LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

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King6
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LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by King6 » Sat Aug 16, 2014 4:54 am

Hello everybody :)

I guess you all aware to those Chines counterfeit LEGO that flooding the market in the past year, especially on eBay & Amazon.

I always liked to buy my favorite LEGO sets & figures at eBay, but nowadays searching for genuine LEGO product on eBay become such hassle cause just writing the word "LEGO" at the search will give you at least 50 first pages that all full of those Chines fakes! at the beginning those Chinese companies only made counterfeit figs but now they also making counterfeit full sets...Not taking about the case that if you want to sell your second hand used figs it's almost impossible cause it will be just to hard to find it at the search result due to all of the Chines spamming...

Any way, because of this annoying situation, i contact LEGO and explained the current situation, and this is their respond to me:
"Dear John,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.

We are very lucky to have such a big LEGO® fans who let us know about issues like this.

It is definitely not in our interest either when people sell illegal copies of LEGO brand toys. Unfortunately it is difficult for us to monitor all the products that are sold online, however with the help of such loyal LEGO fans, we can try to keep the number of 'fake' LEGO toys to a minimum.

I have forwarded the links you have sent me to the teams in charge and asked them to review them.

Thanks a lot John for informing us! "

I checked couple of days after and saw that all the list pages that i sent to them were removed by eBay.
So at bottom line they encourage anyone who sees a fake LEGO list page on ebay&Amazon that will contact them and report the link to them and they will take action in order to remove it.

In addition i contact about this with eBay, and they also told me that they are well aware to this sensitive matter, and all customers need to do when they sees a list of counterfeit LEGO, is to enter that list and use the "report item" that located at each sell list on eBay, and to report it as a counterfeit item.

I also did it and after couple of days eBay removed all of those lists also.

So the simplest way to fight in those Chines counterfeit is just to report each list on eBay and they will take action to remove it (of course as more reports that gets about each list, the action will be faster)

Hope that this important info was helpful :))
Best regards!

SEK527
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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by SEK527 » Sat Aug 16, 2014 5:05 am

I don't buy LEGO through eBay, but thanks to your post I'll try to follow your example & look for counterfeit products to report.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by stevebuscemi » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:26 pm

Maybe TLG shouldn't produce authentic brand LEGO in China? They have factories all over China.

Also eBay won't do anything when you "report" an auction. I've never seen them take down an auction I've reported. Maybe if 1,000 people do it might work, but eBay is notorious for being a haven for fakes. eBay just wants it's fees and to make it's quarterly numbers.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by melsig » Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:47 pm

We were in Chicago's Chinatown a few weeks ago during a summer festival (basically a street fair), and I saw several fake Ninjago sets being offered for sale - first time I've ever seen them in person.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by peanut » Thu Aug 21, 2014 11:35 am

I use the button on eBay to report counterfeit superhero 'minifigures' from China all the time and never once have I seen the listing pulled. :-| eBay isn't liable for /anything/ due to the fact they aren't the ones actually selling the counterfeits, which is why they pretty much enable and encourage the thousands and thousands of counterfeit items sold. I never use Amazon but I'm guessing it's the same situation.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by dulait » Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:40 pm

stevebuscemi wrote:Maybe TLG shouldn't produce authentic brand LEGO in China? They have factories all over China.

Also eBay won't do anything when you "report" an auction. I've never seen them take down an auction I've reported. Maybe if 1,000 people do it might work, but eBay is notorious for being a haven for fakes. eBay just wants it's fees and to make it's quarterly numbers.
Yes they should not make stuff in China, EVERYTHING get counterfitted there. But big companies are not stupid either, they did their math. With the wages of 1 person in North America, they could hire 10 in China or India. Simply the profit from producing in china out weight the down side for now.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by marigirls » Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:19 am

I recently sold a few of my older sets on ebay like within the past two to three weeks and every single buyer was of Asian descent. I don't want to offend anyone but just my opinion, when Chinese start to counterfeit any product that product goes down the drain and becomes worthless. They started with Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Adobe products, you name it, all have become worthless.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by LegoImagination » Tue Dec 02, 2014 3:06 pm

I haven't done any shopping on eBay. So how can you tell if it is fake LEGO? Is it obvious, like the box is completely different? Maybe a picture would help me understand.

