Fake Dapol Products

[adb968008]

There is another problem..

 

once they arrive here, the laundry process on a faulty one is all too easy..

I suspect these will be identical.

 

ive said for years adding a serial number to locos and the box would be beneficial for warranty purposes, and help modellers from insurance purposes too.

 

 

 

 

[Roy Langridge]

26 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

There is another problem..

 

once they arrive here, the laundry process on a faulty one is all too easy..

I suspect these will be identical.

 

ive said for years adding a serial number to locos and the box would be beneficial for warranty purposes, and help modellers from insurance purposes too.

 

 

 

 

Problem is that they will just duplicate serial numbers of legitimate stock as has happened in other industries. 
 

That said, I agree with the need for warranty etc. 
 

Roy

[phil-b259]

7 hours ago, Roy Langridge said:

Wrong. 

 

They are however different.

 

The bottom line is this - everything in China (including copyright law) is structured in such a way that, if it wishes to, the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) can step in and eliminate anything it sees as a threat to its grip on power.

 

Thats why its illegal for foreign based companies to own factories or production plants - if they did then the CPC are worried that it would have no way of suppressing what it would consider 'subversive' activities, conversations or initiatives from emerging on the factory floor. Making sure a factory is under Chinese ownership allows the CPC to sack 'disloyal' workers or replace  managers / owners who are not loyal to the party in ways that would be difficult to do if the factory was owned by foreign entities.

 

Copyright laws are no different - yes they provide protection to individuals / organisations, but only as long as respecting them does not get in the way of the CPCs tight ideological control of the population. If that control is threatened then you can guarantee that copyrights will not be respected and ruled invalid in some way. Put it this way you try and copyright something which is perceived by the party to link to the Tianmian Square massacre by said CPC, however remote the link, the CPC will make sure the copyright will not be respected.

 

In the UK by contrast copyright laws are not under political oversight and as such could be considered more robust / offer more protection as far as intellectual property goes....

Edited April 6 by phil-b259

[Hal Nail]

Whilst easy enough to avoid buying anything from China now, once they are in circulation over here then anything second hand could potentially be an original or a fake. 

 

So from that perspective knowing the difference (or the affected items) is going to be quite important.

 

Apologies @adb968008 as I've basically repeated your point.

Edited April 6 by Hal Nail

[jjb1970]

Serial numbers are helpful, but not a panacea. 

 

A few years ago my then employer found a high voltage SF6 circuit breaker with the same serial number as another of the same type on that site. That triggered an inspection campaign which identified a whole batch.

 

The breakers in question were manufactured in China for a large European multi-national which has a golden reputation in some circles. They obviously blamed the Chinese and tried to evade responsibility,  trying to pretend that who was at fault in their supply chain might affect their legal responsibility and liability. However, even accepting that the principal fault was somewhere at the factory, it didn't speak well of the suppliers QA that nothing had been picked up (they were sold by the European company and so not 'black market', they weren't cheap either. Similarly, the factory QA system was certified by a European verification organisation, the same one that issued breaker specific certificates. On my employers side it resulted in them recording serial numbers on a common database to flag any future incidences.

 

On copyright laws, they are not the same as prohibition laws. Prohibiting something is not the same as accepting copyright violation. I suspect the Chinese government probably would ignore IPR abuse on stuff prohibited in China but more because they're not especially interested in stuff prohibited in China than attitudes on IPR.

[adb968008]

The point missed about the serial numbers, my bad..

 

Was applying them here, at the warehouse, before going to retailers, not there at the factory.

 

The factory could try copying them, but it would be much more delibrate as they’d need to have one sent there from here to replicate.. something for a model railway item is a bit extreme,

 

A bit like limited edition certificates are added here.

Edited April 6 by adb968008

[adb968008]

I’m still a little puzzled…

 

Neither loco has been made after 4 years, 7 years after announcement.

Why pick these two off the shelf to copy, when far more exciting ones exist ?

 

say Running off some extra 68’s on the end of the current batch due soon would be much easier to hide and shuffle out the back door, whilst the rest went out of the front.. and anyone on the inside would know a 68 has more success as they've made oodles of them… weve seen some suggestion that happened a few years ago with someone else.

 

But the two selected havent been made for years, which may have relevance to the story.

 

I can certainly think of at least two alternative explanations that would see these in the wild, that differ from the “moonlighting staff” narrative. For example, I have heard anecdotally that a Chinese manufacturer can consider a tooling to be abandoned in some circumstances. We also have no clue as to the contractual arrangements, theres always possibility of a disagreement. Theres also another very recent rtr tooling which imo is a copy with minor tweaks of an existing.

