FENIX PD35 TAC knockoffs on ebay. BEWARE!

dale5150

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Ebay is full of Fenix PD35 Tac lights for $42.00 or so. I bought one when I first saw them after losing one of mine. They are absolutely knock offs. Not the worst I have seen but not Fenix quality. The lens has become foggy after a few months of use and when reported to Fenix it was confirmed to be a fake. BEWARE
 
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CSG

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Why not buy directly from Fenix?? You can usually get 20% off and free shipping.
 

dale5150

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I cant figure out how to post a pic. The first thing I noticed was the pocket clip was very weak and the beam was slightly different from my other one. I bought it for my girlfriend to carry as the TK16 has a bigger head and she kept using my PD35 when we went field herping at night. They didnt have any discount codes when I bought it and 40.00 was better than 72.00. I just got another one from Fenix with the code. Lesson learned. I just never thought about someone faking a Fenix. Maybe a surefire.
 
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thermal guy

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Honestly when I see some of the stuff that gets faked it hard to believe they can make money on them. They are so close to being the real thing it must cost a bit to make.
 

archimedes

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Honestly when I see some of the stuff that gets faked it hard to believe they can make money on them. They are so close to being the real thing it must cost a bit to make.

When they don't have to pay for or support ... advertising, R & D, design, quality materials, QA / QC, warranty, distributor / dealer network, customer service, etc, etc ... if they can still profit a penny a piece on knockoffs, it'll happen :shakehead
 
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bykfixer

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I read a story about a famous tripod maker who was discussing plans to have their products made in an Asian factory and they were being taped by an unscrupulous employee who sold plans he had recorded covertly to a rival factory and before factory A could put out the original products factory B was already selling the knock offs.
When the Asian made tripods started showing up the famous tripod maker had not even any of the real thing yet so they cancelled the contract.
Later the knock offs started showing up as a different brand. This was back when carbon fiber tripods were new.

Heck when I had a bike shop I saw a sight on the internet that was selling carbon fiber Specialized brand road bike frames for $11 apiece!! You had to buy at least 50. The decals for it were $500 a set. No kidding. They were $1200 frames in bike shops at that time.

It took me 5 tries to get a genuine LED Lenser P7 back in 015. The first 4 were knock offs. Shoot, now even price doesn't always matter. Fake microstreams litter Amazon for regular microstream prices these days.
 

jon_slider

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please dont take offense, I just want to understand

> when reported to Fenix it was confirmed to be a fake

how did Fenix determine the light is fake?
do you mean the Fenix retailer in USA? (that is not a factory shop, its just a guy with a resale contract, he could say something is fake, just to get your business)

> The first thing I noticed was the pocket clip was very weak and the beam was slightly different

that is the evidence that Fenix relied on to tell you the light is fake?
 

MaxIcon

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I can't speak for OP, but the 4 Fenix E12s I recently bought all have serial numbers.

In the watch world, knockoffs often have the same serial number on a bunch of watches, and that's for expensive counterfeits. I'm guessing the Fenix counterfeiters aren't likely to go to the trouble to individually serialize every flashlight, but I could be wrong.
 

thermal guy

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When they don't have to pay for or support ... advertising, R & D, design, quality materials, QA / QC, warranty, distributor / dealer network, customer service, etc, etc ... if they can still profit a penny a piece on knockoffs, it'll happen :shakehead


I get that they have no overhead and cheap labor but still. They have to reverse engineer the thing Make jigs and Machines To put it together get or build all the bits and pieces etc etc. I saw counterfeit Mudmaster watches and the dam things were so close to being real it was scary. If they make money on them it can't be much.
 

bykfixer

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PK once told me that it took him a year to decide on a factory to make his new tape switch due to so often seeing fakes of items he had not even finished designing. Copies of prototypes were at local market stores in the country he was working in at the time. That was lights he designed for other companies a couple years back.

He said he took a 12 hour ride in a taxi looking for the guy who was known as the master of fake SureFire tape switches. He said the guy lived so remotely that google earth didn't know his location. So when he found the guy and introduced himself, the guy thought he was there to murder him for copying his SureFire designs. He said "no you make things so secretly I want you to make me a prototype for my tape switch". Happy with the prototype, it took him a year to find a place he could trust to make them. Even his friends don't know where that is.
 

aznsx

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It's the 'Wild West' out there folks, and I ain't talking Arizona either.

It's my belief (and always has been) that the best way I can avoid buying bogus merch is to select my vendors / suppliers carefully. For me, that's nothing new - it's always been that way - probably always will be. There's no such thing as a guarantee with these things, but I've found that's the closest I can get to one.
 

Lou Minescence

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please dont take offense, I just want to understand

> when reported to Fenix it was confirmed to be a fake

how did Fenix determine the light is fake?
do you mean the Fenix retailer in USA? (that is not a factory shop, its just a guy with a resale contract, he could say something is fake, just to get your business)

> The first thing I noticed was the pocket clip was very weak and the beam was slightly different

that is the evidence that Fenix relied on to tell you the light is fake?

Agreed. Curious to know more about this.
 

jon_slider

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alternative facts:
China factory makes 5000 units, including boxes
They sell as many as they can, including to retailers who have websites and a business address in USA.

When demand falls off, the surplus lights and boxes, go to a bulk buyer, at firesale prices,
the bulk buyer resells at a discount, to move volume, of old inventory

the same factory makes all the lights, the difference is only the distribution channel, and the market age of the product

iirc the Fenix PD35 Tac dates back to at least 2015

Im sorry the Op got a light with a bad O ring seal on the lens, and it fogged up
and Im sorry he felt the clip was too flimsy

however
there is nothing in this conversation that proves the accusation that there is an ebay seller moving counterfeit lights

Im not even sure that kind of accusation is appropriate here, we are usually not allowed to mention ebay, and we are usually not allowed to make unfounded accusations about vendors and their products.

imo this thread is based on pure speculation without evidence.
 

thermal guy

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Well he hasn't said how Fenix confirmed it was a fake. More information would be nice.
 

archimedes

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OP has stated that Fenix itself confirmed the item was counterfeit, and no particular vendor was identified.

If there were a specific complaint about a certain vendor, this thread would be moved to "Jeers"

As I understand OP's topic, it appears to be more of an FYI / PSA. So-called "cloned" merchandise is not uncommon, and certainly not limited to brand name flashlights.

If further details direct from OP are available, they would be of interest. However, that should be tempered somewhat by the knowledge that identifiable details or markings posted and openly discussed, tend to "disappear" in future iterations of inauthentic items :sigh:
 
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