Fake Dapol Products

[woodenhead]

10 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

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

I know, said it be something like an hours shelf stacking in return for one bag of Maris Piper.

[Dagworth]

3 hours ago, 2E Sub Shed said:

a stage lighting fixture (spotlight) was available in a knock off version

Our industry is full of crap Chinese knock-offs. So much so that some of our desks have a category under Manufacturers which is simply China. Chances are that no two batches of Chinese fixtures will be the same either!

[Bucoops]

I worked for a couple of weeks at a place that specialised in sourcing electric valves - one of my roles in the brief time I was there was to unbox cheap Chinese made valves, use wire wool to remove the branding, and pass them to someone who used a little machine that re-branded them as Mullard. Impressed, I was not. In hindsight I should have gone to trading standards, but I was in my late teens and just wanted out. I don't think they are still trading thankfully.

 

Don't forget there is also the current issue of fake parts in jet engines, traced back, allegedly, to a London based company.

 

"Rife" comes to mind.

 

Ebay would appear not to be interested in fake goods being sold on their site, despite what they say. There's a UK based seller that has wheels on sale using one of the major brands, but they are clearly the cheapo ones included in the monthly magazine type build a whatever. They have been reported countless times, including by the genuine manufacturer, but they're still for sale.

Edited April 6 by Bucoops

[The Johnster]

eBay clearly don't give a tinker's left b*ll*ck about any of this, and if called to account will doubtless refer you to caveat emptor and the difficulty of policing their own site, cop-out weasels that they are.  The basic principle is that profit is the driver of their activity and so long as that is not affected they will not turn business away on the basis that it is a bit dodgy.  Look at the number of classic items such as HD which are claimed by their sellers, who are presumably modellers like us, to be in mint condition when they are very obviously restored, perhaps overhauled, cleaned up, and in 'mint' repro boxes; like I said, humans are by nature thieving 'stards, not to mention mendacious chisellers. and unless the level of dishonesty on the Bay affects profits adversely nothing will ever be done about it.  The complaints procedure is ineffective and never intended to be more than window-dressing.  I hereby challenge eBay to prove me wrong by removing all their clearly dodgy stuff over the next week; I think we know how that's gonna play out, don't we children?

[2E Sub Shed]

34 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Our industry is full of crap Chinese knock-offs. So much so that some of our desks have a category under Manufacturers which is simply China. Chances are that no two batches of Chinese fixtures will be the same either!

Once read that you had to watch the production line and see the stuff sealed into the container to have any chance of what you ordered having the same parts being used inside as the sample you viewed being delivered.

[2E Sub Shed]

38 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

I worked for a couple of weeks at a place that specialised in sourcing electric valves - one of my roles in the brief time I was there was to unbox cheap Chinese made valves, use wire wool to remove the branding, and pass them to someone who used a little machine that re-branded them as Mullard. Impressed, I was not. In hindsight I should have gone to trading standards, but I was in my late teens and just wanted out. I don't think they are still trading thankfully. 

If you were around in the 1980's, a large part of the electronic valve market was being supplied with valves sourced from Russia.  

 

Used them in kit designed to operate after the Russians had dropped Nuclear Bombs. 

 

[johnhutnick]

Much of this discussion seems to be supposition or speculation.  Ghost shifts?  How about regular production where there are more models made than UK orders?

The overwhelming amount of our brand name model trains all come from China, maybe all from one or two factories.  Who here can describe the general quality of the trains that they have got directly from China.  Problems?   Regarding Ebay, I have been able to get a refund on any faulty goods.  If you do not like an Ebay price, you can always "contact Seller" and see if you can do better.  And we pay with credit cards, right?  So dispute the charge if something is no good.

I am in the US.  For us, there is no duty up to $800.  It seems that all of the European governments are happily screwing their citizens, and we are the victims.  But we are... free!

[Hal Nail]

6 minutes ago, johnhutnick said:

Much of this discussion seems to be supposition or speculation. 

As opposed to all the other rmweb threads?

[Andy Hayter]

4 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. 

 

 

 

That depends very much on the expectations when the design is made.

For long runs (over a long time) then you are correct.  The moulds will be cut in high quality steel.

However, if the manufacturer thinks the total sales will be limited ( for example when producing a one-off limited edition model) then he may chose to use aluminium for the moulds which should be good for 5000 shots and might just last 10000.

