Whats with all the fakes on ebay?

[sal]

I've joined a non knife forum over the past few months, though there is a fairly active knife subforum. I've already seen a handful of knives that people are proud to say are counterfeit Mostly BM knives, haven't seen a "Spyderco" yet, but it still drives me crazy when they talk about how great their fake Bugout is.

Hey Rick,

I do feel for BM as well as any other company dealing with counterfeits.

I believe that China and it's trade practices are the 3rd worst problem facing America in the long run. I don't want to turn this into a Political discussion, but being aware of China and its presence, in some way, all over the world should be noted.

sal

[Actinolite]

Sal,

I agree Chinese business practices (among other things) are a serious problem. I do not buy Chinese knives because I don't like their business practices. The only exceptions are Chinese products made for American companies, such as the three Byrd knives I own.

I try not to buy any Chinese products, but that has become difficult to accomplish.

Richard

[Mage7]

Let's drill down a bit. Counterfeits steal the design which is the most important part of the package. Most people that buy counterfeits, know they are fake. The logic goes like this; I'll buy the fake and if I like it, then I'll buy the real ting". I've heard it many many times. And they rarely buy the "Real Thing", because it's the design that they wish to experience. Yes it's theft, but when the Sheriff is corrupt, who do you tell"?

But it seem like as a country, we seem to be legalizing crime in many areas.

Unfortunately, I think it's just one of the growing problems in the USA.

sal
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

"Loyalty before all else except Honor".

Well, if were really going to drill down...

Just because a lot of people do justify participating in the theft of your designs, doesn't mean there's not plenty of earnest people out there who are getting fooled. Many probably don't even know it.

As I said, I bought a counterfeit Spyderco just to see how to identify them. You can say I still participated in the theft of your designs, but I'm just being honest. I just didn't want to rely on other members of the community to tell me if it's a fake or not because the counterfeiters are constantly improving their fakes. I have had several people tell me things like, "Well, look for the date and batch code on the tang, they won't reproduce those," but they most definitely did. Meanwhile, I have positively identified fakes for people where other people have claimed they were genuine, and vise versa.

I'm not trying to spin it like I'm doing the community a service by buying counterfeits, because I hate the fact that I supported the counterfeiters at all even with one purchase. However, in the absence of a better way to protect myself from being fooled by one and a desire to be able to buy/sell on the secondary market, I justified it as a necessary evil. Of course, afterwards I still felt dirty about it because I could have just done without so the necessity of that was a stretch. I've come to find I would rather just go without than feel the dubious moral dilemma involved.

I feel like implementing a simple serial number system would go a long way, but if you're insisting that the majority of people purchasing the counterfeits already know they're fake then obviously you don't see the virtue of investing in such a system. I don't have a clue how much it would cost you, but what I wonder is how much money you've already sunk into cat-and-mouse litigation against counterfeiters and if you would have been better off investing that money into a serial nunber registry. I think that doing so could make their task of producing fakes a lot more difficult, but I could see that if you're of the opinion most people are going to buy them regardless of whether the serial number checks out, that it wouldn't make sense. However, as a customer, it would still give me a powerful option to establish authenticity.

The only other effective measure is to purchase from authorized dealers, but obviously the problem wouldn't exist if people were satisfied paying authorized dealer's prices. That's what creates the market because people will go on Amazon, eBay or the secondary market looking for a bargain, and they will find one--sometimes legitimate, and often times not. It's a bit of a separate issue, but the fact that authorized dealers have their hands tied as to how steep a discount they can offer (or even advertise) doesn't help that.

I kind of feel like if the only option is to pay exorbitantly higher costs, and if I couldn't learn what the counterfeits look like myself, I just wouldn't buy Spyderco knives anymore... Well, if I had better fiscal responsibility lol For the record, I have spent less than $40 on counterfeits, and probably around $2000 or more on legitimate ones straight from Spyderco or an authorized dealer. I've only taken the risk on one or two from the secondary market. So I mean, even despite what I am saying, you've definitely got more of my money than any counterfeiter or reseller on the secondary market, but I sure wish I could participate in the secondary market or even buy from Amazon with the confidence I'm not getting ripped off, or feeling like I've ripped someone off (even a little bit) in order to gain that confidence.

[Mushroom]

What's with all the fakes on ebay?

Money.

The real problem is that there are too many people who are willing to buy them.