Speculating on dodgy staff is a bit sterotypical.

 

I doubt we will ever know the story on this unless some action is taken by the factory/Dapol.

that said..

it doesnt change that they are out there in a Dapol / Murphys box when they shouldn't be.

Edited April 6 by adb968008

[Mallard60022]

14 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Ahh yes. Because this will only happen if you "outsource" your products.

 

When I went to Hornby for the press announcements in December, chatting to the man in charge of the breakfast area, I mentioned where I was heading. He then regaled me with tales of models leaving via the back door at Margate. Apparently, lots of people acquired their toy trains this way.

 

So, it happens in Blightly, and even when you own the factory.

Way back in time December 2008, I worked at Wilkos Distribution in Worksop for a few weeks (yes it was that sh1te and a big mistake). All 'ordinary' Staff were supposed to leave via the Security Turnstiles; (yes actual Turnstiles but with Scanners etc.plus pat down by Guards). Almost all did, however 'product loss' was common. I did once, just before stuffing it, officially remove some folding type Pallets, destined for the Allotment. I had a special letter of Permission from the Management. It wasn't that easy getting Pallets down my Pants.

Briefly, I also did a stint on the Inwards Lorry Bay. It was vile too, with loony FLT Drivers racing around like  F1 Qualifying.

If any Pallets (always wrapped) appeared as tampered with (some were obvious as the Driver reported theft on arrival; Layby or Truck Stop, Canvas sided jobs), you had to count the missing amount by careful estimation of the missing space! I just couldn't get my head around that, whereas my Trainer could do it in seconds!

Thus I am just saying that causal Theft must be quite easy, as is 'extra production'.

Imitation has been rife for Centuries. The Chines have built their empire on it, as have some other parts of Asia.

Don't go near TEMU (allegedly) goods shown on FB. You name it and its been faked!

Thanks for highlighting this. I would NEVER have suspected any Model Stuff being sold as fake...except if it was on certain 'selling sites'.

Phil

[KeithMacdonald]

32 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Neither loco has been made after 4 years, 7 years after announcement.

Why pick these two off the shelf to copy, when far more exciting ones exist ?

 

Based on personal experiences in another industry with a similar phenomena, maybe because the original contract was for a specific quantity, and then no more were ordered?

 

In the case I'm thinking of, the UK owner of the IPR had closed their UK factory, making a few hundred people redundant. All because the senior management and accountants could see a fairly quick way to reduce production costs, increasing profit (and their bonuses). The UK management then thought it wasn't worth making any more of that particular product. But the new manufacturer was sitting on brand-new tooling for a good product that they perceived wasn't wanted anymore, and it would be a waste if it wasn't used.

 

You might wonder who exactly has lost out here. The UK management would (of course) portray themselves as the "victim" in any news or publicity. But you cannot con an honest man. They thought they could get more profit by using Chinese workers instead of British workers. The British workers had already lost out. As for the UK management, some might call it kharma.

 

You might (by now) be noticing a similar pattern across a huge number of other industries.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

You might wonder who exactly has lost out here. The UK management would (of course) portray themselves as the "victim" in any news or publicity. But you cannot con an honest man. They thought they could get more profit by using Chinese workers instead of British workers. The British workers had already lost out. As for the UK management, some might call it kharma.

 

You might (by now) be noticing a similar pattern across a huge number of other industries.

 

Given consumers (in this case railway modellers) most frequent gripe is the high prices then moving work offshore was inevitable.

 

Assembling todays crop of highly detailed models with loads of separately fitted parts and detailed printing requires considerable dexterity and skill - you are not going to get that sort of skillset from a UK workforce on the minimum wage (which is still generally significantly higher than the average wage in china for skilled assembly work).

 

UK produced trains would probably be coming in at the £500 -£600 plus mark if they were made in the U, not the £200 plus mark which is possible through the use of China... 

 

The same trend is true of quite a lot of consumer goods - to produce them in the UK would push the price above what consumers would be prepared to pay....

Edited April 6 by phil-b259

[jjb1970]

 Outsourcing allowed people in Europe and the US to believe we are richer than we are and facilitated economic development in Asia. In that sense it can be argued to have had a bad rap. Both sides got something. Longer term the large boost to developing economies may be seen as them having got a much better deal out of it all but nobody forced outsourcing. In the case of model trains it wasn't just about prices, Chinese manufacturers facilitated a paradigm shift in levels of detail, finish and running for OO RTR.

