Counterfeit Bust

[J.D.]

Counterfeit guitar bust

 

[jrgtr42]

Another article about this bust.
US Customs seizes $158k of counterfeit guitars
So just to be clear, it says they were autographed guitars - so these were fake autographs on Chibsons and such? The only thing real is that they are guitars, though not of the brands on the headstock? Am |I right? The article wasn't 100% clear on that.

 

[renderit]

Here I thought it was aboot fake boobies...

 

[DutchRay]

I'm guessing the 'journalist' doesn't know sh*t about guitars and thinks a signature guitar is actually signed by the artist. These look like the horribly cheap chinese knockoffs we've all seen, the monterey & srv strat, the Ace, there's even an alvin lee es, these come from the guys who've been at it for years. Nowadays mostly beeing sold thru wish and alixpres, along with fake rolex watches and fake iPhones...

 

[brandtkronholm]

Here are a few close-up pictures from the lot.
They look very Chibsony indeed.

 

[ourmaninthenorth]

The thing is though, if people keep buying fakes, the fakers will keep making em.

The geography is an irrelevance.

Indeed some builders have become iconic in their own right, and instead of their output being an object of open derision are feted.

 

[deytookerjaabs]

The geography is an irrelevance.

I disagree. This isn't under the table small production stuff. These factories are above board, they have physical addresses, IP addresses to the reps and conduct business at scale. In these states, say one wrong thing over that IP and you'll have someone knocking on your door in hours. That's the reality here. Yet domestic policing of large production contraband is almost non-existent. It wouldn't be hard to do. I'm not making false equivalencies here, there's fraud everywhere in terms of geography but I'm saying this brand of fraud is known and intentionally not policed by it's hosts.

Look up "scam the scammers" videos on youtube. It's insane, there are huge outfits making millions in some countries running online scams to the first world. Hackers will find their names, addresses, etc of the whole operation. They get reported to the police in their country/district and best case scenario the wealthy fella at the top takes a picture with the police then randomly starts anew elsewhere.

It's all wink wink, nudge nudge. For them it's revenue, jobs, economy, etc and it's much easier to find these operations of scale than it is to hone entire investigations into one dude running a tiny operation.

There's really no excuse, it's totally crooked as ****.

 

[ourmaninthenorth]

I disagree. This isn't under the table small production stuff. These factories are above board, they have physical addresses, IP addresses to the reps and conduct business at scale. In these states, say one wrong thing over that IP and you'll have someone knocking on your door in hours. That's the reality here. Yet domestic policing of large production contraband is almost non-existent. It wouldn't be hard to do. I'm not making false equivalencies here, there's fraud everywhere in terms of geography but I'm saying this brand of fraud is known and intentionally not policed by it's hosts.

Look up "scam the scammers" videos on youtube. It's insane, there are huge outfits making millions in some countries running online scams to the first world. Hackers will find their names, addresses, etc of the whole operation. They get reported to the police in their country/district and best case scenario the wealthy fella at the top takes a picture with the police then randomly starts anew elsewhere.

It's all wink wink, nudge nudge. For them it's revenue, jobs, economy, etc and it's much easier to find these operations of scale than it is to hone entire investigations into one dude running a tiny operation.

There's really no excuse, it's totally crooked as ****.

Your disagreement is noted, and to that end -

This large scale macro larceny is demand lead, insatiable western appetite for low cost junk pretending it's otherwise.

I don't have the answer as to why it's tolerated, maybe it's because we all owe the Chinese so much money; pretty difficult to censure those that hold the deeds to your "house". Or maybe it's simple universal greed and delusion.

On the micro side, the Vintage side specifically - which is really where my initial comments were directed , apologies for non specificity- the small builders making fakes are the real piss in the well....the mass produced stuff is comedic and therefore of such small relevance to be of no relevance at all. All of the mass produced stuff, having an obvious geographical origination, is therefore, as far as my point goes, completely irrelevant.

Home grown bullshit and skullduggery is far more dangerous to this tiny corner of our universe than any amount of mass seizure of these imported toys.

Don't remember any of this geographical stuff being featured in a single "evil doer" type thread in the last decade on this board. Some big names have gone down as a result of home grown acrobatics. Most of the tear ups on this board worthy of the name have been very specific on this subject.

Replica's my arse...they're fakes. People keep asking for them, fakers will keep making them.The real problem is already on the doorstep.

In context, I laugh at the knock offs, and openly treat the targeted fakes with derision.

That is my point.