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repoman
·I'm new enough to watches that my only awareness of fakes and counterfeits is that they exist, you need to be on the lookout for them, but that they are usually abundantly obvious and purchased in places like Tijuana or Thailand, and rarely do they fool a keen eye. Recently on OF we've been having a couple different threads discussing the Seamaster Planet Ocean Liquidmetal Limited Edition (sometimes abbreviated PO LM LE) 🥰. I love this watch, as do many of you, so after a bit of googling to gather more info on this piece, I stumbled upon an entire world of counterfeits, hiding in plain sight right under my nose. I'm sure most of you are aware of all this, but I wasn't ,and I want to be sick right now... 🤮
There are entire online forums dedicated to promoting counterfeits (or what the frauds cutely call "replicas"). They have concepts such as "trusted sellers" (i.e. who can get better counterfeits), they have their own vernacular such as "gen" and "rep" to obfuscate the more commonly used words "authentic" and "counterfeit". 😲 Most of all, I'm stunned with how sophisticated these Chinese factories are with their counterfeiting.
The PO LM LE for instance.... @Privateday7 had mentioned in a thread recently that he was looking at a real PO LM LE next to a counterfeit and even he could barely tell the difference ... that is scary, but I didn't absorb it when I read it. Now I see that Planet Oceans, including the LM LE, are a target of the counterfeiters. The counterfeit watches, in some cases, are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing based on external visual inspection; they have anti-reflective coatings, serial numbers, anti-counterfeit globe engravings, etc.
On these "replica" forums, users are advised to use a different username than they use on legitimate watch forums like OF and TRF... Forum members complain about their recently acquired counterfeits not being water-tight, or breaking in the first couple weeks and how they seller is slow to replace or refund as if they purchased the real thing, or how the watch is great but the clasp is cheesy... They talk about which factories produce the best counterfeits... 🤨🤮
WTF is going on here, you are buying crap and complain that its not as good as the real thing.... I just want to beat my head against the wall.
I've refrained from including links to these forums, or to the Chinese counterfeit factory websites which are right out in the open so as to not promote them directly. I'd like to take a flame thrower to all of it. Seems like there's nothing really that can be done about it, so I will just remind myself to never buy from an untrusted seller, ALWAYS inspect the movement since the only real truth is what is inside, and if its too good to be true in the watch world, its a fake.
There are entire online forums dedicated to promoting counterfeits (or what the frauds cutely call "replicas"). They have concepts such as "trusted sellers" (i.e. who can get better counterfeits), they have their own vernacular such as "gen" and "rep" to obfuscate the more commonly used words "authentic" and "counterfeit". 😲 Most of all, I'm stunned with how sophisticated these Chinese factories are with their counterfeiting.
The PO LM LE for instance.... @Privateday7 had mentioned in a thread recently that he was looking at a real PO LM LE next to a counterfeit and even he could barely tell the difference ... that is scary, but I didn't absorb it when I read it. Now I see that Planet Oceans, including the LM LE, are a target of the counterfeiters. The counterfeit watches, in some cases, are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing based on external visual inspection; they have anti-reflective coatings, serial numbers, anti-counterfeit globe engravings, etc.
On these "replica" forums, users are advised to use a different username than they use on legitimate watch forums like OF and TRF... Forum members complain about their recently acquired counterfeits not being water-tight, or breaking in the first couple weeks and how they seller is slow to replace or refund as if they purchased the real thing, or how the watch is great but the clasp is cheesy... They talk about which factories produce the best counterfeits... 🤨🤮
WTF is going on here, you are buying crap and complain that its not as good as the real thing.... I just want to beat my head against the wall.I've refrained from including links to these forums, or to the Chinese counterfeit factory websites which are right out in the open so as to not promote them directly. I'd like to take a flame thrower to all of it. Seems like there's nothing really that can be done about it, so I will just remind myself to never buy from an untrusted seller, ALWAYS inspect the movement since the only real truth is what is inside, and if its too good to be true in the watch world, its a fake.
