Hello guys, I hope someone here could answer a question for me.

I've bought a guitar for my nephew, an Epiphone - PRO-1 Acoustic to be precise.

And okay, guitar lingo is not my strongest skill but here goes. When you play the 1st fret on any string, you can hear the string hits the fret (I assume) and it doesn't really create any useful sound, actually it sounds precisely the same as if you play on the 2nd fret. But beyond that, there is no problem at all if you play the other frets, or if you just play without ehm.. touching the neck.

Now I've asked a friend who plays, that told me you can adjust the neck from a small bolt on the inside which could fix this, but since this is a beginners guitar, should I send it back and ask for a new or can it be true that I have to adjust it before it can be used?

Thanks a lot for taking your time for this!