Vendors selling fake stuff

[Bobsbeer]

Came across this list put out by Aspire showing the list of vendors selling fake Aspire stuff and recently updated.  Some well known names on that list, and some of the vendors are on this board.  Check out this list. forums.aspirecig.com/discussion/19938/aspire-copycat-list

[tomj777]

Hmm...
They only list six stores / etailers for the UK as selling fakes.
It looks like some of the list is generated from an Aspire employee cross-checking against user questions...

You can see who the authorised vendors in the UK are here:
www.aspirecig.com/business-partners/UK/

However, given that there is only six, I find myself wondering where vendors buying wholesale from www.ecigaspire.co.uk/ fit within this copycat list...

It's feasible that Aspirecig limited UK is holding a list of all they sell wholesale so companies can be added to a secondary authorised list which the employee is cross referencing against. However, I find myself wondering if grey importers (say, purchasing from one of their authorised Chinese firms at local prices) are counted as counterfeit (because those folks will upset pricing agreements).

Tricky stuff.

[robby]

It has been shown a few times that some vendors appear on the lists because they have bought through a third party/distributer. I wouldn`t take it as gospel that someone on the various lists is selling fakes, it`s not cut and dried

[robby]

Fasttech used to do it and probably still do

[lisburnvapes]

Fake -clone-copy ........ Whatever you want to call it, we've been buying clones for years, why get our g strings in a twist about it now ? Lol
All a bit melodramatic in my opinion

[tomj777]

Oct 23, 2015 11:40:17 GMT lisburnvapes said:

Fake -clone-copy ........ Whatever you want to call it, we've been buying clones for years, why get our g strings in a twist about it now ? Lol
All a bit melodramatic in my opinion

Well, for those in the know, yes.

But I found myself worrying myself about 18 months ago so I see where Bob was coming from.

Only a couple of months I felt alarmed when I wasn't sure if the Sony 18650's were real or not as I'd purchased from a trusted vendor (I opened a thread here on the subject). For what it's worth, they are.  

[Bobsbeer]

I wonder how 'authentic' some of this stuff is? I figure that 'style' means copy, but at least they are being open about it. I have bought 'styled' stuff and don't have a problem with it. Sometimes it's shit other you wonder if it's the real thing. You pay your money and take a chance. I guess all this going on makes a mockery of the vendors that are legit and above board, or have scruples. I know there are culture differences, but at the end of the day honesty is honesty in any culture. How do you pick the honest ones?

[robby]

When it comes down to it, "authentic" is often shite. The only way to protect yourself is to find others who have bought the same one or wait for reviews

[Bobsbeer]

I suppose you have to question the authenticity of any product sold by a company on the list. Like you say they may be getting their supply via a third party, but why do this, if they are legit distributors of real authentic products? They either fell off the back of a lorry heading out of a real products factory, or some other back handed deal has taken place to dump the product onto the market.

To me it's more important to get products like coils, batteries etc from reputable distributors rather than take a chance on cheap shit put out by some of the businesses on the list and touted as 'authentic'. Many of which we seem to promote widely on this forum. Clearly many of these are running fast and loose with distributor agreements. One company (not on the list) for instance won't ship ELeaf products to the UK. I did ask them about that, and it turns out that ELeaf will not allow it, as ELeaf have an agreement with another company to supply to the UK. Now I am beginning to understand. I am either getting fake/copy/clones/knock off's/fell off the lorry, from the likes of Gearbest/Fasttech/eFun etc, or they are playing rough shod over the rules.

As a recent thread has highlighted. If I was to buy a X item and ended up with Y I would not be too happy. By the same token, I purchased two identical ELeaf 40w TC mods, one from GearBest, one from Fasttech. One has a serial number on the top, laser etched. The other has the word ELeaf etched in the same place and no serial number. Both have ELeaf and iStick printed on the side, and both work fine. Now I wonder if one or both are real.

