[Bencrest]

This probably won't make a lot of sense. After all, I'm a pretty 'seasoned' trader, and am so anal about things that I'd spot a fake of any goods a mile off, and the tell-tale signs attached to auctions for fakes (right now, a seller on eBay has 3+ pairs of Bose headphones, all conveniently 'used, but mint', all just 'headphones and pouch', all 99p start price... not to mention the stacks of fake Sony V700 / V900 they also have!)
 
I've never bought a pair of fake headphones, nor do I think I would because I'm pretty savvy - but I can see how easy it is for people to do so. I've been tempted to try some higher end Sony closed-back models - and I don't think there is a single *genuine* pair on the whole of eBay UK. They are all clearly fakes, many sold without packaging (just headphones, pouch and 3.5mm>6.3mm adapter), or at unrealistic prices from China.
 
Why am I so annoyed, if I don't buy fakes?
 
Well, one thing that really annoys me, is lack of action from the manufacturers. Love it or hate it, eBay has a HUGE userbase. How difficult would it be, for Sony, Bose, Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, or one of the other 'easily-faked' brands, to buy a pair from one of the incredibly dubious sellers, and then request from eBay removal of the items / seller accounts?
 
I love Sony (my PFR-V1 were crazy), Sennheiser (3x pairs of HD650, 1x pair of HD600, 1 x pair of PX100, 1x pair of CX500, 2x pairs of HD595, 1x pair of HD215), Audio Technica (2x pairs of ATH-A900) cans... but please...
 
STICK UP FOR YOUR BRANDS, AND STOP LETTING DECENT PEOPLE WASTE MONEY ON FAKES. THE MORE FAKES ENTER THE MARKET, THE MORE YOUR REPUTATION WILL SUFFER WHEN PEOPLE END UP WITH POOR SOUNDING, FRAGILE PLASTIC KNOCK-OFFS.
 
Sure, the factories will keep churning fakes out, but at least try and keep them off eBay / e-commerce websites. I'd gladly offer my services if required, because it is my hobby which ultimately suffers.

 

[violinvirtuoso]

I never understood why companies allowed these either. The good thing is sales here on Head-Fi are generally legitimate.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Excellent rant

 

[kingtz]

Close down one ebay seller and 3 more will spring up the next day. It probably more worthwhile for the likes of Sennheiser and Sony to go after the manufacturers of these fakes, rather than the sellers.
 
Anyway, I buy from Amazon. I try and avoid Ebay like the plague. At least on Amazon, they have a verifiable list of sellers selling a particular item, and they state whether each seller is authorized or not.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

There have been reports of fake headphones on Amazon as well. i have bought most of my headphones off ebay without any issues as to their originality. The site to check out is fakeheadphones.com.
 
http://fakeheadphones.com/

 

[Bencrest]

Quote:

I never understood why companies allowed these either. The good thing is sales here on Head-Fi are generally legitimate.

I can't see either. I am a perfectionist by nature (ultimately my downfall, because I have a strong 'give it 100% or don't bother' mentality, which I'm unable to deal with). If I make something, it must be absolutely flawless. I can't tolerate my name being tarnished - therefore, if I had a business, and I knew others were de-valuing me or my products through selling shoddy goods with my name on, I would do everything I could to remove those products from the marketplace.
 
Quote:

Excellent rant

Ta, been a seriously stressful afternoon at work, and needed to vent about something. Not being able to find a genuine closed pair of Sony cans on eBay pushed me over the edge!
 
(sipping on a few bottles of Banana Bread Beer seems to help - but I don't remember the banana flavour being quite so... artificial?)
 
Quote:

Close down one ebay seller and 3 more will spring up the next day. It probably more worthwhile for the likes of Sennheiser and Sony to go after the manufacturers of these fakes, rather than the sellers.
 
Anyway, I buy from Amazon. I try and avoid Ebay like the plague. At least on Amazon, they have a verifiable list of sellers selling a particular item, and they state whether each seller is authorized or not.

Well, how difficult can that really be? I mean, if you keep chasing through the chain of supply, you *will* get to the source. It just smacks of the manufacturers getting complacent, or perhaps not caring about their customers at all - lets face it, many people will not realise they are fakes, and will just assume 'These (insert brand here) headphones are terrible!! Why did I waste my money on them?!'
 
One of the fake sellers I spotted first has over 2000+ feedback, something like 99% positive - just because buyers are clueless that their headphones are fake. At least by shutting the accounts, and making people start from scratch, people might be a bit more suspicious (due to the lower feedback), and hopefully buy from a reputable seller? It wouldn't be a decent result, but would at least show willingness from the manufacturers to address the problem.
 
