Dishonest Pawnshop with plausible deniability? Un-heard of!
The real kicker on these is that they were truly unplayable pieces of s. I worked at GC when they came in and the sales staff were horrified at how completely bad they were. The price - around $200 - made them attractive to parents looking to cheap out for their kid. Thankfully we had the lower end Ibanez Sound Gear basses to show them. You didn't have to know anything about the bass to pick up one of these and then the Ibanez to figure out something was rotten with them.
They did have knock-off Fender parts, so you in theory they could be adjusted. But the amount of time, energy and advanced wood-working skills required to get the action and intonation happening was beyond anyone's limit. I would call them firewood, but I am sure the chemicals in the paint and whatever is holding the sawdust together would kill a small town if burned. I guess with their overall worthless-ness and the seller's misleading description, we can rest assured that Karma is a beotch for this whole sorry ebay affair.