By allowing ourselves to be ruled by price, we have entered a strange twilight world. Is any of this shit real?

[monty]

I've seen companies producing more comprehensive lists, breaking vendors list down by

• Selling copycats as copies
• Passing off copycats as the real thing
• Unauthorised dealers selling the real thing

More useful way to do things.

[Bobsbeer]

That would be a good way to do do it monty

[mowjo]

As long as I'm paying Clone prices and not paying full price for a Clone, I don't see a problem! most vendors sites say it's a clone or style, and as most of the big company's have all their production made in China because it's much cheaper, a lot of the clones being sold are being made by the same company's that produce them for the biggies, and they are coming off the same production line, in many cases the clone you buy is just a re-labeled genuine, I don't know if it's changed but there used to be a problem with copyright in China, and as long as it wasn't a domestic product it could be copied, quite a while back Honda tried to take the company that was building their generators to court, apart from the colour they looked and did exactly the same thing but all the technology was Hondas, the Honda generator was around £800 and the clone one £400 If I remember Honda lost the case and it cost the millions,,

Mow,,

[vapee]

There used to be a tonne of cloned ego batteries, I can't remember which company produced it first but eventually there were joyetech and a few others producing the "authentic" one and loads producing a copy or their own version. There was alot of vivi nova clones too, some were pretty good and way cheaper than the expensive £10 original hehe. I think the first ecigs were basically a clone of Han Lik's companys one, there was some law suit eventually about it but I don't think much happened, maybe it wasnt patented at the time or some other confusion.

[djs]

Let's face it. Aspire want to fix their prices so they are "doing a joyetech" by calling everyone under the sun fake sellers. They are probably right about the 116 Chinese shops however.

[smokingaces]

Oct 23, 2015 15:51:18 GMT Bobsbeer said:

I suppose you have to question the authenticity of any product sold by a company on the list. Like you say they may be getting their supply via a third party, but why do this, if they are legit distributors of real authentic products? They either fell off the back of a lorry heading out of a real products factory, or some other back handed deal has taken place to dump the product onto the market.

To me it's more important to get products like coils, batteries etc from reputable distributors rather than take a chance on cheap shit put out by some of the businesses on the list and touted as 'authentic'. Many of which we seem to promote widely on this forum. Clearly many of these are running fast and loose with distributor agreements. One company (not on the list) for instance won't ship ELeaf products to the UK. I did ask them about that, and it turns out that ELeaf will not allow it, as ELeaf have an agreement with another company to supply to the UK. Now I am beginning to understand. I am either getting fake/copy/clones/knock off's/fell off the lorry, from the likes of Gearbest/Fasttech/eFun etc, or they are playing rough shod over the rules.

As a recent thread has highlighted. If I was to buy a X item and ended up with Y I would not be too happy. By the same token, I purchased two identical ELeaf 40w TC mods, one from GearBest, one from Fasttech. One has a serial number on the top, laser etched. The other has the word ELeaf etched in the same place and no serial number. Both have ELeaf and iStick printed on the side, and both work fine. Now I wonder if one or both are real.

By allowing ourselves to be ruled by price, we have entered a strange twilight world. Is any of this shit real?

correct Eleaf won't supply UK and this also go's for Joyetech and Wismec, all are part of the the same group, and have a deal with totally wicked to be sole supplier for Uk, I have order these items from Chinese vendors and checked with  scratch code which identifies as authentic. Lets be truthful like of some of these big vendors like Gearbest, fastech plus others orders 1000's of units are Eleaf going to turn this volume of sales down? no there not and maybe they do tell the vendors not to supply UK but in reality they will turn a blind eye, the power of money has that effect.
Now as for aspire this will be the same, I have seen cloned aspire tanks and they are shite, and I have seen stuff from fastech which I believe to be genuine,as for the coils I have genuine ones and cloned ones, get better vape from the clones oh and please remember the issue with aspire coils where some consumers were getting shit from the filter in there mouth.