Something sells on e*** > e*** makes money > Sellers selling fakes sell a lot of fakes > e*** makes a lot of money. Seller = protected.

Let's drill down a bit. Counterfeits steal the design which is the most important part of the package. Most people that buy counterfeits, know they are fake. The logic goes like this; I'll buy the fake and if I like it, then I'll buy the real ting". I've heard it many many times. And they rarely buy the "Real Thing", because it's the design that they wish to experience. Yes it's theft, but when the Sheriff is corrupt, who do you tell"?

But it seem like as a country, we seem to be legalizing crime in many areas.

Unfortunately, I think it's just one of the growing problems in the USA.

sal
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

"Loyalty before all else except Honor".

Well, if were really going to drill down...

Just because a lot of people do justify participating in the theft of your designs, doesn't mean there's not plenty of earnest people out there who are getting fooled. Many probably don't even know it.

As I said, I bought a counterfeit Spyderco just to see how to identify them. You can say I still participated in the theft of your designs, but I'm just being honest. I just didn't want to rely on other members of the community to tell me if it's a fake or not because the counterfeiters are constantly improving their fakes. I have had several people tell me things like, "Well, look for the date and batch code on the tang, they won't reproduce those," but they most definitely did. Meanwhile, I have positively identified fakes for people where other people have claimed they were genuine, and vise versa.

I'm not trying to spin it like I'm doing the community a service by buying counterfeits, because I hate the fact that I supported the counterfeiters at all even with one purchase. However, in the absence of a better way to protect myself from being fooled by one and a desire to be able to buy/sell on the secondary market, I justified it as a necessary evil. Of course, afterwards I still felt dirty about it because I could have just done without so the necessity of that was a stretch. I've come to find I would rather just go without than feel the dubious moral dilemma involved.

I feel like implementing a simple serial number system would go a long way, but if you're insisting that the majority of people purchasing the counterfeits already know they're fake then obviously you don't see the virtue of investing in such a system. I don't have a clue how much it would cost you, but what I wonder is how much money you've already sunk into cat-and-mouse litigation against counterfeiters and if you would have been better off investing that money into a serial nunber registry. I think that doing so could make their task of producing fakes a lot more difficult, but I could see that if you're of the opinion most people are going to buy them regardless of whether the serial number checks out, that it wouldn't make sense. However, as a customer, it would still give me a powerful option to establish authenticity.

The only other effective measure is to purchase from authorized dealers, but obviously the problem wouldn't exist if people were satisfied paying authorized dealer's prices. That's what creates the market because people will go on Amazon, eBay or the secondary market looking for a bargain, and they will find one--sometimes legitimate, and often times not. It's a bit of a separate issue, but the fact that authorized dealers have their hands tied as to how steep a discount they can offer (or even advertise) doesn't help that.

I kind of feel like if the only option is to pay exorbitantly higher costs, and if I couldn't learn what the counterfeits look like myself, I just wouldn't buy Spyderco knives anymore... Well, if I had better fiscal responsibility lol For the record, I have spent less than $40 on counterfeits, and probably around $2000 or more on legitimate ones straight from Spyderco or an authorized dealer. I've only taken the risk on one or two from the secondary market. So I mean, even despite what I am saying, you've definitely got more of my money than any counterfeiter or reseller on the secondary market, but I sure wish I could participate in the secondary market or even buy from Amazon with the confidence I'm not getting ripped off, or feeling like I've ripped someone off (even a little bit) in order to gain that confidence.

Sal is correct, most people know exactly when they're buying counterfeits. You did.

There's nothing honest about theft. Knowingly purchasing a counterfeit is actively participating in the theft of Spyderco's designs.

Purchasing counterfeits is absolutely not a "necessary evil." What's necessary is having the buyer responsibility to know better. Buyer awareness is essential, especially online, so while ignorance may be able to explain away a simple mistake, it doesn't remove the buyers responsibility to take precautions before making a purchase.

Proposing that Spyderco should invest in serializing their massive catalog is shifting the blame away from real problem, which is people are far too willing to buy counterfeit goods. It happens in many, many other industries too: Fashion, footwear, jewelry, art, toys...

[sal]

Hi Mage7,

I respect your integrity. We too have purchased counterfeits for the same reason. No reason to feel dirty or guilty.

We sell tens of thousands of knives every month. A numbering system and a registry would not be practical.

