All our favorite retailers are getting into trouble! Say it ain't so, Costco! Say it ain't so!

Who the heck is Conor Oberst?!

Wow, I wonder how many shitty songs he can write about this experience.

@gibbersome:

He's the main guy of Bright Eyes.

@gibbersome: You're not a skinny kid in tight jeans.

The Walmart rats must be clicking their heels within their succulent donut cases right about now.

As probably evident, I'm surprised such a relatively unknown singer/songwriter would be the one they fake the signature of. 99% of Costco shoppers wouldn't even know who he is, and the 1% that did wouldn't buy a guitar from Costco...it seems such a worthless risk on their part, did they even sell any? I would doubt it.

hmm this seems like a flat out scam.

could've been signed by Ingwe Malmenstein i suppose.

His next album "The only thing I ever bought at Costco was a mirror and razor blades" is due out this fall..

Who plays a guitar thats signed by someone else?

Er, hello, people?

Costco is a distributor. They buy products from wholesalers and sell them to the public. That reynolds' wrap you bought? Costco didn't manufacture it. That $4 1.5L bottle of crappy chard you bought? There is no Costco winery turning it out (even if you went for the extremely crappy Kirkland brand).

It sounds more like Costco was taken in by a scammer that it does like they willfully decided to buy a bunch of guitars and have someone fake signatures of a more-or-less-unknown pop guitarist.

So, yeah, they should probably verify authenticity when they're selling stuff like this, but it's understandable that they haven't in the past if it hasn't been a problem. It would, after all, increase their costs and therefore prices. Probably the smart thing to do, though, once they've been burned like this.

Of course, "Costco gets scammed" is a lot less dramatic than "OMG!!!!111! COSTCO R SCAMRS 2!!!1". So hyperventilate away, those of you who are into that sort of thing.

Conor Oberst, AKA Brighteyes. Come on, people, he may not be on American Idol but he's not *THAT* obscure.

I mean...I've heard of him, and I'm a huge John Tesh fan, for pete's sake.

Conor Oberst was better in Desaparecidos.

@aiken: Have you ever stepped into a Costco and considered purchasing some of their wines? None of them are $4. Even if you have, you obviously do not like wines because nearly every wine enthusiast I know say that they're pretty good quality and worth the cost.

BTW, nearly everything that's labeled 'Kirkland' is pretty damn good. You know what? If you don't like it, even just a little bit, go return it, even without a receipt, and you'll get your CASH back. Very few companies will stand by their products that strongly.

This "He's not mainstream so I haven't heard of him therefore he sucks" attitude is pretty unbecoming. In fact Bright Eyes (which essentially IS Conor Oberst) is a very popular band; do a little research.

Agreed, his fans are unlikely to be buying guitars at Costco, but that's a separate issue.

I only know of him from two sources: your sister site Idolator.com, and my coked-up fashionista friend from dallas. wait, i'm starting to see a connection...

If you'd like to know who Conor Oberst is, you should watch the billboard charts for this week as his new album, "Cassadaga", makes a top five debut to plenty of critical acclaim.

.....@Nero: Yngwie Malmsteen DID have a signature strat model out a while back. It was a weird guitar with scalloped frets. Any string you mashed too hard while fretting pulled out-of-tune-sharp. It sounded god-awful when I tried to play it with my ham-hands...

Lots of people have signature guitars. Although, having someone's name on it, even if it was my guitar hero, would make me less likely to buy it.

I love Costco but they are a bit gray market with many of their items such as Omega watches. They seems to have fairly nice quality control but seemingly with this guitar some items slip through.

I bet it was a Sam's Club sabotage.

See update