Amazon Marketplace is absolutely rife with fakes - I don't touch it for anything I know to be faked (memory cards, headphones, e.t.c. - I doubt Amazon themselves sell fakes, just their trusted third-party resellers)

 

[Hughtonk]

Top-notch rant. The worst example of this I have seen was someone buying a fake from an independent seller on amazon, that in itself a worrying state of affairs, they then proceeded to give the product a terrible review due to their anger which will, in turn, be read by someone else who is interested in legitimately buying the product and will be discouraged.
 
"I'd gladly offer my services if required, because it is my hobby which ultimately suffers." - An ebay headphone police perhaps? Sign me up!
 
My other issue with fakes is that due to the sheer number of them one has to waste a huge amount of time searching through these sites to find a particular piece of equipment that is actually the genuine article - very tedious.

 

[gdeth]

to shut down companies that make these counterfeits, you'd have to shut down china... how realistic is that?  ebay?  how about organized crime?
 
not only is it NOT easy to shut these guys down, it would also make the cost of headphones double due to companies spending (wasting?) money policing them.

 

[violinvirtuoso]

^ I think that is a little racist. I mean I get your point, but to shut down all of China? Head-Direct is Chinese, and they make excellent products.

 

[joelpearce]

I bet much of the manufacturing doesn't happen in China, either.  There are some countries that don't respect International copyright law, and it's virtually impossible for companies to go after the plants where illegal goods are produced.
 
If you think we have problems with illegal goods here, I bet it's insanely rampant in some parts of the world.
 
I'm not trying to show racism towards any of these countries.  If it were profitable to run that kind of manufacturing plant here, it would happen here, too.

 

[Thommohawk]

 
Quote:

Well, one thing that really annoys me, is lack of action from the manufacturers. Love it or hate it, eBay has a HUGE userbase. How difficult would it be, for Sony, Bose, Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, or one of the other 'easily-faked' brands, to buy a pair from one of the incredibly dubious sellers, and then request from eBay removal of the items / seller accounts?
 

That's the problem, if they were to do this it would be easy for the dubious sellers to startup a new account and carry on selling dubious goods, thus the manufacturers would be forever going around in circles and losing money on a fruitless excercise - so they look at it as imitation being the best form of flattery lol and much more to the point it's not really down to them to actively police the hunting of fakes as much as it's down to you the end user to spot one before you buy it. Responsibilities and all that. 
 
That's a little bit like the 18 or M rated games argument, end of the day it's stickered for a reason and it's down to the parent to use some responsibility and police what their kids play when they're at home instead of complaining when stuff goes wrong or these court cases that do nothing but waste public money which could have been much better served in areas that desperately need it. Can't watch your kids 24/7 so they're bound to play games rated way outside their age and not suitable, like I used to, so instead stick to firm right&wrong morals and then it matters not what your child watches or plays because they know the difference in right & wrong and real life and what's just a movie. IMHO.

 

[shnitz]

violin, it's not racist, it's true.  Most, if not all, of the fake manufacturing plants are in China.  Example:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/492189/fake-jvc-fx500-is-here-photos-inside
Note the country of manufacture.  I mean, they even copy whole cars unabashedly, and there's nothing the companies can do to protect intellectual property:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_industry_in_China#Copying_claims
You can buy parts from the original and directly swap them with the fake!
 
Plus, why do you think all of the impossibly-low priced headphones are from sellers in China?  You think they're being manufactured in Switzerland and Italy and then shipped to China to be sold?
 
Also, gdeth's right.  A company can't reasonably be expected to go after fake sellers all the time.  The resources that this would take will drive headphone costs through the roof.  Would you feel like finding a deal and buying HD650 for "only" $900?  Plus, it won't make a lick of difference in many cases, considering that there are places that don't care about copyright law, like CHINA and southeast Asia, to name some places.  Even just shutting down an ebay seller would be hard.  Tell ebay that someone's selling fake headphones, and he'll just claim that he doesn't know they're fake.  He'll point to the hundreds of happy customers, so maybe yours was an isolated incident.
 
Last, OP, instead of ranting on a forum, why don't you call the headphone manufacturers and tell them this?  "Hello, Sony? Yes, I'm trying to buy a pair of headphones for the lowest possible price, potentially through an ebayer that is circumventing your distribution channels.  Do you mind spending your resources to make sure that when I find an unbelievably low price, it is valid?"
Sony: "Why sure Mr. Bencrest.  We don't mind you treating our wholsale buyer electronics stores like dirt, let us get right on that."
 
I'll wait here

 

[Landis]

Quote:

I never understood why companies allowed these either. The good thing is sales here on Head-Fi are generally legitimate.

Companies by no means allow this, in fact, it's very much illegal. However, shutting down China is just not an option.
 
 
OP, my advice is that you should spend a little extra money to buy your products from a reputable source or just be patient and wait for a pair of whatever you're looking for to come up on the FS forum from a reputable seller.