It's a problem that offers no obvious solutions. The Chinese know exactly what they are doing. And so do many of their "customers". I think one day it will reach a critical point. It can be challenging to run an honest business?

sal

[WilliamMunny]

Hi Mage7,

I respect your integrity. We too have purchased counterfeits for the same reason. No reason to feel dirty or guilty.

We sell tens of thousands of knives every month. A numbering system and a registry would not be practical.

It's a problem that offers no obvious solutions. The Chinese know exactly what they are doing. And so do many of their "customers". I think one day it will reach a critical point. It can be challenging to run an honest business?

sal

Until all trade is stopped with China there will be no solution. We could build widgets in India and chips in Mexico but we chose China.

IMO we are well past that critical point. The American public doesn’t care where their product comes from as long as it’s cheap. The American politicians don’t care as long as they make money. The critical point was past when everyone stopped caring about the value of honesty and repercussions for bad acts. As you said Sal, “Sheriff is corrupt, who do you tell”?

Sorry to get a little political but it’s frustrating.

[Naperville]

At the retail warehouse that I work at we take in shipments from other warehouses on the front lines. I work in SORTING and there may be 20+ of us. The position could be more accurately called STORAGE OPERATIONS. Packages get stored on shelves that look more than a city block long and wide, and 50+ foot high. The packages are brought to me after humans are told to pick them by a computer. I break down the packages / boxes and sort them into plastic totes. I break down hundreds of boxes every day, and stores many hundreds of products in totes. A computer remembers the product barcodes and the barcode on the totes. The totes get shipped to other fulfillment centers around the USA.

I'm guessing that 95% of everything that I touch is MADE IN CHINA. That is the crux of the problem. The USA, by greed, hook and crook gave up its vast manufacturing power. There are dozens of reasons why the USA lost it's manufacturing power.

Right now I'd say the USA does not make squat. If you want to help, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO BUY MADE IN THE USA.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Here is a prime example for all of us on the forum to look at:

Sal, Kristi, zhyla, William and everyone, watch the video and notice both the similiarities and differences in the real Endura Wave vs counterfeit.

It is scary how real the fake looks to the untrained eye.
It is very low down how whoever made the fake did this.

Here is a big concern I have: someone buys the fake and because it is made of inferior materials and assembly, it breaks or causes serious damage, say to the user's hand, and they wrongly think Spyderco made it, when in truth it was a rip off fake version.

The reviewer in this video brings your attention to certain details such as the faked Spyderco logo being uneven and the mouth of the Spyder graphic being shaped differently than the actual graphic, and the handle being a bit lopsided or bent.
He claims you can tell the difference between real FRN vs molded plastic without glass fiber by looking at it. Is that true or not?

My question: what do the counterfeitters do?

They buy a real Spyderco knife and have an actual knife factory with CNC machines, rolls of steel, grinding wheels, and computers, plastic and all that, and a team of people who knowingly agree to mass produce batches of the faked knife, and then sell them on the internet sites? Or are these factories producing other knives and goods that piggyback production of counterfeit knives onto their other manufactured items?

I told someone who complained to me that a good Spyderco knife is expensive that:

1 they are supporting an excellent family owned business that actually cares about their customers and product quality, and,

2 he can save up the money if he cannot immediately buy the knife, and buy it once he has enough. People do that all the time.

3 for the supreme quality in Spyderco products we are actually getting very good prices. I have seen items that are more expensive but have lesser quality control and lesser care put into the products.

[Mage7]

My question: what do the counterfeitters do?

They buy a real Spyderco knife and have an actual knife factory with CNC machines, rolls of steel, grinding wheels, and computers, plastic and all that, and a team of people who knowingly agree to mass produce batches of the faked knife, and then sell them on the internet sites? Or are these factories producing other knives and goods that piggyback production of counterfeit knives onto their other manufactured items?

It's a little bit of both.

One thing that's not really uncommon even for legitimate knife manufacturers is that they often don't actually own their own production facilities. A lot of the time they usually just lease time at a production facility owned by an independent company that produces all sorts of different things, and then when the parts are all made they're assembled at the company's headquarters. I have heard that Camilus and KaBar used to swap lease time at the production facilities they used for example. Many of the legitimate Chinese knife manufacturers share the same OEM facilities. Most people know that Artisan Cutlery, WE and CJRB are more or less higher lines of the same models, but there's also usually other companies like Vosteed, Kizer, Sencut and the like that will utilize the same facilities to machine their parts. That's why some of the counterfeits are constructed with quality nearing legitimate products: They're actually "made" by the same people.

