Jared Dines Got Scammed on That 17-String Guitar

Remember the 17-string guitar that made headlines earlier this week? Not only did YouTuber Jared Dines — who commissioned the instrument to be made for him — never receive the guitar, but the whole thing appears to have been a scam.

In a lengthy monologue video posted below, Dines explains how the person he hired to custom build the guitar for him — Nicholas Olson of Olson Guitarworks, who presented himself as a luthier — actually just ordered the guitar from a Chinese website. Olson allegedly charged Dines “a little over $1,000” plus “shouting him out on all my platforms and telling people to check him out,” eventually asked for more money after lengthy delays, then tried to blame a mysterious third party after the guitar never materialized.

Gear Gods has some photos sent by Musoo Guitars in China when someone emailed them asking for photo examples of a “17-string bass” that are actually the alleged “Olson” guitar:

Olson’s social network pages have been deleted or made private. Dines is still looking to have a 17-string guitar built for his “Djent 2017” video if any of you luthiers out there would like to take a shot at it and can actually deliver the goods you promise before year’s end.

You can read Dines entire explanation below, transcribed from the video by Ultimate Guitar:

“So, Djent 2017 is a video that I wanted to do in this whole year. And I commissioned somebody by the name of Nicholas Olson to make me a 17-string guitar for this video, to which he said he would charge me a little over $1,000, and then the rest of the payment would be in me shouting him out on all my platforms and telling people to check him out. So I thought ‘That’s pretty cool, okay, let’s do that.’

So then he begins to ‘build’ this guitar for me. He said ‘I’m a luthier, I build guitars.’ Those were his words. So then he begins to build this guitar. About two-three weeks later says he needs about $200 more dollars for more materials, or there was some mix-up or something. I at this point trusted him because a few people, when I initially made my Facebook post, they vouched for him. It seemed reputable. I was like ‘Alright, I guess that’s okay since it’s cheap anyways.’ I know. Stupid, right? So, paid him a little bit more. And then about a month and a half two months go by. And I don’t really hear much from him. And he sends me one progress picture which looks like a door sitting on a bench half chiseled. [picture available at 1:45 in the video] So I was like ‘Ok, I really need this. You gave me a deadline. You’re about over a month and a half over a deadline. What’s going on?’

So this is where I’m getting at. He doesn’t make these guitars, apparently. He orders them from a Chinese website for $400, which is verified. The exact same guitar that he says he made for me is being sold on a Chinese website for $400. Coincidence? Maybe. So this came to my attention that he ripped me off, charged me about $1,200-1,300 for this guitar that costs $400, said that he was making it and that’s why it was taking so long.

So I confronted him about it and he is now blaming somebody else who he entrusted to make guitars for him in some other state. And he didn’t realize that this other guy was sending off to get these Chinese guitars which I think is bullshit. Because the entire time he was telling me he was the one making it, talking about step-by-step what he’s doing to the guitar and why it’s taking so long. And now that he’s been called out he’s saying ‘Oh, somebody else made it, I didn’t know that he ordered it from the Chinese company.’ So that’s a lie right there.

“So basically this guy Olson Guitarworks, Nicholas Olson, don’t trust him. And I’m definitely gonna try and take my money back. And the only thing that sucks is that now I’m here in October waiting for a guitar that’s either a piece of shit… 400 bucks… Yeah, it’s gonna sound like ass. So I’m not gonna get my guitar.

So if someone out there can make me a legit 17-string guitar, I will pay you for it, and I will shout you out on all platforms. If you can do that for me so I can make this video, that would be amazing and I would be very appreciative of that.

Yeah, don’t trust this guy, he ripped me off. Apparently, he’s ripped off a lot of other people. There’s a lot of threats going on around Facebook about this guy.

And it pisses me off too, because when he posted the picture he said ‘Made this guitar for YouTube personality Jared Dines,’ and got 5,000 shares. I mean, he got his name out there, from a lie. Just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. So I’m making this video just to say sorry for the wait on the Djent 2017 video. And don’t trust this guy.

I should have probably been a little smarter about it, but he seemed legit at the time, and I come to find out that he’s not. I’ll include some reference links in the description that you guys can look into yourself and form your own opinion if you want to. But apparently, which I didn’t know going into this, this guy has a reputation for scamming people.
I’m sorry dude, like, you fuck with me you’re not gonna sell another one of your ‘builds’ ever again. So… Better luck next time dude.”