# Ever bought a counterfeit product? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592 "2014-09-26T03:49:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/42 "2014-10-01T02:59:45Z")
Are you kidding? I live in Thailand. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/43 "2014-10-01T03:01:53Z")
Not _sure_ it was a counterfeit, but I bought a supposedly OEM charger for my MacBook Pro from Amazon and after a few months it got so hot that the plastic discolored and it stopped being able to charge the laptop. I didn’t bother to dissect it, but I’m reasonably sure that the innards were not 100% Apple. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/44 "2014-10-01T03:46:26Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > How badly did it turn out if you did? I once bought a SATA- USB transfer cable on Amazon to back up my friend’s computer. It was some brand I had never heard of, but I never thought brands mattered for cables. It melted and burned the first time I ever used it, and killed his hard drive. You got a bad cable. Absent statistics, I wouldn’t assume there was any greater chance of this occurring with a name or no-name cable. > [@DCnDC](#): > > There’s a lot of bait-and-switch with small electronics and related items on amazon. Always check where it’s coming from; if it’s shipping from Asia, you’re probably not getting what’s in the picture. I buy cheap electronics bits and pieces from China all the time. It’s rare that the items don’t work and I’ve never bought anything that didn’t look just like the picture on ebay. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/45 "2014-10-01T03:48:20Z")
Yep, Rolex, Birkenstocks, VHS tapes( back in the day of Middle East, and sEAsia ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/46 "2014-10-01T09:34:46Z")
I recall back when cassette tapes were the norm. I bought a bootleg version of Pink Floyd’s _The Wall_ on the street in Bangkok. Listed among the songs was not “Comfortably Numb” but rather “Come for Tabby Numb.” ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/47 "2014-10-02T00:16:48Z")
The company I worked for 1998-2000, that specialised in supplying computer systems to the (UK) police, was discovered to have been installing counterfeit Microsoft software on their systems. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1373202/Counterfeit-software-installed-on-all-police-computers.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1373202/Counterfeit-software-installed-on-all-police-computers.html) They went bust and we all lost our jobs. As I recall the systems all worked ok though. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/48 "2014-10-02T00:34:45Z")
I’ve bought one of the knockoff $5 caps the guys sell outside major league ballparks. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/49 "2014-10-02T21:41:16Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > I got 3 Rolex watches for $50, they might have been fakes. Do you have proof, or is it just a gut feeling? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592/50 "2014-10-05T15:45:54Z")
> [@simple\_homer](#): > > I live in China. The land of the fake Oreo, and fake everything else. At least the foreign-brand restaurants are real, although the meat they sell may not be! I’m fairly confident that the wine I buy in Metro is real. I remember a very honest vendor in Mexico once. I wanted a fake Rolex, and she kept telling me, “this is a Rolex style watch” without indicating that it was a Rolex. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-bought-a-counterfeit-product/699592.md?page=2)