difficult to deal with when I tried to order a custom bass (want to say around 2002???) Found multiple stories of people chasing deposits left for materials after 6 months of no contact, shoddy work when items did arrive. Seems a shame as some of the designs were cool!

To Hell with these selfish corporations who could care less about their own customers. I work for one and it's called Extra Space Storage but that's beside the point. I'm just glad my Epiphone SG that I got from GC has a serial number

From working at guitar center I can easily say half the people they hire don’t care about the job or doing a good job you’d be surprised how many fakes I’ve seen bought in over my short time working there

That’s some pawn shop material right there. Shame on GC.

Still looks pretty sick.

So i felt like i got some counterfeit Ernie Ball strings the last time i purchased there in-store

About 35 years ago I had a candy apple red B.C. Rich Beach (sorry, but the KZfaq censors won't let me post the actual name of the guitar) knockoff made by Harmony guitars. Does anyone remember Harmony? They were a crappy cheap entry level guitar that you'd buy your 10 year old to see if he/she was even interested in learning to play, before you shelled out the money to buy them a real guitar. Now I will say it was about as top level as you could get in a Harmony guitar. I paid $200 brand new for it in 1984. It wasn't claiming to be an actual B.C. Rich. It had the perfect body shape of a Rich Beach, but didn't even have the right head stock shape a BC Rich would have with the tuners split three on top and three on the bottom. Nope, mine had all six tuners on the top side, and the tip of the head stock slightly curved to a sharp point. It was actually a lot cooler looking than an actual B.C. head stock, but obviously a knockoff. Now, to be perfectly honest, it was a pretty good guitar for the money, and I had it for years. I even played in several cover bands with it. Wish I could post photos here, because I have a photo of me playing a gig with the guitar back when I was 20 years old. I'm now 57. However, in the early 1990's I had my eye on a Japanese made Jackson Soloist, but I sure as hell didn't have Jackson soloist money. So being the honest upstanding citizen I was, I repainted my Harmony B.C. R.B. fake. I even carefully hand painted the B.C. Rich signature logo on the obviously incorrect head stock, and then clear coated the entire guitar so it appeared like it was done at the factory. I walked into Guitar Center in Chicago with the fake guitar in hand, and walked out with a brand new $1,500 Japanese made Jackson Soloist without paying a single penny out of pocket. I had the GC manager convinced I was trading them even up with a one of a kind BC Rich from B.C.'s custom shop. Hook Line and Sinker! It took me all of about 30 minutes to convince them to swap me even up. I'd like to apologize to the sucker to whom GC sold my old guitar. I don't know what they charged you for it, but I'm quite sure it was probably somewhere around $2,000. Oops! I hope you learned a valuable lesson. I know I did. I learned that Guitar Center managers are not only a bunch of crooks, but they're also often just as gullible as the people they're trying to scam. So keep that in mind when you're trying to make a deal with them. 🤣

I’ve never had a bad experience with guitar center, but I also stand by the fact that ordering guitars or any instrument online is a bad idea. I’ll order an amp or cable but never a guitar or bass. I have had a bad experience with Sam ash though, they tried to give me like $45 for a mint condition affinity p-bass. And the guy tried telling me they’re $200 new, but there was one like 20 feet away that was labeled $280. Idk what he was yapping about lol. Guitar center have me either $140 cash for the bass and an old amp I had, or a trade, and I got a gsr200 with Seymour Duncan’s and upgraded tuners and a set of strings for the trade, the bass pretty much just has a chip in between the pickups, and a somewhat shotty soldering job on the upgraded pickups, which I can fix if there’s a problem further down the road.

The fake has the last inlay on the neck further inside the body . The real one the last inlay is right when the neck meets the body. So it looks.

Are these just vanity pieces? Doyle said these Oktober guitars were shit and he didn't even play them so I am just assuming these are wall hangers, sucks they are peddling counterfit goods though.

As a former GC employee I must say. Leave it up to Guitar Center to sell you junk! I'm surprised they are still in business 👈🤯 Everything is overpriced...!!!

I would buy it. No matter if it's fake. I love how it looks.

That is why I shop at Sam Ash 😅

This is why I don’t and never have or will go to guitar center lol

GC used to be better. When I worked there. The guitar guys knew everything. Now they’re all a bunch of people who know they have to sell guitars. I miss the old days. You could almost build a guitar back then. Yeah man. I shop at the local spots or Sam ash in town. And sweetwater online. Yeah. You got to crusade against this crap. Nice video. Thanks!

The guitar center should never have taken it in without a serial number. How would they even do a police hold ?

Guitar center employee swapped the real one with a fake one, and guitar center employee has real one up on reverb?

I had acquired a Guitar Center store card about 3 -4 years ago but terminated my account about 1 year later because I never purchased anything from them. After watching numerous videos about Guitar Center, it looks like I made a wise decision without even knowing it.

I hate GC, they have killed all my local shops off. One that has been around since the 50s. Broke my heart. They are the Walmart of guitar stores

Im most surprised by that guitar being in high demand. Lol.

I stopped buying new gear from them. I bought a new MPC One just to find it was used. Even had a used sticker on the bottom of the unit. Bought a higher end midi controller with a similar story. Nearly $1k of gear. They took care of me but it should have never happened in the first place. They also have a $75 used Arturia MineLab listed as a used Arturia Microfreak at my local store. I used to have friends work for them that all left due to issues with GC management. Seems anyone left just genuinely doesn’t care about the job to perform better quality control.

The price would be a deal breaker for me.

Weird watching a metal guitar video with elevator music

I wouldn't worry about it. What u bought looks better to me. It's a lot smoother looking. If the string action is great and with whatever pickups u use, who cares, it's perfect. Even Doyle would play it. If i bought it i would just take it from there and put my own original junk on it. Doesn't matter if it's the real "Doyle" or not. It's yours.

I am not surprised.

Who down voted this? WTF? Great Vid, GC employees be trolling the thumbs down button LMFAO

A ridiculous canoe paddle is just the same no matter who makes it 😂