Since they make them in China, I am surprised there aren't more fakes. China is not known for cracking down on things like this.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by Umbra-Manis » Tue Dec 02, 2014 3:17 pm

The brick show has a video about spotting them.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by StClair » Tue Dec 02, 2014 4:44 pm

I agree with what others have said.. I doubt Ebay has any interest in taking action. Honestly I even considered buying a counterfeit LEGO Hulk-like figure because it was cheap and honestly as a gift for a young child i wouldn't have mattered if it was a counterfeit or not to me (same basic mold but different character.. Cant remember what it was).

I recently bought my first GoodSmile action figure for my son (Sonic the Hedgehog Nendoroid) and it was really frustrating trying to determine it the figure was a knock off or not (both on Ebay or Amazon) because it was such an expensive figure (about $50) and the quality really mattered because the counterfeits have parts that come off much too easily. I finally found a good deal from an Ebay seller that was friendly and had excellent feedback. I messaged him and explained the situation... expensive figure and my son would be using it for stop animation so it needed to be the real deal. I took the chance and made the transaction. I also recently purchased a GoodSmile Figma Link (Legend of Zelda) on Amazon. It too was expensive and was unsure of the quaility but I took a chance. It hasn't arrived in the mail yet. Counterfeit toy makers do make things frustrating.


General tips:
As a general rule I try to avoid sellers (both Amazon and Ebay) from China especially if the price is really cheap.
Some knock off LEGO minifigures look slightly different. I've seen some that have feet that are shaped differently than official LEGO minifigs (slight tapering of towards the toes).
If it looks like a "stock" photo of several different minifigs (hard to explain) I sometimes have a strong hunch its a counterfeit (especially if from China).
Many counterfeit minifigures that I've seen on ebay have strange choice of weapons and/or accessories (maybe Green Arrow with sword) which makes me suspicious.

I break apart a few sets and sell certain minifigs or parts that I don't need or want. I ALWAYS take my own photo's with a small handwritten slip of paper with my username in the bottom corner of the photo below the items to ensure that they are not stock photo's so that customers are certain of the product being offered. I also state clearly that item is as shown and that they are not "stock" photo's.

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by JustBrickin » Wed Dec 03, 2014 9:09 pm

Hi everyone! This caught my eye. So I actually bought counterfeit LEGO on accident on eBay from a guy in China. I got a set of Ninja turtles for $7 on bid. Of course I was happy. I recieve them and they're sealed in a plastic I know TLG doesn't use. Then I see that they require stickers for stuff like the pizza piece and then I know it's fake. Also,the pieces aren't perfectly made. They tend to have extra plastic hanging from each piece. The studs also do not have the word LEGO on them, nor does the "instructions" it came with. So I go back on eBay to see this item I bought and notice it doesn't have the word LEGO on the listing to begin with. So partially my fault but it shouldn't have shown up under LEGO anyways.

Then, recently, I started going to some collectible store that has all sorts of things like baseball cards, TCGs, action figures, and LEGO. It's kind of like a swap meet, but in a building. I find out some guy happens to have a bunch of minifigs for sale, including figures like Dragon Ball Z which have never been released by LEGO as far as I'm concerned. So I know they're fakes right away. The worst part is that he sells each fig for $5 and everyone believes it's real LEGO, so people keep coming back for more. And if that seller buys them on eBay, he's making hardcore profit, as you can win many counterfeits at once for only a dollar. It's ridiculous. If you want to buy a legit minifig on ebay, make sure you see the word LEGO in the listing. That way, you can guarantee a refund if it's fake.

Hope this helps.
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condor
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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by condor » Mon Dec 08, 2014 11:17 am

I thought about buying some of the counterfeit figs for my son, but I'm worried about quality control. Obviously, they don't care as much as Lego does so who knows if what they're using to make these figures. Do you guys remember that whole lead paint scare?

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by jimmy89 » Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:13 am

condor wrote:I thought about buying some of the counterfeit figs for my son, but I'm worried about quality control. Obviously, they don't care as much as Lego does so who knows if what they're using to make these figures. Do you guys remember that whole lead paint scare?
im remember it, i dont let my kid play with a "unsafe,toxic,poisonous,illegal,immoral" toy "made in china"....all over Image

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byobu
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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by byobu » Sun Jan 11, 2015 12:56 am

Fake Ninjago, each box is $3.99
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condor
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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by condor » Fri Jan 16, 2015 7:40 am

That's pretty crazy. What store was that at?

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Re: LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

Post by SSchmidt » Fri Jan 23, 2015 11:52 pm

I bought some of these out of curiosity and the quality was absolutely awful. I also felt like I was cheating on my wife lol.

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