Harley Benton SC-550 II FTF

After doing a lot of research and seeing literally at least 100 positive reviews (written or on YouTube) I decided that this would be my next guitar. Oh boy, was I excited. I got the guitar after about a week (I live in Sweden) and as I opened the package and saw the beautiful guitar (it is beautiful) my expectations were met, but that didn't last long. As I picked up the guitar and took a closer look at it I quickly noticed some quality issues that I wasn't expecting even on a more modestly priced guitar. The big no no for me was the poorly mounted frets (some serious gaps between the fret and fretboard) so I returned it and hoped to receive a better copy.

The whole return/exchange process was slow in my opinion, it took a month to return it and receive a new guitar. When the second copy arrived I was less excited because I didn't want to get my hopes up. And as I opened the package and inspected the guitar I was struck by the poor quality of the fretboard, it looked like someone had tried to polish it with a key... just ugly and lots of visible scratches. Not something I'd expect.. even on a modestly priced guitar. And the setup was terrible, for instance the high E-string was resting on the pickups. It's quite obvious they don't even try to do a decent setup or any quality check.

I decided to return it and get a refund and will be buying a completely different guitar. I'm not sure I'll give Harley Benton another try... was I just unlucky or is this a common thing.. or did I have too high expectations (I don't think so).. ?