[Steamport Southport]

48 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

eBay clearly don't give a tinker's left b*ll*ck about any of this, and if called to account will doubtless refer you to caveat emptor and the difficulty of policing their own site, cop-out weasels that they are.  The basic principle is that profit is the driver of their activity and so long as that is not affected they will not turn business away on the basis that it is a bit dodgy.  Look at the number of classic items such as HD which are claimed by their sellers, who are presumably modellers like us, to be in mint condition when they are very obviously restored, perhaps overhauled, cleaned up, and in 'mint' repro boxes; like I said, humans are by nature thieving 'stards, not to mention mendacious chisellers. and unless the level of dishonesty on the Bay affects profits adversely nothing will ever be done about it.  The complaints procedure is ineffective and never intended to be more than window-dressing.  I hereby challenge eBay to prove me wrong by removing all their clearly dodgy stuff over the next week; I think we know how that's gonna play out, don't we children?

 

Try selling fake Louis Vuitton bags or Manchester United shirts on eBay and see how much they care!

 

eBay are extremely strict on what is sold on their platform and will prosecute if they have evidence. But they need the evidence and I doubt a few old Hornby Dublo trains are worth even bothering about.

 

Has anyone tried flagging up stuff that is actually dodgy? You'll see how they operate if you did.

 

 

Jason

[woodenhead]

These items are probably not fake, it’s not worth the effort for the small return.  So they are items built for Dapol that for one reason or another have not reached Dapol for sale.

-rejects

-extras built from leftover batches

-extras built on the production line to be sold and the profit split amongst those involved

 

In all cases it’s going to be difficult or more difficult for EBay to prove the seller does not have a right to be selling them.  I guess they might only act if Dapol raise a complaint and ask them to investigate, just a Louis Vuitton would probably do when it spots unauthorised items for sale.

[ColinB]

On 05/04/2024 at 12:54, Darius43 said:

Probably little chance of redress in China.  It comes down to the morality of the purchaser.  Buy cheap from the eBay seller, telling yourself that is ok to do so because it’s Dapol’s fault for manufacturing in China, or buy from legitimate traders.

 

The analogy is buying knock off goods from a bloke in a pub car park.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Without Dapol telling us which models they are it is a bit difficult to know what is going on.

[Darius43]

20 minutes ago, ColinB said:

Without Dapol telling us which models they are it is a bit difficult to know what is going on.

Going by previous posts on this thread the products in question are Dapol O Gauge steam locos from a seller based in China.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Phil Parker]

On 06/04/2024 at 17:40, Steamport Southport said:

Try selling fake Louis Vuitton bags or Manchester United shirts on eBay and see how much they care!

 

eBay are extremely strict on what is sold on their platform and will prosecute if they have evidence. But they need the evidence and I doubt a few old Hornby Dublo trains are worth even bothering about.

 

It's all here - https://pages.ebay.co.uk/authenticity-guarantee-seller/

 

On 06/04/2024 at 16:46, The Johnster said:

I hereby challenge eBay to prove me wrong by removing all their clearly dodgy stuff over the next week; I think we know how that's gonna play out, don't we children?

 

Get over yourself. If you think the company will splash millions on looking at every listing, then sending the goods to an expert to check authenticity, because some bloke on a forum challenged them, you are living in cloud cuckoo land.  As I've linked above, there is a procedure for high-value goods, but that doesn't include Hornby Dublo or any other toy train. And if it did, we can only imagine the howls of protest as the delivery of said toys was held up, and the buyer landed with a bill for the authentication.

 

 

Returning to the OP, has anyone worked out how much you would save buying a dodgy Dapol loco? A quick look at the prices suggests that by the time your postman has extracted the import duty from you on the doorstep (and you have headed to Facebook to have your tantrum about being taxed, whilst also moaning that your roads have potholes), the saving isn't really worth the effort. Now I know we are in a hobby where people scrabble around to save pennies, uninterested in the "big picture" damage they have already done to model shops etc., but I really don't see it's worth the trouble. It's not like Dapol stuff isn't pretty keenly priced anyway.

[ColinB]

19 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

Going by previous posts on this thread the products in question are Dapol O Gauge steam locos from a seller based in China.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Great, thanks for that.

[Darius43]

Bought from UK model shops 😀

 

 

 

Thing is, I don’t model O Gauge 😳

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Phil Parker]

8 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

Thing is, I don’t model O Gauge

 

This is the problem with Dapol. The O gauge locos are very reasonably priced, and sooooo appealing. I have a Jinty, but the 08 really appeals. I have to remind myself I don't need it, as I have a Bachmann version wit detailing kit in the stash. But the little voice in my head says bad things...

