So I feel somewhat cheated..

[TimeofSnow]

I bought this guitar from this shop and on the sign in the shop it even says MOD! I go to check out the box, no mod-sighs- I'm not sure what my next step should be. It wasn't on mp, it was inworld.

[Rhys Goode]

Do contact the owner, but two things to be aware of:

One can have a mod-object in a no-mod box.

And, it is possible to have an object with prims/mesh are mod, but show up as no-mod because of a no-mod script. If you rez them on the ground, you can resize or rename or change/add notecards.

[Bryce Kidd]

Yep, as Rhys mentions the permissions shown while it's inside the box or your inventory mean nothing.

[Innula Zenovka]

No, the permissions shown inside your inventory certainly mean something -- when two or more different sets of permissions are involved (e.g. permissions on the object, on a script inside it and on an animation inside it) the viewer obviously has no idea which set of permissions you're interested in, so it shows the least permissive set.

Admittedly this is probably more useful with transfer permissions (e.g. a transferable object containing a no-transfer texture) than with modify permissions, but it's wrong to say they're meaningless.

[Amalia Broome]

Did you open the box? Sometimes the box is no modify so you have to open it to see the guitar inside.

[Pamela Galli]

 I would say that most people who contact me because they don't really understand how to open a box, imply that I have cheated them in someway.  They go through their second lives not understanding how things work and thinking that the world is cheating them.  And I am not talking about new accounts. 

[Codex Alpha]

I've noticed this too on some products.

They claim to be 'modify or copy' but it's only the box it came prepackaged in (which obscures the permissions on the actual product on the Marketplace).

You open/copy the box into your inventory, and the product is actually no modify.

Not sure if the merchant would do this on purpose, or was just listing the permissions on the box. Kind of a gray area, and open to mistakes (or in extreme cases fraud) and hard to report.

Best thing to do is contact the merchant.

[Niles Cooperstone]

Feeling Cheated is normal, being cheated by a retailer is NOT. 

 

UNDERSTANDING TWTW (Understanding The Way Things Work) may help

 

Retail boxes are merely containers for the content nested inside of them. 

Retailers often set the box (container) permissions to something other than the contents.

Should the prospective buyer look inside the container (before purchase or before copying to inventory)  he/she will often see the content with the same "container" permissions.

People who sell items in SL rarely (if ever) try to cheat the customer. It is just a bad business model that always ends in disaster.

You need to remember that while packaging items for retail may not always be easy to include "everything" that is promised because sometimes the person packaging the item makes an innocent mistake. (Not very often as most retailers check before setting items for sale.) But mistakes do happen and most retailers will make it right.

Complex Mesh and or Prim object link sets may require buyer INSTRUCTIONS for proper setup. PLEASE READ THEM.

In most cases, a "guitar" as your example may have scripts included for animations and sounds. Those scripts, sounds, and or animations often are NOT mod copy or transfer. Never expect them to be free even if the scripts, animations, or sounds were obtained from a free LSL library. Why? Because the retailer failed to reset the permissions and is NOT required to do so. Why? Because they are not being sold, the guitar is the object for sale. What it will do out of the box is not for sale individually. Yeah, but the scripts are free open source as well as the animations right?  Yes, right you are, and you can obtain your free copy from the same source. 

If you purchase a pair of curtains that have texture options, open and close and are resizeable, none of those features are "expected" to be full permission EVEN when all of those options are freely available. You merely purchased a set of curtains that have options. The curtains alone may or may not have permissions attached to them. 

Buyer Beware!

BEFORE you purchase an item in Market Place or inworld, be sure you can contact the creator. If the creator has blocked IM, Notecards, or other means of communication, you may wish to look elsewhere as you are almost guaranteed no help other than included instructions if any.

Again, most retail sellers (99.9%) are NOT in the market to cheat you, that word gets around fast and will destroy them. 

High Ticket Items (expensive)  Creators should have excellent communication with their clients in some form.

If you feel cheated, shorted, or lied to, be sure you have all the evidence you need to confirm your suspicion before you contact the creator. Creators are normally busy creating new things and or learning new techniques, so please be mindful of their time as well. Not knowing how to open a retail box, or failing to find the contents once inside your inventory is NOT the creator responsibility to resolve.