Firstly let me say that I'm not against buying counterfeit forgeworld or GW, I've never done it myself, but I've watched a few items on ebay that I knew had to be forgeries, but never bid because they went up higher than I was prepared to pay. Our hobby is not a cheap one and I think that especially if you are a 'at home' gamer that you are allowed to shop around for the best offer (on the flip side to this, if you are a gamer who spends most of their hobby at a GW store or a LGS then you should pay where you play.)
And that is where I have issue, the cost of the counterfeit items. Now I know that sounds like I'm taking GW Price complaining to the next degree "OMG GW PRICES ARE SO HIGH EVEN THEIR FORGERIES ARE TOO MUCH!" but thats not the angle I'm coming from. I'm coming from the angle that a) I think a LOT of people are buying these forgeworld forgeries (oooh an alliteration) without realizing that they're not getting the real deal and that is wrong and b) these sellers should not be trying to get us to pay close to full retail price for these forgeries!
The fact is that unless it's from a chinese or russian seller, I'm going to assume that these sellers are hobbyist trying to make an extra buck or two, but in the process are fleecing fellow gamers! Of course they couldn't put up on the sale (Hey guys, these are counterfeit!!) but there needs to be at the very least a real reflection of their counterfeit nature in the price set down and perhaps the word replica placed somewhere in the description.
Now you might ask 'how do you know' well yes i can't be 100%, although I've seen some items which were 100% recasts due to the terrible quality, but when I see a seller who seems to be only selling forgeworld and has sold multiple copies of the same forgeworld item, using the exact same photo for less than retail something is CLEARLY up.
So what can we do? Well reporting them to GW could be one way, although I don't know how much that really does. The other way is to simply not buy them if we're aren't sure and the price doesn't reflect their copied nature.
I other words, if you see a Tyranid Harridon for sale that is $80 cheaper than forgeworld and it's the 8th one he's sold in the last 6 months, don't buy it. If it's $200 cheaper, then okay what the hell go for it. But lets not support jackasses who are putting in minimal effort, getting HUGE returns and lying to fellow wargamers!
/rant over
Yeah, there is this jackass in Colorado I've been scoping out on eBay who is clearly selling inferior recasts. You can see on thumbnail shots that all of his pieces have horrid mold lines, even DUAL mold lines - one set from the original FW mold and a second set from his recast - plus tons of flash as well.
ReplyDeleteThe dead give away is his "Forgeworld SoB Exorcist" pieces that are clearly copies of the GW metal kit. I hope the GW lawyers sue his ass off.
From the sounds of it, there isn't much GW can do for ebay sellers, the most is getting ebay to close their accounts. I just think it's wrong for gamers to try and screw fellow gamers out of their hard earned cash. If these recasts were 50% or less of the retail cost, I could understand more, but most of the time their close enough that the discount is only 5 or 10%.
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