Hilarious Guitar Scams

If you ever feel useless, just remember that the Jellyfish pick has a patent number.

Yknow, my grandma bought me a Esteban music chords book when I was younger. That's about all I know of the fella

Esteban. The greatest late night tv guitar player of all time.

Kind of harsh to accuse someone of child labor with no proof. I get it. The guitar sucks but child abuse,damn?

You willl never for even a moment let go of the jellyfish will you

I got a Esteban guitar set (guitar, amp, case, etc.) for Christmas. My mom paid the fine price of $650, and I learned on it. Never had a problem with it until one day half the tuning heads snapped off during play... sounded great until it started falling apart

"The jelly fish pick sounds great!" My Deaf friend

this was funny!

I didn't have cable but i saw that infomercial over the air all the time.

Imagine....a 5k guitar for 90 bucks...

Review the shady business practices of zager guitar. They say they source there material from Indonesia but that material is the whole guitar itself. And they ARE LABELED USA MADE. Wow. Please bring awareness to this.

My father actually saw Esteban live in the mid 90's. It was at a corporate gig for his companies national conference.

Stealing from businesses is good

Ah yes, the old Esteban scam. I always wanted to buy one of those used on facebook marketplace for dirt cheap just for the memes. I heard they were absolute trash. Love it.

“Society doesn’t work if we start taking the things we want without asking”

Tell that to California and the other places where people no longer get in trouble for theft.

That Esteban guitar infomercial was constantly on. 😂😂😂

Your version was way better. 😂😂😂

You would get better sound pickin with a stale dorito

The Esteban guitar was for people who knew nothing about guitars except what a "basic" shape was supposed to be and had strings on it. "looks like the thing Elvis is holding on my collector plate!" I forget the source, but a luthier/repair guy who worked in a busy guitar shop said he always got them in for repair and setup. First off, they couldn't be set up properly, the neck didn't even have a truss rod. It had "stabilizing bars". Also the construction was so poor as one person commented, in the right climate they could actually fold in half from string tension. The repair guy had to institute a "no Esteban guitars" policy. And the shop would try and steer the person towards a respectable beginner guitar. Some models came with this cheap tiny amp too apparently that sounded like a telephone speaker.

I’ve got an Esteban as my main acoustic guitar, and it’s really not as bad as people say. The quality is poor but after 20 years it’s still holding up. The action was definitely too high, but by just sanding down the nut I managed to make it much more playable. Doesn’t sound too bad to me actually. The amp it came with is trash though

I think Esteban was the inspiration for the”you can stand on the guitar” dude from metalocalypse

Can I mail you an Esteban guitar? I inherited one from my father-in-law and it’s one of the “fancy” ones that were supposed to be higher end. It’s like literally dangerous to play because the frets are so sharp.

Now i need a jellyfish pick

Ngl, I'd buy a fork form you

Jellyfish pick looks like a flea comb.

You look like the Yogi from GTA V who banged Amanda :)

Thank you I've been calling these people out. I've checked out their locations on Google maps unbelievable. Another one recently is zager guitars. There is no factory in Nebraska and if there was there's no way an 84 year old man can build and set up thousands of guitars

As far as that Esteban guitar goes, I had a feeling it was junk from the get-go.
A buddy of mine had a son who was just starting out on guitar and showed me the infomercial. I have been playing guitar over 40 years and had my doubts as to its quality versus the price but figured if he was looking for a cheap guitar to start on why not. Well, he ordered it and about a week and a half later it arrived.
He brought it to work for me to check out and immediately I knew it was garbage. The sixth and seventh frets simply fell off while I was playing it 😯. The back of the guitar had a hideous, looking overspray, and what little sounds I could get out of it was dull and hideous. Aside from that the strings left a greenish/gray film on my fingers. I packed it up back in the case, handed it back to him and said “send this piece of 💩 back because it’s garbage“ to which he did and about two weeks later they credited his card back.
Fortunately, about a month after that debacle, a friend of mine had a used Yamaha acoustic guitar he was getting rid of for $250. I turned that friend of mine to it and he ended up getting it for $200. That was close to 20 years ago and not only does he still have an play that same Yamaha guitar he has progressed on to other guitars, and is now a very good player. Bottom line, buyer beware when you see infomercials like that.

My first guitar when I started getting serious at 8-9 was the Esteban my parents got me for Christmas. Held up for a few years but I had no reference to realize how awful it was. Tried adjusting the truss rod once I learned about action at 13-14 because the action was impossibly high. Ended up snapping the bridge off the body. Haven’t played it since. I’m 26 now. It also came with DVDs where Esteban teaches you how to play stuff. Pretty awful and cringe across the board and none of it is actually helpful from what I remember. And yet somehow I kept playing.

I’m sure this Esteban guy said he was taught by Andres Segovia.

