Knifenews reports about Amazon and counterfeits

shinyedges said:
Gotchya, I remembered you'd been around the block. Can't disagree with bladeforums members buying from untrustworthy places being responsible for their own burn.

Uninitiated oblivious people SHOULD do enough research to prevent them selves getting scammed but with so many products in life to research I can see how things slip through.
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Around the block like a cheap tramp. :D

I got started with forums when I realized that I always wanted a knife when I was a kid, and that, now that I was a grownup, I could go buy one. So I started researching reputable brands and sellers.

Maybe I'm OCD, (or cheap) but I do that when I buy anything. I'll read the Amazon reviews and questions on white socks before I buy.

And even then it's iffy. Amazon is full of "grey market" stuff let alone counterfeits.

All that said, I have never bought a knife off Amazon. Won't do it. Too iffy. And why not support the nice folks who support this site we are all chatting on?
 
marcinek and others have said here "you do take your chances not buying from "Ships from and sold by Amazon" "

I think what many of us are saying is that is not enough... even 'direct' purchases from Amazon are highly suspect and have been proven to result in counterfeit products

I'm done with amazon, & have been for a few years now... the prices are not even good. I often find better prices on knifecenter than amazon.
 
dirc said:
marcinek and others have said here "you do take your chances not buying from "Ships from and sold by Amazon" "

I think what many of us are saying is that is not enough... even 'direct' purchases from Amazon are highly suspect and have been proven to result in counterfeit products

I'm done with amazon, & have been for a few years now... the prices are not even good. I often find better prices on knifecenter than amazon.
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Did you bother to read my other posts about buying from BF supporting dealers?
 
dirc said:
marcinek and others have said here "you do take your chances not buying from "Ships from and sold by Amazon" "

I think what many of us are saying is that is not enough... even 'direct' purchases from Amazon are highly suspect and have been proven to result in counterfeit products

I'm done with amazon, & have been for a few years now... the prices are not even good. I often find better prices on knifecenter than amazon.
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And for that matter, weren't you the guy going on about the quality how great the Spartan Blades counterfeit you bought was?

dirc said:
thomas h, and craytab, I'd like to mention that I don't feel screwed.

I knew I was buying direct from China, so there was no illusion there. I didn't expect I was getting a USA made spartan, it was 9cr18mov after all.
The blade came in a perfect kydex sheath, included in the $40 price tag. From what I can tell, the HT is also very good; I've used it on a lot of wood and for splitting logs and just about anything else you would not want to use a $200+ knife on. The black and green g10 handle was also very well done and I enjoy using it. The weight is perfectly centered around the index finger.

To make a long point simple, I would have bought it without the spartan logo. I was buying a budget beater, and it has held up in that respect with flying colours.

I've added my input to make a point as it relates to the Chinese mfg chain, not for validation & approval. It's a subtle but important difference.
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I always tell anyone who asks my opinion about purchasing knives and or ‘too good to be true’ deals to avoid Amazon/eBay if at all possible. I tend to point people towards legit dealers as well as makers/companies who handle their own sales. I’ve also led people to this site as a great start point for information and recommendations.
 
marcinek said:
Actually I may have begun at another place, came here, went to yet another place, then settled back here. Been a while.

And, yes, push comes to shove anybody here who buys from anybody other than one of our supporting dealers deserves what they get. Which makes the original post kinda pointless. Kinda a "tell us something we don't know thing."

But people who don't do research have no right to complain when they get crap. And you do take you chances not buying from "Ships from and sold by Amazon" or from a brand that has their own store on Amazon like Levi's.
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Including buying from members here?
 
marcinek said:
Did you bother to read my other posts about buying from BF supporting dealers?
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Yes, I did, but I felt it was important to dispel the notion that 'direct from amazon' was somehow safe.

...Also, if you want to make a comment about something I explained on another thread, then make that comment on the other thread. Trying to dredge it up here is poor form
 
I'm new to this forum. I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, so when I decided to buy a couple of good quality knives I started looking on Amazon. Then I joined this forum to do some research. It was here that learned about (1) 3rd party sellers selling counterfeits, and (2) unscrupulous people buying the real thing on Amazon and then returning a fake that then gets mixed in to be re-sold.

So, I can say a huge "Thank you!" to BF and the great posters on here for the education and helping me avoid those problems. I am forever grateful.

It was also here that I learned about the great BF supporting dealers such as BHQ, DLT, KC, KW, etc. I always assumed that a knife dealer would have high prices. To the contrary, I have found that the BF supporting dealers' prices are as good as, or within a few bucks of, Amazon's prices. So it makes no sense to buy anywhere else, especially when you factor in the peace of mind and satisfaction in knowing you bought the real deal AND gave your business to a reputable company.
 
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Direct from Amazon is pretty damn safe. :)
I've had great luck with it. :thumbsup:

Just got a Byrd Robin 2 G-10 in the mail from them yesterday.
I guess I could have bought it somewhere else, and paid $12 shipping on a $33 knife that I was buying for my upcoming trip to Chicago, where I wanted a cheap knife in case the cops there decide to take it despite it being under their length limit.

