Probably fake...

About half the time I report fake items, I get the following message. "We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made by a customer service agent." That ticked me off one time and I resubmitted the knife and the second reviewer stopped the auction. Who knows how they determine if an item is fake or not.
 
Way back when I would report any Cold Steel fake knife I would come across while looking on eBay (not looking for fake knives, there are just so many it's hard to not find one - PSA, only buy from a long time reputable seller on eBay). Nothing was ever removed. I even spoke to a customer service agent, mentioning that the knife I was reporting was listed on Cold Steel's website as being fake. They agreed that they could see the knife on the Cold Steel website was the knife listed on eBay. They said "A Cold Steel representative would have to call eBay to have the knife removed". Basically, if the company doesn't call, eBay will not remove. At least it was that way years ago. Seems like nothing has changed.

Edit: Wow, I just checked, there is one for sale right now (seller may not know it is fake ?) of the AK47 with a flipper tab. Cold Steel never made this knife with the flipper tab. All Cold Steel AK47 knives that have this tab are fake. This knife is no longer listed in the counterfeit area on the Cold Steel website for some reason, but this knife with the flipper tab was for sale all of the time on eBay and would sale for big money, unfortunately. I personally saw a lot of these sale and reported every one of them before they sold. Ebay did nothing.
 
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Perhaps there is another possibility that hasn't been considered- maybe the buyer knew exactly what they were buying.

Not everyone out there feels the same way about fakes as we do. Not everyone who buys fakes is a victim. A lot of people knowingly, and even happily buy fakes because they just don't care and would never pay full price for the real thing. Maybe the bidders, and the buyer, just like the style of that knife, but don't want to pay $200 for the real thing, or wait for Buck to have a sale.

I mean, c'mon guys, we all know that when it comes to knives, people buy all sorts of weird stuff. Whether it's bizarre fantasy knives, gas station knives, the most cheapest crap out of China, and even fakes, a lot of people really don't care about things like quality, or authenticity, or practicality, etc. And no matter how hard you try to educate them and change their minds, they just don't care.
 
killgar said:
Perhaps there is another possibility that hasn't been considered- maybe the buyer knew exactly what they were buying.

Not everyone out there feels the same way about fakes as we do. Not everyone who buys fakes is a victim. A lot of people knowingly, and even happily buy fakes because they just don't care and would never pay full price for the real thing. Maybe the bidders, and the buyer, just like the style of that knife, but don't want to pay $200 for the real thing, or wait for Buck to have a sale.

I mean, c'mon guys, we all know that when it comes to knives, people buy all sorts of weird stuff. Whether it's bizarre fantasy knives, gas station knives, the most cheapest crap out of China, and even fakes, a lot of people really don't care about things like quality, or authenticity, or practicality, etc. And no matter how hard you try to educate them and change their minds, they just don't care.
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I agree with what you are saying. The problem is, for the unfortunate person that buys a fake, for equivalent cost of an original vintage knife $100 - $200 range such as the knife I mentioned in post # 27. Buying a cheap fake $10 to $20 range, shipped from a seller located in China is definitely buyer beware. A $200 plus knife, specifically listed as an original . . . Listed repeatedly for years, and ebay does nothing . . . Well, I guess it is also buyer beware, but ebay should do better.
 
Your Name Goes Here said:
I agree with what you are saying. The problem is, for the unfortunate person that buys a fake, for equivalent cost of an original vintage knife $100 - $200 range such as the knife I mentioned in post # 27. Buying a cheap fake $10 to $20 range, shipped from a seller located in China is definitely buyer beware. A $200 plus knife, specifically listed as an original . . . Listed repeatedly for years, and ebay does nothing . . . Well, I guess it is also buyer beware, but ebay should do better.
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I agree completely.

Fakes/counterfeits are a scourge, and I wish they didn't exist. I also wish that ebay and other vendors could do more to combat them.

My guess is that ebay either can't, or simply doesn't want to dedicate time and personnel to investigate every report of a fake listed on their site. And I can't really blame them, ebay is pretty big, lots of stuff being sold there. We're looking at a single knife, but I imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands of fake items on ebay at any given moment, and more being added every day (if not every minute).

What a headache it would be to investigate, identify, and try to remove all the fakes from ebay. And aside from the actual fakes, think about all the false reports of fakes, either innocent mistakes from well-meaning people, or people just trying to sabotage someone's sale or reputation that ebay would have to deal with. And then ebay would have to decide if the seller was intentionally selling a fake, or if they didn't know the item was a fake. And then what, do they ban the person? Sounds like a real mess to have to deal with.

Here on this forum it tends to be pretty easy to spot a fake knife, but the fakers are sometimes very good, and even the very knowledgeable here can have a hard time telling a fake from the real thing. And we're knife people, someone working at ebay assigned to investigate fakes may not be a knife person. And with all the different products that get faked in this world, I don't think it would be possible for ebay to hire an expert on every type of item to spot fakes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make excuses for ebay, I'm just trying to look at it from their perspective. It's easy to look at a single listing and say "That's a fake! Hey ebay, you need to remove it", but the bigger picture, actually trying to police fakes, is a lot more complicated.

In the end, it's like you say "buyer beware". In the case of the knife in question, I read the listing, and the seller did indicate that they weren't exactly sure what the knife was. So it would definitely have been a good idea for perspective buyers to do a little research if they had any doubts. Of course, doubts or not, a person should always do their research, especialy on things listed on ebay.
 
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I think what irritates me the most is how vague the seller was about it. He had to have known but was was essentially just playing dumb. If the seller had just come out and said "this is a Buck clone", I could at least stomach that.
 
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