Spyderco Forums

Should've known better than to buy on eBay. First time I've been burned. In comparing with my other two PM2s, several details convince me the recent "NIB" Paramilitary 2 I bought is a fake. A good fake, but a fake nonetheless. Even the "Spyderco" box that it came in is not right (the color is slightly off, one of the "spider" icons on the box is missing the registered trademark symbol in the lower right hand corner spider leg, etc.). Suggested course of action? I'll definitely inform the seller that I know he sold me a fake (he has a 100% approval rating on eBay; was he duped too?), but my son says if I mail it back to him he'll just resell it to another unsuspecting schmuck. My son (an Army vet) suggests we take it out of circulation, and that I give it to him to use as a "beater" EDC. Opinions?

IMHO, if you keep it, and use it, you're part of the problem. Report the seller to eBay and get a refund under their buyer protection program. Most times, they will not ask you to return the knife but, if they do, break it first. Otherwise, break it and toss it in the trash.

I'd return it but not break it.

CaptainTim wrote:Suggested course of action? I'll definitely inform the seller that I know he sold me a fake (he has a 100% approval rating on eBay; was he duped too?), but my son says if I mail it back to him he'll just resell it to another unsuspecting schmuck. My son (an Army vet) suggests we take it out of circulation, and that I give it to him to use as a "beater" EDC. Opinions?

Idea to take out of circulation and make a beater sounds good, but I am afraid that it will not work. First of all there are thousands of fakes. one more of less will not change anything. Second, steel on fakes usually really bad. If you son need a beater, probably buck from walmart will be much better. If seller will take it back for full refund, I would check what else he is selling and sold. If you see more fakes, I would post negative or neutral feedback commenting on selling fakes. If he wouldn't want to return money, you still can get them back through dispute.
Good Luck

Send it back for a refund and tarnish the blackguards' name!

The Deacon wrote:IMHO, if you keep it, and use it, you're part of the problem. Report the seller to eBay and get a refund under their buyer protection program. Most times, they will not ask you to return the knife but, if they do, break it first. Otherwise, break it and toss it in the trash.

+1

The Deacon wrote:IMHO, if you keep it, and use it, you're part of the problem. Report the seller to eBay and get a refund under their buyer protection program. Most times, they will not ask you to return the knife but, if they do, break it first. Otherwise, break it and toss it in the trash.

I agree, also it might be a good idea to take some really good photo's of the knife, box, any paperwork and note down the sellers details and send it to Spyderco. Sal might be able to do something about it through his lawyers.

Just wondering, don't you have some type of consumer protection agency in the US? Where I come from people who sell fake goods can be reported and enforcement officers will visit and confiscate fake goods with a court order. Is it not some type of Federal fraud to knowingly send fake goods accross State lines?

I find it silly how many of the counterfeit sellers on eBay have obviously fraudulent 100% positive ratings.

Jeremy_A_Neel wrote:I find it silly how many of the counterfeit sellers on eBay have obviously fraudulent 100% positive ratings.

^^ This ^^

I'm not sure what happened to the eBay rating system...admittedly, I was amazed at the time, but it actually used to work pretty well 8-10 years ago, maybe even more recently than that. Now it's just gamed by scammers like pretty much everything else. I guess eBay just jumped the shark and stopped caring? Or whatever automated processes they had for managing the system in the past couldn't keep up with their growth? Too bad, really.

Oh well, I'd rather support small USA businesses (local shops and online sellers with their own sites) with my purchases anyway.

In any case, to CaptainTim: You should definitely report the seller and try to get negative feedback published, even if it is just a tiny dent in their armor, at least it's something.

Don't break it, they can try to counter you with that. You may not be able to completely rule out that the seller didn't know it was fake. Report it, give negative feedback and be specific that they sold you a fake, and that should be enough.

Given the growing counterfeit problem, perhaps Forum members should make it a habit to subject their eBay prospects to the Forum's informed scrutiny, even at risk of alerting all to a good deal,

Was the price way less than you would pay at trustworthy shops?

Two words:


Reputable dealers.


Yeah, some ebay seller may have 5k sales and 99.9999% positive feedback, but still the chances that more than one of us forum folks buy from the same person is pretty slim. Now, if it were ________ online knife retailer....take your pick from any of the usual big name places that do exclusives and such, and they sell you a fake, word is going to spread around all the forum communities and it's going to hurt them a lot more than the 1 negative feedback that the ebayer gets. Everyone is trying to stretch their knife money as far as they can, but sometimes you have to pay a little more for peace of mind.

wrdwrght wrote:Given the growing counterfeit problem, perhaps Forum members should make it a habit to subject their eBay prospects to the Forum's informed scrutiny, even at risk of alerting all to a good deal,

...Or just stop buying "too good to be true" knife deals on ebay.

There are plenty of trustworthy dealers out there to buy knives from for a good price. No need to risk ending up with, and financially supporting sellers of, a fake knife just to save $10.

There are a few dealers on Ebay I would trust, but I would never buy a PM2 from any place other than a reputable dealer. At this point there are probably more fake PM2s available for sale than genuine ones.

As far as getting burned, report it to Ebay. I did it with a watch that was misrepresented. They will give you your money back and a prepaid package to send it back with (unfortunately I didn't know that and dropped the watch off in the mail at my own expense.) I definitely would not break the knife before sending it back... that is just asking for the whole thing to go on longer than it should.

Evil D wrote:Two words:


Reputable dealers.


Yeah, some ebay seller may have 5k sales and 99.9999% positive feedback, but still the chances that more than one of us forum folks buy from the same person is pretty slim. Now, if it were ________ online knife retailer....take your pick from any of the usual big name places that do exclusives and such, and they sell you a fake, word is going to spread around all the forum communities and it's going to hurt them a lot more than the 1 negative feedback that the ebayer gets. Everyone is trying to stretch their knife money as far as they can, but sometimes you have to pay a little more for peace of mind.

What David said, a hundred times. Support the good guys.

I got burned on a fake black G10 UKPK some time ago. I couldn't in good conscience keep it and use it (even as a beater), but I also didn't want to return it to the seller to be sold again, so I packaged it up and mailed it to Spyderco so that they could dispose of it properly.

Johnnie1801 wrote: Just wondering, don't you have some type of consumer protection agency in the US? Where I come from people who sell fake goods can be reported and enforcement officers will visit and confiscate fake goods with a court order. Is it not some type of Federal fraud to knowingly send fake goods accross State lines?

Probably the most suitable agency here in the U.S. would be the Postal Inspectors Service; however, I'm not sure how seriously they would take a case like this. They work more diligently at ID Theft than this kind of thing.

When I bought one the seller returned the money as soon as I realized it was a fake and opened a conversation with him. My wife has had to go through ebay to get refunded on fake jewelry she has bought. I returned the knife to the seller because I didn't want anything to do with it once I had my money back plus it came back in time to get a horseman so i felt that was a win. In my wife's case ebay told her she could keep the jewelry and do whatever she wanted to do with it. Ebay's dispute center is usually quite efficient in dealing with the situations.

I just did an Ebay search for "Spyderco Paramilitary" and limited the results to sold items. There are several sellers who seem to be moving a suspicious amount of volume considering the limited stock allocated to even the most reputable dealers...