Fake parts are becoming a huge issue, I like Walbro fuel pumps but if you go to evilbay there's all kinds of fakes.
I was on the bird and saw that NGK spark plugs are being counterfeited.
The old adage if the price is to good to be true....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr9J3eQk-kE

Well one thing to look forward to. Those counterfeit items will soon jump 25% in cost.

I just find it crazy that they would counterfeit something as low value as spark plugs.

I see counterfeit fuel pumps all the time. In fact its REALLY hard to find a genuine Bosch 044 fuel pump...

My next project is to set up tools to counterfeit wooden nickels.

Fuck Amazon. Brick and mortar for me.

I was looking at razor blades and found that there where copies of Gillette’s them on Amazon.

I said screw it and got an electric razor.

Copies of my products have been a huge problem for my company. Patens and international trade marks have done nothing for me except having to made payments to lawyers all over the world.


Bob B

xxx

You got that wrong. xxx

OMG.........

If you live long enough or have been places.....eventually.........

You will say things that you will regret and will force you to become humble.
Maybe.

ALL OF THEM? Even my FP doctor?

One finds seemingly distasteful business practices everywhere.

... says the guy known for numerous poor business transactions. Doesn't AA even sell a lot of stuff made in China?

The problem isn't the Chinese.

The problem is one of mankind. There are always, and forever those that seek shortcuts to turn a fast buck.

For some that is outright theft from their neighbors. We call that person a thief.

Then there is the willingness to cheat and steal another man's intellectual property. We call that counterfeiting.

Other businesses go rent seeking from the Government in order to gain advantage over their competitors that are competing for your business in a market based economy. We call this crony capitalism.

And of course with the Government, it is the constant threat of violence. Give us your money or we will either kill you or put you in cage. Your choice of course, and, said with a smile. We call this taxation.

Absolute Capitalism corrupts absolutely, and the whole planet has figured out this sick system of greed. Even German made is not German anymore.

OMG I can't believe I'm sticking up for AA... but reproduction is OK as long as you state it's a repop. Without the repop parts we would be screwed.

But if you making euro lenses, with the hella logo and selling at a "deal" price and stating they are real Hella lenses then yes that would be totally wrong.

One of the reasons my Euro front turn signal lenses are not exact copies.

I just received my Bosch 044 fuel pump from Rock Auto.
The box is authentic, has a seal and ID numbers that are checked on the Bosch site. (that shows how bad this mess really is.).
However....
the seal was broken.
Now inside the pump looks 100% like the real deal. It's even in a bag that is embossed with Bosch and some other wording. So maybe it's right..

But, really if they are really going to go to all the effort to make it look right, couldn't they also make it work right too?

Off my soapbox...

Easier (cheaper) to make it look correct than to engineer and make proper tooling for tight tolerance parts. Unfortunately.



By the way if you sell on Amazon, part of the seller agreement is they can reverse engineer and make your product.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/ex...h_1791_cont_521

Not stealing if your dumb enough to agree to it.



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https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/r...mazon-customers


Amazon is utilizing the same data for launching its own private label brands. “The day we put the bike on sale, Amazon will start vacuuming up information about our customers, our margins, and the market’s potential. If it ever decides to get into the e-bike business, we’ll have hand-delivered all the data it needs to squash us,” wrote Thales S. Teixeira for the Harvard Business Review

I think the parts suppliers we all buy from should be required to make it clear the origin of the part. They are part of the problem

Wow, thanks for posting the spark plug video. Unfortunately I have that exact counterfeit spark plug in my subaru legacy gt. Its a real shame that its so hard to spot a counterfeit. They have been working pretty well though. Gona pull them and get a look at how they're holding up.

Yup,

Seen Amazon do it with the most benign products.

Year ago we bought a collapsible fabric dog crate. There were not many on the market at the time. It was novel. Light, easy to carry, didn't take up much space when traveling, . . . .it was very pricey.

Now Amazon basics has the same thing about 1/3 the price and pretty much only changed the color.

Price has been driven down which is a great thing for the consumer but maybe not so much for the person/company that innovated the original product if they weren't planning on Amazon doing this.

Double edge sword on many levels but that is the way market competition works. It works for the consumer by driving down prices. It works for the manufacturer that gets access to a market base and distribution network that could never have created for themselves so quickly. This has always been the case, if you have a good product someone will copy it. Patents are of little use or protection and always have been of limited value unless you had big $ to defend the Patent.

e-commerce is only serving to accelerate the process.