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Due to a spectacular display of incompetence by Virgin Media (whom I will now thoroughly unrecommend!) liz@elidaviolins.co.uk AND elizabeth@elidatrading.co.uk AND elizabethward@ntlworld.com AND even (if it affects anyone) liz@huggibear.co.uk are ALL down for up to 30 DAYS!!  This is due to someone having messed up the transfer of my late husband's account in January 2016 and then again in April 2016.Impressive isn't it.  Large businesses do not equal great customer service! In the meantime, I have (I think) dragged up a gmail account that works.  elidaviolins@gmail.com  Use that please.  In fact if you see this and don't want to talk to...

Just in case any proof was needed that buying instruments unchecked can be risky even if the retailer is completely reputable (which many of the Chinese ebay sellers probably aren't, if the lovely "leather" phone case sent from "UK" I bought last week is anything to go by.  Cardboard covered in plastic, sent from China.  But I digress.)I got a perfectly reputable (though cheap) outfit from a perfectly reputable wholesaler.  This could have been sold online by a perfectly reputable budget price (get them in and send them straight out) shop and if so it might have been a fiver...

Many buyers may be unaware of the existence of instruments sold "in the white".  This doesn't mean instruments that are painted white, or that have a colourless varnish.  It is a way that instruments are sold by makers either to other makers or to dealers who are specialist enough and large enough to have their own varnishing facilities (which basically means a large enough space to hang up instruments to dry, away from anything likely to stick to the varnish (flies perhaps?!) and the time to hand brush varnish over the instrument perhaps ten times or more).  This is the...

Ebay listing for a Zeller violin, an auction starting at 99p. So I thought it might be of interest if the price remained low enough. Violin listed as new and described as brand new (in non-original case) but actually dated inside the violin October 2004. From the pictures it looked as if there might be varnish cracks on the ribs but lighting of course can play tricks. The seller says strictly no returns so I thought I would ask him whether there were varnish cracks. First reply from him "It's a brand new violin why would it have cracks ..."...

I love having happy customers and never want to have an unhappy customer. IN LAW you have the absolute right to return any item purchased online from a business (with obvious exceptions such as computer software) within 14 days.  If it's faulty, you have the right IN LAW to return it free of charge.  Note that this doesn't apply to private sellers on ebay. People often ask me if they can return the instrument if the teacher does not approve.  Of course you can, THE LAW says so! In practice I have only ever once refused a return and that...