A quick googling revealed pictures of the insides, which I recognized as being the BYOC/EA tremolo. Since I could get the Retro box for 50 and the BYOC was 65 unassembled, I decided to go for it. Auction won, money paypaled. A week passes with no pedal or e-mail, so I get worried. I google some more - turns out the guy runs 3 different companies (Private Label, Erotic FX, and Retro FX), all of which are clearly BYOC kits sold cheap (alarm bell). Further googling turns up a series of long disputes on HC and the gear page, most of which involved people sending him money and never getting a pedal or refund even after legal action. One customer apparently took him to small claims court, which yielded no refund and a half-functioning pedal. Then I got pissed, but figured I had ebay and paypal on my side if bad things happened. Looking at his feedback didn't help, as it appeared all of it was as a buyer and all for cheap shit. Finally, after a series of progressively less polite emails, I got my pedal.
Don't get me wrong, the pedal is AWESOME, but is also an illegally rebranded BYOC kit. I left neutral feedback to be fair, but now he's got 1 more (and probably another on the way) negative from others. He is also FUCKING RUDE.
Now there's a note on his auctions about items only shipping on wednesday and telling bidders not to complain about shipping - which would make sense if it weren't for my pedal being shipped on a friday.
Bottom line DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM RETRO FX, PRIVATE LABEL, OR EROTIC FX - YOU HAVE A 50/50 SHOT OF GETTING RIPPED OFF AND A 100% CHANCE OF HEADACHES.
