Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
1–10 of 134 posts
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#2Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor.
Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved list.
Reserved list: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprin...
More links: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards...
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-dismantle-the...
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#3The product I've seen crash and burn in quality on Amazon UK is Koss PortaPro headphones. Loved those for many years, but the last few broke inside weeks.
I am wondering if I should try to buy a last pair directly from the manufacturer. I am quite happy with my new Sennheiser, but they don't feel right...
Anyone in the US with recent experience?
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#4This has become a frustrating part of shopping on Amazon, to the point that I typically filter to only show things sold by Amazon themselves. Too many of the marketplace items are fake crap with paid-for reviews. Since they're mixed in together by default, the effort in trying to discern good from bad makes for a pretty crummy experience overall.
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#5Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved l…
The argument could be made that players are simply trying to play with cards they can't normally obtain. Obvious counterfeits have often been allowed in unofficial games "by proxy" - allowing players to construct more powerful decks than they could afford.
It would then come down to how much the counterfeit is worth to the player. So long as these aren't being passed off as legitimate cards, I don't see an issue.
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#6This has become a frustrating part of shopping on Amazon, to the point that I typically filter to only show things sold by Amazon themselves. Too many of the marketplace items are fake crap with paid-for reviews. Since they're mixed in together by default, the effort in trying to discern good from bad makes for a pretty crummy experience overall.
This will not always save you. If a company uses the "Fulfilled by Amazon" service they ship their stuff to amazon and it is co mingled with all of the other SKU's purporting to be the same item, including Amazons own stock
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#7Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved l…
The argument could be made that players are simply trying to play with cards they can't normally obtain. Obvious counterfeits have often been allowed in unofficial games "by proxy" - allowing players to construct more powerful decks than they could afford. It would then come down to how much the counterfeit is worth to the player. So long as these aren't being passed off as legitimate cards, I don't see an issue.
Do most places allow this proxy card without owning the actual card these days? Back when I played in 93-97 you could use proxy cards, but it was usually a land card marked with an indicator of the real card, and the person had to pull out their real card (usually in a plastic case) to show they actually had it (and show the stats).
I had a friend with a color printer that tried to make counterfeit cards to use as proxies (not to try and sell, the printer he had back then was not very good), he got caught at a game night at a shop (unofficial tournament) and was actually banned from there.
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#8This has become a frustrating part of shopping on Amazon, to the point that I typically filter to only show things sold by Amazon themselves. Too many of the marketplace items are fake crap with paid-for reviews. Since they're mixed in together by default, the effort in trying to discern good from bad makes for a pretty crummy experience overall.
This will not always save you. If a company uses the "Fulfilled by Amazon" service they ship their stuff to amazon and it is co mingled with all of the other SKU's purporting to be the same item, including Amazons own stock
Co-mingling isn't set by default (or wasn't last I was selling a couple months ago), you have to select it, and it can be bad news for a seller (one seller got banned from amazon and had to pay to destroy or ship home 50k products because one of the items in the stack that got sold "by him" was counterfeit)
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#9Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved l…
> to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors
A lot of Wizards' approach to tournaments and playable cards is designed so that the secondary market's influence on the game is minimized.[0]
They saw beanie babies and comics implode in value after waves of speculation, so they set up a schedule where they churn out new cards and retire old ones on a predictable schedule. All this means the company has to think as little about the secondary market as possible.
You're right that counterfeits are a disruptor, but I think that's more a threat for current cards, not because people will print a bunch of black lotuses and moxes.
[0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-s...
Re: Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse
#10Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved l…
The argument could be made that players are simply trying to play with cards they can't normally obtain. Obvious counterfeits have often been allowed in unofficial games "by proxy" - allowing players to construct more powerful decks than they could afford. It would then come down to how much the counterfeit is worth to the player. So long as these aren't being passed off as legitimate cards, I don't see an issue.
How long before people won't be able to tell the difference (at least without tests that are prohibitively expensive or would destroy the card)?