[Colin_McLeod]

I checked the feedback of the person selling the Murphy Models locomotives.  Every feedback refers to the dame item number which I found very odd.

 I asked the seller and this is the reply.  

[woodenhead]

@Colin_McLeod No point in asking them for advice about the DCC set up on these locos then 🤣

[2E Sub Shed]

A few years ago I went to a presentation on counterfeit electrical switch gear and fittings. 

 

Horror tales of missing components in RCB's and low spec materials.  

 

Some reference here has been made to"ghost shifts". From that presentation we learned that as the counterfeit offence in China only occurs when the item is a "retail" product, then a temporary work site was set up, the workers, components and packaging brought to site, and the whole batch assembled and stuffed into a shipping container which went straight to the port.

 

Also tales of a large location, multi-football sized where in 6'x6' booths you could find vendors offering products, and orders would be accompanied by a query as to "what logo do you want on the product ?"

 

One trade mark quoted was "IVI K", not really similar to "MK" unless you have poor spacing 🙂

 

In another industry, a stage lighting fixture (spotlight) was available in a knock off version where instead of a left and right casting for the body shell, two left hand castings had been bodged together.  

 

 

Edited April 6 by 2E Sub Shed
Add missed text

[pete_mcfarlane]

7 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Lets say a manufacturer pays for a tool to make a genuine product and is designed to make X numbers of items, before the tool is retired and a new tool used.

What happens if the old tool continues to be make items illegally, but gradually the tooling is breaking down and the items are not as crisp.

 

I suspect that's less likely given the production runs involved in model railways. Injection moulding tools should last for years if looked after - witness all those Airfix 'classics' reruns of 1960s kits or Hornby churning out stuff from the 1980s and earlier. 

 

Maybe this is part of the problem, as Chinese factories are sitting on large quantities of no longer used (by their Western owners) but perfectly serviceable injection tools. 

 

 

[Colin_McLeod]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

@Colin_McLeod No point in asking them for advice about the DCC set up on these locos then 🤣

 

My dear friendly. You are much lucky customer since I has been experting DCC for years a lot.
At starting please removing the wonder scale body of famously locomotive then next following be wiring the DCC  minding all connect correctly orientated.
Have much enjoying.

[woodenhead]

Thanks Grace 😁

[DCB]

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I’m still a little puzzled…

 

Neither loco has been made after 4 years, 7 years after announcement.

Why pick these two off the shelf to copy, when far more exciting ones exist ?

 

say Running off some extra 68’s on the end of the current batch due soon would be much easier to hide and shuffle out the back door, whilst the rest went out of the front.. and anyone on the inside would know a 68 has more success as they've made oodles of them… weve seen some suggestion that happened a few years ago with someone else.

 

But the two selected havent been made for years, which may have relevance to the story.

 

I can certainly think of at least two alternative explanations that would see these in the wild, that differ from the “moonlighting staff” narrative. For example, I have heard anecdotally that a Chinese manufacturer can consider a tooling to be abandoned in some circumstances. We also have no clue as to the contractual arrangements, theres always possibility of a disagreement. Theres also another very recent rtr tooling which imo is a copy with minor tweaks of an existing.

Speculating on dodgy staff is a bit sterotypical.

 

I doubt we will ever know the story on this unless some action is taken by the factory/Dapol.

that said..

it doesnt change that they are out there in a Dapol / Murphys box when they shouldn't be.

The direct from China Dapol models on a well known auction site which rhymes with Ebay as of yesterday were not class 68, or Irish.   Just go on the well known auction site, punch in Dapol , nearest first and spend the next hour scrolling until you find "From China"   The product looks like Dapol and are 33% discount.   Dapol advise against buying them.   Now they could be knock off, or seconds or plain fake or maybe someone made extra because the unit cost drops dramatically with volume  assuming Dapol would re order and maybe they didn't ...   Personally I look for "Made in England"  labels so whether the China made model comes direct or via Wales is of zero interest  but I am intrigued as to what is actually doing on here..

[The Johnster]

Ultimately, every transaction depends on a level of trust between the person selling the product and the person buying the product, so when I buy a Dapol Diagram N auto-trailer from Rails of Sheffield, I trust them to sell me a genuine Dapol Diagram N auto-trailer when it arrives and have agreed to pay their asking price (and have in fact already paid).  Nothing to stop Rails running off with my cash or knowingly supplying me with a duff model, but my previous experience of them along with their general good name and reputation suggests that they will not behave in this way.  
 