I would buy a fork off you

My dad was given an Esteban guitar with 2 of the Esteban amps in early 2000s and the guitar honestly for the price wasn't that bad. In hindsight I think it was a rare occasion and that one turned out good but I still have one of the small amps and it's my go to practice amp when it's too loud to play electric acousticly and I want to lay on my bed or couch. I wouldn't call it a scam per se but especially by today's standards of what a scam is. You paid for it, you got it, it did the thing.

"This is an all-wood guitar."

No way!!!

Kinda frickin' sacrilege to take a huge crap on Estéban, and the limited production signature model. Never played a frickin Estéban huh, Sammy? Then only come up with a couple bad Karen "boyfriend" reviews, Sammy-G? (FACTORY set-up karen? cough cough) At least be fair and show the Karen reviews of boyfriends dealing with a Floyd Rose string-change for the first time! It is not very easy to leave a positive review about the Estéban guitar, Sammy-G, because I can't put this amazing instrument down brotha. You will understand that Estéban can't even show up to NAMM because he is almost the Carl Thompson of QVC by now. If you can even find an Estéban on Reverb as of this post. I think Kieth and the gang at Five Watt are even saving "History of the Estéban Guitar" for the '23 Christmas episode. Also.. Fluff rated someone's rig "five beards" over owning an OG Estéban with OG packaging. I'm not saying explicitly that you don't exactly know what's up Sammy-G, but you are smart enough to "get it" by now ✌

My buddy just purchased a lefty Les Paul from the same kind of setup, store going out of business, large stock that has to go, 80$ each, to good to be true? He waited for delivery, we joked about it going to be a key chain or something shaped like a guitar. It arrived and he called me… nice harmonica..😂

Everything I know about music I learned from Estebán.

An aside, the countries you claim are abusing children? They are making more money than ever thought they could make! Those poor children don’t want you to mess with it!
I paid for a ‘73 Barracuda in my 10th grade year of high school, doing jobs that you “ woke” people would think horrendous!
How bout you “ educated” people just stop sending your money over to child labor camps, and start demanding products made in our country? That would solve all your political woes! I thought not! Don’t make your kids get off the game boards, and learn how labor/earnings work for them. Also, make sure you don’t send them out in the world until they are way past weaning. The gvt programs are there for you to sign up for! Fine patriots love “free” gvt programs. Buyer beware???!!! I thought not.
Once again, those poor workshops overseas, are happy , they aren’t victims

I bought the Esteban guitar around 20 years ago. For me it was very nice. I still use it. Although I upgraded to a
Ibanez Aw54

Worst part about the pants trick is it detunes the guitar, and then you have to buy a new one anyway

Well my friends… in “Brandon’s Economy”, you’ll soon be damn lucky to afford one of these!… and will no doubt have to eventually smash it for kindling to cook your rat over. 👍🏻

When I moved to a new place years ago, I was out on porch playing my Taylor, and my neighbor says "Aw, hey, you play? I do too, I'll grab my guitar, and we can jam" I said ok, he came back with an Estaban, and I suddenly had somewhere to go.

That guitar is such great value, it even has stings and a NUT! Ive ordered 15!!!!!🤣🤣🤣

Here's a little story of how I feel for one of these scams:

Around 2016 I was 16, and I've been saving to buy a nice 40" 4k tv for my PS4. Target had some good deal for 300$tv. So I wake up super early, aaand it's gone. Walmart, best buy everywhere it's sold out. Just my luck. What to do?

I don't know where but I found this clean looking website selling the exact same tv for 250 ish. Given how everywhere it sold out I didn't waste any time and bought it. I paid with a prepaid vanilla visa gift card through PayPal because I had no credit card then.

I got a confirmation email and then nothing. I wait a day, wait two still nothing. Now mind you I grow up with computers and seen the birth of smartphones and was learning programming as a major so I was tech savvy. So I check this website and it was very strange. Just like this one. I checked their address and it pointed to an empty building in California. Contact? No phone number, just an email. Then the website shut down.

Immediately I contacted PayPal and thank God I paid through them, they have resolved the issue and even managed to refund to the prepaid visa gift card.


I was still a beginner English learner at the time, but the lesson here is read everything double, check for grammar, CHECK THEIR COMPANY ADDRESS AND CONTACT ALWAYS, Google if theyre legit, see if people bought from them.

Dude AC/DC on a 12 string lol. Epic.

I made a Jellyfish pick with old string bits and epoxy when they first came out just to see, and it does sound neat sometimes. But beyond novelty, they are worthless.

And you gotta give the kid who put a guitar down his pants some credit. If there were no cameras he would have gotten away with it. He may have done it several times before getting caught lol.
Certainly wins the "wow the stones on you" award.

Those Esteban Guitars are basically balsa wood. They sound like shit and won't last two weeks.

The jellyfish pick actually gives me the horrible shivers

Estaboner could actually play. He simply got greedy when "friends" gave him a "deal of a lifetime."

Don't do it kids.