If you bought it by mail, they might have stiffed you with a floor/test model or one that was bought and returned.

I bought a Ministar Bass and it was obviously not new when I received it. The parts were loose in the box (the nuts, the bars) and the box was obviously opened and taped closed at least twice.

Fortunately it arrived undamaged, it sounded good and is playable. But I was expecting new when I paid for it, and I would have demanded my money back if it wasn’t working.

After playing around with that, I got some semblence of action that I liked. I’ll take it into the shop down the road to get it set up properly and probably put in a permanent nut at that point in time.

I plugged it in and got no sound. Luckily I’m mildly handly with tools and such, so I figured for a $180 travel guitar (Canada, everything is more expensive here) it wasn’t worth my time or money to send it back to the vendor for simple work on passive electronics.

Again, had to deal with stripped screwed to get in, placement of the cavity also made work a little challenging.

In the end, I found that the hole drilled for the pickup wires was too small and had been pulled through causing the shielding to strip and the wires to short out. My fix (not having a spare P90 kicking around) was to drill a new, much bigger hole, and to cut the wire and repair it. This made the wire bulky, require a few more adjustments.
In the end, got that all back together and I’m happy with the tone.

So:

Pros: nice finish on the frets. Nice tone. Get sized package.

Cons: slight smell to it and the case, and a persistent smell. After many washes I can still slightly smell it on my hands. Stripped screws, stripped screw holes. Shorted out and stripped pickup wire that should have been picked out before being sent out by the manufacturer. Cavity for wiring should be on the backside of the guitar so the front size can simply have a nice plastic or wood finish with no little screws.

So for a $180 guitar, I won’t complain too much. I’m disappointed with the issues I had to repair and note that those issues someone else may have been returning the guitar to repair. The guitar once set up seems quite nice for what its supposed to be.