But that goes all the way back down the line past the assembly plant through Dapol to each individual workshop/factory, and Rails deal with hundreds of companies who in turn deal with hundreds more; if trust is lost the whole system breaks down. 
 

Money, and more importantly credit, is another trust issue, because of course money doesn’t actually exist, it’s a con trick that everyone tacitly accepts snd agrees to because everybody else does as well.  Your banknote states that the issuing bank ‘will pay the bearer on demand the sum of’, but if you demand your pound of cashflesh from the bank, they’ll give you a replacement promissory note the same as the one you just handed in.  If everybody does it at once, the bank collapses and the money ‘disappears’, because it never existed in the first place.  Even its existence in the form of notes and coins depends on trust in the coin/note’s face value; it’s all smoke & mirrors!

 

It is impossible to police against all counterfeiting and ghost production, and the principle of ‘caveat emptor’ allows for and partially encourages it; companies budget for a level of loss to dishonest practices because human beings are fundamentally a bunch of thieving ‘stards.  But they are an economic cancer which will eventually kill the host if not checked, which is ultimately the responsibility of the emptor to caveat to the correct level, which is a balance between believing and disbelieving what the vendor says.  

 

If you an item at a 33% discount from a source you do not know, you only have yourself to blame.  The world is a societal construct, and if you get yourself ripped off through your own greed and refusal to accept the price I have to pay from a proven reputable source you are potentially damaging the construct and deserve the resultant loss.  

Edited April 6 by The Johnster

[46444]

23 hours ago, Neil said:

 

I have in the past bought stuff from China, Atlas Editions European trams (that I cut and shut into narrow gauge vehicles) which I took to be unsold items from the magazine partwork, however this thread has made me wonder if they were extras knocked out at the same factory without the publishers knowledge. I guess I'll never know.

 

I did the same as well Neil. One to ponder with the origins of these Atlas European Trams.

 

Recently I was looking for Trumpter 1:72 Scale Westland Wyvern and Gannet kits. Again not many available from the UK but plenty available from China. 

 

I guess these could be unofficial runs as well?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[KeithMacdonald]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Given consumers (in this case railway modellers) most frequent gripe is the high prices then moving work offshore was inevitable.

 

And (inevitably) the short-term thinking has long-term consequences. In my own industry (for one) what had been outsourced to other countries (because they seemed cheaper) had a seriously negative impact on the quality of the product, the logistics and the supply chain. After a big shake-up of management, the outsourced production work was bought back to the UK.

 

Moving work offshore also has an inevitable effect on the manufacturing sector of the UK. Long-term work lost has an inevitable effect on the UK skills-base. Yes we all want cheaper prices - and then wonder why so many UK manufacturing firms (and retail shops) have closed.

 

Also,  didn't we have RMWeb inmates happily reporting Hornby explaining why they are bringing a small part of their production work back to the UK?

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

@Colin_McLeod No point in asking them for advice about the DCC set up on these locos then 🤣

 

Oh I don't know, the reply will be hilariously entertaining I would imagine!

 

Mike.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

Money, and more importantly credit, is another trust issue, because of course money doesn’t actually exist, it’s a con trick that everyone tacitly accepts snd agrees to because everybody else does as well.  Your banknote states that the issuing bank ‘will pay the bearer on demand the sum of’, but if you demand your pound of cashflesh from the bank, they’ll give you a replacement promissory note the same as the one you just handed in.  If everybody does it at once, the bank collapses and the money ‘disappears’, because it never existed in the first place.  Even its existence in the form of notes and coins depends on trust in the coin/note’s face value; it’s all smoke & mirrors! 

Mrs W and I had the same discussion this morning about money being smoke and mirrors,  but a return to barter probably isn’t in the cards. 😀

[AY Mod]

12 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Mrs W and I had the same discussion .... but a return to barter probably isn’t in the cards

 

The odds of you getting a favourable exchange in a marital marketplace are weak. I'd stick with loan sharks as a safer bet.

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

 

I suspect that's less likely given the production runs involved in model railways. Injection moulding tools should last for years if looked after - witness all those Airfix 'classics' reruns of 1960s kits or Hornby churning out stuff from the 1980s and earlier. 

 

Maybe this is part of the problem, as Chinese factories are sitting on large quantities of no longer used (by their Western owners) but perfectly serviceable injection tools. 

 

 

 

Made In India!

 

Just went through about twenty boxes.

 

 

Jason