Once, while taking the Queens-Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan, I paid with a $20, and the cashier gave my my change, but motioned a cop over. He showed me that the two halves of the bill had two different serial numbers. He asked me where I got it, and I answered truthfully that I got it at my bank. I don’t know whether this qualified as a “counterfeit,” but they were acting like it was. I also don’t know why someone would tape one side onto the other; there wasn’t any visible slice removed. Anyway, the cop took down my license number and let me go.
I got both an Omega and Rolex on Canal Street over 5 years ago, and both are working just fine. I do wish they were a little more “fake” though. I only occasionally wear them, so the “perpetual motion” doesn’t keep going in my drawer. It gets slightly irritating to set the watches each time I wear them.
I kinda wish my fake Rolecks and Omeegas used batteries.
I bought my SO a purse at a large dept store which she promptly identified as a fake. They took it back without a problem. I paid the non fake price.
I once got a fake Gucci belt. I knew it was fake, but I wore it for a few years. The buckle broke far too soon.
I bought a fake set of Constructicons back in the early 00’s. Within a year Devastator had basically fallen apart all on his own just standing there. Fake Ruination fared much better though, and actually looks more like the real one than what was officially released, though feels very cheap.
My printer just informed me that I was not using genuine HP ink. I had to assure it I wanted to print anyway.
I bought Photoshop on eBay so I could have it at home for my college Photoshop class. It turned out to be exactly the same crack I’d been using.
I also just stumbled on the fact that the copy of Office 2013 that came with my current computer is counterfeit. I stumbled upon an activation hack. Bit concerned about the OS now, too.
I live in China. The land of the fake Oreo, and fake everything else.
I bought a T-shirt outside of an Iron Maiden concert sometime in the 80’s. Didn’t realize that it said IROM MAIDEN on the front. I paid $10 for a $20 shirt, I still have and wear it. No one notices. It was probably an irregular that was supposed to be discarded, but someone stole and sold them, although it may have been a straight up conterfeit.
I recently bought a counterfeit perfume off of ebay from seller gregpants. I was encouraged by the fact that he had 100% feedback from over 1500 ebay users. When I received my item, the color was wrong, the ribbon was cheap&frayed, engraving on the top was off, the bottle shape was weird and the biggest giveaway was the visible and crooked tubing inside. I returned it and got a full refund, and tried to leave negative feedback, but ebay appears to be protecting this seller for some reason and keeps removing all his neutral or negative feedback. You can read the full story here, with pics of the counterfeit item in the link inside: Sign in or Register | eBay
Funny this topic came up as this just happened to me. I wish there was something I could do so ebay wouldn’t keep letting this guy sell counterfeit items from china town passed off as expensive perfumes. 
Guess what happens when you buy from a non-authorized seller of anything.
Not sure why the rude and hostile response.
Counterfeit items are not allowed on ebay, knowingly or unknowingly, and I don’t understand why you are insinuating that receiving a counterfeit item is the automatic, deserved result of using the site.
I bought a bunch of “albums” on fake cassette in the middle east when I was a kid. I think they were labeled “Sahara Original” and music stores (in Oman and Bahrain at least) essentially sold nothing else. Some were actual albums (I still have an Iron Maiden Fear of the Dark cassette knocking around in a box someplace) and some were essentially random “greatest hits” compilations. There was a lot of software sold the same way; I have a copy of Warcraft II and the expansion pack left over from those days.
I also have some Singapore “Rolexes” somewhere. They were impressively well made; they even had (or mimicked) the “perpetual” second hand movement.
Alternate thread title: Ever shop at Wal*Mart ?
I can’t decide if I’m getting more paranoid in my old age, but I honestly don’t know whether I only have access to counterfeits, or if there is no quality manufacturing anymore. I refuse to go to Wal*Mart, in part because I felt they were hawking sub-par name-brand, or outright counterfeit stuff (clothing & electronics mostly). Turns out, it doesn’t seem to matter where I buy a pair of New Balance, they disintegrate within 3-4 months. Belt loops pop off my Levi’s. Computer hardware fails within months–the retailer often just dealing with the warranty work until the warranty expires leaving me with a brick, which I replace with a new brick.
Bought some “hash” in Washington Square Park late one night. Turns out it wasn’t. Lesson learned.
I’ve lived in or traveled around Asia for the majority of the time since I first came in the early 80s. However, most of the time was in Japan so not as much as someone who would have lived in China or HK. The most expensive was a fake Callaway driver, which came with a counterfeit holograph. A friend bought it in China from place which claimed it was made at the same factory as the real ones, but I doubt it. I bought it off the friend because it worked for me.
I have a wallet that I bought at a street festival a couple years ago. It’s got a Prada emblem on it, but since I paid $15 for it, I have to presume it’s fake. It’s a pretty darn good-quality wallet for $15, though. Some of the other counterfeits they had sprinkled in among the knockoffs were some pretty cheap-looking shit.
Knowingly, I don’t think so. However, I may have unwittingly bought a counterfeit set of Apple Macintosh ROM chips about 25 years ago; they were for a Mac emulator for my Atari ST computer (“the first computer with 1 MB RAM for under $1000”).
Yup, off of ebay. Was looking for a Sony Ericsson bluetooth headset (DS-980), and there was one for sale about 40% cheaper. So I figured “Sweet!” and bought it. Didn’t notice till after that it was from Hong Kong. Figured, “Feh, whatevs they build them over there somewhere anyways”.
Got the headset, looked like the pic, worked, but only so-so tinny audio, so-so voice, kept dropping pairing… couldn’t figure out why, until I started researching and learned that there were people counterfeiting these! I was all “No way!, Why would anyone counterfeit something so esoteric and small marketish!” But did the photo comparison and yup, I’d bought a fake unit. And this thing looked really close, like really close to authentic, there was a tiny difference in a piece of logo plastic, and that was about it externally.
Bought another one from a legit source (at full price) and the difference in quality was night and day. I’d never really seen the difference first hand before.
You can see some photos here… it’s really impressive how close the knockoffs are externally.
http://www.esato.com/archive/t.php/t-137266,s-150,1.html
So it cost me a little to learn two lessons, A) Be VERY careful about buying anything from Hong Kong generally and via ebay specifically. B) There is a real difference between counterfeits and the real thing in terms of quality and materials used. You may think you’re getting a steal, but the only one really getting stolen from, is you.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Via Ebay, I bought a “set script” for the movie Titanic (i.e., an actual script used on the movie set) and wasn’t entirely surprised to find that it was the movie transcribed word-for-word with some stage directions thrown in.