[The Johnster]

37 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It's all here - https://pages.ebay.co.uk/authenticity-guarantee-seller/

 

 

Get over yourself. If you think the company will splash millions on looking at every listing, then sending the goods to an expert to check authenticity, because some bloke on a forum challenged them, you are living in cloud cuckoo land.  As I've linked above, there is a procedure for high-value goods, but that doesn't include Hornby Dublo or any other toy train. And if it did, we can only imagine the howls of protest as the delivery of said toys was held up, and the buyer landed with a bill for the authentication.

 

 

Welcome to the free market economy. I assume you always vote communist.

 

Returning to the OP, has anyone worked out how much you would save buying a dodgy Dapol loco? A quick look at the prices suggests that by the time your postman has extracted the import duty from you on the doorstep (and you have headed to Facebook to have your tantrum about being taxed, whilst also moaning that your roads have potholes), the saving isn't really worth the effort. Now I know we are in a hobby where people scrabble around to save pennies, uninterested in the "big picture" damage they have already done to model shops etc., but I really don't see it's worth the trouble. It's not like Dapol stuff isn't pretty keenly priced anywayit 

[AY Mod]

13 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

But the little voice in my head says bad things...

 

 

 

https://www.dapol.co.uk/products/7d-008-012r-o-gauge-class-08-guinness-unicorn-no-ladder-dapol-exclusive-model-nqp

[woodenhead]

Cheaper than our Chinese trader and legit, can of rail blue…..

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Cheaper than our Chinese trader and legit, can of rail blue…..

...and a mind-bending job of doing the yellow and black chevrons! I know, I did it once on a Bachmann brass one.

Better still, model a brewery.

 

Or it could be a cheap basis for one of the other variants of 350?

Edited April 6 by Mol_PMB

[Bucoops]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Has anyone tried flagging up stuff that is actually dodgy? You'll see how they operate if you did.

 

 

Jason

 

Yup, not just rip-off wheels, but stolen property (and provable), counterfeit high-value collectables, all sorts of things. Outcome? Diddly squat. I keep telling myself not to bother any more but muggins still does it.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours 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!

Only the Bank of England is allowed to issue banknotes in England.  Scottish banks are allowed to do the same north of the border, but only if they have an equivalent sum on deposit at the BofE.   Similarly with Northern Ireland Banknotes.  It doesn't matter how many notes get handed in at once, they'd give you new ones just the same.  They can print as many as they need to, though overdoing it would devalue the currency.  Their promissory  notes will still be honoured even if they are no longer in circulation.

 

I've never exchanged a promissory note in Threadneedle Street, but I did once cash a cheque there under the Cheque Guarantee system which was then in force.  One of my colleagues had a BofE chequebook while he was working for them - he took redundancy when exchange control regualtions to support Rhodesia sanctions ended and joined our company.

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

They can print as many as they need to, though overdoing it would devalue the currency. 

 

Printing the money is so old-fashioned, and in any case, they want to get rid of printed money. Nowadays, it's called Quantitative Easing and they've been doing it since 2009. Not so much a Fake Dapol Product, more of a Fake Currency Product.

[jjb1970]

Ebay isn't like certain social media platforms which are full of very obvious scales for counterfeit goods. For all its faults Ebay has pretty good buyer protection to the point that a common whinge of sellers is they're too biased in favour of buyers. And if you use a credit card or PayPal you have an additional layer of protection.

 

One (though not the only reason) I left Facebook was my feed was clogged up with scam sales material. They invariably show photos and video of a high end product from the original supplier and offer it was a ridiculously cheap price like £30. I remember seeing a famous model of a Saturn V rocket made by a Japanese outfit which had a four figure price being sold for the usual £30. I kept reporting them as scams and every time I used it my feed was full of similar adverts. 

 

That said, in this case I don't think the goods are 'fake'as such, nobody knows what has happened outside those directly involved but speculating myself it would appear to be an issue of control of production and distribution rather than what is usually meant by counterfeiting. Those who have had to buy spare parts will probably be aware of the huge grey market where factories sell components they manufacture for machinery builders directly to operators at a huge discount. And that's not just a Chinese thing, it happens everywhere. Whenever we see allegations regarding such practices they generally result in the usual tropes about China being thrown around in a way which I find questionable.