Or, I could do like I did, and get a genuine knife, plus a movie for less than it would have cost for the knife plus shipping from elsewhere in Canada. ;)

If you're buying a $500 knife, then the $12 shipping charge from somewhere else isn't that big of a deal.
 
dirc said:
marcinek and others have said here "you do take your chances not buying from "Ships from and sold by Amazon" "

I think what many of us are saying is that is not enough... even 'direct' purchases from Amazon are highly suspect and have been proven to result in counterfeit products

I'm done with amazon, & have been for a few years now... the prices are not even good. I often find better prices on knifecenter than amazon.
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This was talked about recently on GBU forum. Here's a link: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/amazon-question.1547619/#post-17777483 See my post #10. I should add that I recently did buy a couple of Muela knives from amazon directly, only because I couldn't find them anywhere else. They were real, and the service was good. I did a ton of research before pulling the trigger.
 
just to clarify... you can spend endless amounts of time researching and still get burned. Even the people advocating “you deserve what you get”, don’t deserve to be burned. It could still happen, people with 45 positive deals and no negative deals could just decide one day, they are going to be dishonest. That’s all it would take. Are the risks lower with research? Absolutely.

Nowadays, any time I make a purchase, no matter what it is, I spend time researching what I buy. Fortunately for me, with over 1,000 purchases from Amazon, (two knives) I have never had to deal with being ripped off.

Of course, the lowest risk would be buying from a supporting dealer here. If I can buy a knife, from a member here, that is 25%-50% off what I can get from one of those dealers, I’m going to buy it from the member every time. At this point, if I got ripped off my next 5 knives at $200 a piece, I still would have saved more buying through members than through the supporting dealers. Having said that, I do support our dealers, but not every purchase.
 
I really like the design aesthetics of many Muela blades, the only thing which bothers me about them is lack of descriptive precision on the steel used. Most times, all they say is 'Moly-Vanadium stainless steel' even directly from their website.

It's good to know that some amazon purchases work out without a hitch. For me, personally, I just don't trust they have done enough to correct the situation at a systemic level (esp. as it relates to knives)... and they are on Trump's sh*t list now, so that must make them bad right? ;-p
 
dirc said:
I really like the design aesthetics of many Muela blades, the only thing which bothers me about them is lack of descriptive precision on the steel used. Most times, all they say is 'Moly-Vanadium stainless steel' even directly from their website.
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Yeah, I think it's just 440A with a fancy name. Good enough for most purposes though.
 
Misthailin said:
I think anyone paying money for goods or services should get what they are paying for. If the ad says a spyderco pm2 dlc blk for $100.00 that’s what it should be.

What you are saying is like, if you hire a local electrician or plumber to run some pipe or wire up your new garage, and they screw you... you deserve what you get for hiring the guy who screwed you, instead of the guy who did the job correctly.

You are just asking for bad ju ju.
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There s already enough bad ju ju gong around without asking for more! :(
Nobody deserves to get screwed. You should get what you pay for.
 
So let me get this straight... the study had nothing to do with knives, the study was on third party marketplace... and yet you're hating on amazon? I always find it pathetic how this forum seems to hate on amazon. It also mentioned other companies, why not list them? I've bought about 10 knives from amazon directly, sold and shipped by amazon themselves and never received a counterfeit. There is a difference between the amazon third-party marketplace and buying from amazon themselves. When ever there is a return policy, there is a risk that you can get a counterfeit... that is just the fact of life, no matter the website. For Americans, this may be hard to understand, but Amazon is one of the few places where we can actually buy decent knives. We don't have a lot of good options. Frankly, I feel like this is an Amazon bashing thread without much substance.
 
Fwiw, Amazon and other marketplace websites are just about the last place I'd buy a knife knowing what I know now from the time I've spent here.

Having said that, when I was fresh into knives, I bought a couple of CRKTs from Amazon and for the first time since that purchase, I recently bought a Mini CR from a 3rd party seller on the site (it's my only knife purchase from a non-authorized dealer). The only reason I bought it on Amazon was because of the relatively recent goings-on at the Canada-US border.

At the time of the purchase, none of the (very few) Canadian Benchmade authorized dealers had the knife (or barely any of the new 2018 lineup - but I digress) in stock. As well, I didn't have enough faith in the CBSA to not seize the knife at the border had I decided to order the Mini CR from one of the many reputable US dealers down South. So that left me with this (again, at the time) seemingly lone seller on Amazon with some new Mini Crs that after an email, confirmed to me would be shipping from an origin within my country.

Given that I really wanted this knife, I decided to go ahead and buy it after seeing their stock drop to very low levels (lest I miss the proverbial boat). l made damn sure that I checked the seller's feedback closely. I also paid with a credit card for an extra layer of protection. I'll note publicly here, at this point, I had done as much research as I could have before the purchase, and despite knowing I had done my part, I also accepted the fact that I could very well be stuck with a QC dud or worse, a fake.

Anyhow, the knife arrived a few days later and I'm happy with it; not a fake as far as I can tell and not an example bungled by the factory either. I was happy enough with it that I wanted to buy a second one for a friend of mine who has an upcoming birthday. However, this time, one of the (again, few) authorized Benchmade retailers up here had finally gotten some in stock (much to my surprise). So without any hesitation, I ordered a second Mini CR from them (I'll add, between their list price and shipping, by purchasing from them, I probably paid a $20 premium - but well worth the extra peace of mind for me).

Ironically, they ship via Canada Post while the Amazon seller shipped via FedEx, and Canada Post has been messing around with my mail again so I'm still waiting for that second Mini CR to arrive. :rolleyes:

I guess what I'm trying to say is (TL;DR):

I'd never purchase a knife from Amazon, eBay, etc. If I could help it, and they wouldn't even be a choice for me unless they were my only choice. If they happen to be it, then I'd weigh the cost of the purchase with how much I want the knife. Additionally, if the threshold for financial pain, should I be unlucky, were to be something I'd be unable to live with, I'd pass altogether and learn to live without. YMMV.

Edited for redundancy.
 
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