Then there's also a very large industry dedicated to reverse engineering and reproducing the work of Western companies' products. Especially with things like electronics and textiles, and to an extremely high level if sophistication. There are companies that have ripped off things like microchips, so to figure out how to reproduce a laser engraved logo or reproduce a plastic mixture is a pretty small ask. I remember someone telling me counterfeit batteries for tool companies like DeWalt are becoming a huge problem, and you while you would think that they could simply use laser scanning or other ways to get the dimensions necessary to reproduce the plastic parts, there's actually some instances of old injection moulds getting scavenged out of scrap centers so that they can more accurately assess where the inlets/outlets are needed on the moulds to avoid air locks and the like. Basically ends up close to espionage where companies end up having to protect their scrap.

Then many of the companies that produce the counterfeits will be just as keen to use the design with their own branding on it. After all, why not? If you've already got the time leased, and are already producing the parts, etc. then it just becomes a difference of applying different logos. That way even when a company like Spyderco can get after them for using the trademark Spydie hole and their logos and such, they can just change the hole to a square, slap their own logo on there and go, "Well, see, now it's our own knife."

I was researching this for a bit and it diverges into a lot seedier depths than I think a lot of people want to admit. Unscrupulous Redditors grabbing a counterfeit and pulling a switcheroo on Amazon is obviously not great, but you only need to look one layer under the surface to see there's worse things happening around this. People buying counterfeits in bulk, reselling for a huge profit margin, and relying on various illicit means to avoid detection and mitigation from places like eBay and Amazon. It's quite the interesting thing because you'd think that such flagrant fraud and larceny would be getting more people in trouble, but thanks to the fact that it's done on the Internet and across state lines there's a level of protection they have. Thing like stolen account credentials and identities to facilitate eBay/Amazon sales and post-office boxes and bank accounts opened in unwitting victims' names to mask paper trails. Even if someone can positively identify them and prove they're involved in the crime, there's usually jurisdictional overlap involved so that state-level authorities can't do much about crimes committed in another state, and not in the purview of federal authorities because the money involved is just below the threshold where they'll get involved. Frankly, it's easy to see why unscrupulous people get involved in it, and you can practically guarantee that organized crime has their fingers in the pie because of that. None of that is to say anything like, "See, if you participate in this you're supporting much darker things, and you should be ashamed of yourself!" But one can be true without the other, and I think a lot of people would be shocked at how much of an elaborate criminal enterprise it really is. I certainly was.

[cabfrank]

Thanks for the information. You're right, most of us don't half of the levels of this crime, and I do think of it as crime.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thanks for the information. You're right, most of us don't half of the levels of this crime, and I do think of it as crime.

It's terrible how people will rationalize these crimes just to get a cheap deal on an item they like.
I have read online posts as others here have, on other websites, where people brag about getting such close looking counterfeits.
Without getting political here, some try to justify it by saying it is not wrong because the legitimate companies charge so much. That is no excuse for theft.
One woman defended her purchase of a counterfeit name brand hand bag by saying she had to feed her kids so that let her have the bag she wanted at a low price.

If someone said to you he or she bought a fake say Police folder or fake Manix for that reason, how would you reply?

[akapennypincher]

Well the truth is the Chinese, and Asian’s & others in the World have zero respect for US CopyRights, TradeMarks, Patent’s, and last intellectual property.

Friend manufactures a line of “accessories” in China, he is smart then *** Yogi's said the Smart Bear. He gets a CHINESE Patent on each item to protect himself & his intellectual property. The Chinese know the penalty for coping item with Chinese Patent.

I was told long ago by business a US CopyRights, TradeMarks, Patent’s, are only as good as the money you have to defend your intellectual property.

[JARHEAD]

I would never knowingly buy a counterfeit, even if the build quality is, or seems to be good, just out of principle. Not only that; even if a counterfeit seems to be great, I still wouldn't be able to trust it like the actual product. They could say that the fake one is such-and-such steel, and the hardware is such-and-such quality, but who knows if it really is? Any manufacturers who would counterfeit orhers' products are already dishonest to the core.

Jim

And greedy!
Theirs will come, they will answer for it.