Leatherman Surge eBay Scam

[agentsmith23]

Hello, I am new here and I just got my first Leatherman a few weeks ago, a Charge AL. I love it and I wanted to get my Dad a Leatherman for Father's day. So I was searching on eBay and found a surge for $50 with leather case, bit extender and bit kit. I was a bit skeptical about the auction due to the price and that it was being shipped from Hong Kong and the seller had a rating of 0. I saw red flags everywhere with this auction but I kept going back to look at it. I was thinking this has got to be a knock off and I did some research and wasn't able to find anything about counterfeit Leatherman. I decided to buy one and if it was counterfeit I would be covered by the eBay protection plan. It has been about 2 weeks now and the expected delivery is between May 8th and June 5th.  Today I was looking around eBay again and came across another Surge auction with all of the previous details the same but with a different username, the seller I bought from is simonledwig22 and the new auction is under haakris22. After seeing the second auction I did a little more searching and came across this: http://www.ncangler.com/forums/threads/61081-Ebay-scam-Extreme-caution-Happening-in-fishfinders-right-now I have contacted PayPal and opened a dispute even though I haven't received anything yet. They advised me that the payment is being held until this is resolved. I really wish I would have trusted my instincts on this and just left it alone, I hope eBay and PayPal will come up with some way to protect users against this kind of scam.

Hopefully this will help others on this forum from making the same mistake I made.

[Chako]

I guess you will just have to wait and see. I have ordered many things from Hong Kong, some with 0 ratings, and everything came to my door as expected. Keep your fingers Xed.

[enki_ck]

First of all, welcome to the forum.

Yes, we've been suspicious about some of the auctions currently and everybody has been staying away from them.


Here's a thread we had about them. --> Suspiciously cheap New LM Charge TTis (new sellers with zero feedback)


Hope you can resolve the issue and get a refund if you indeed get a knock off or don't get anything. Please let us know either way.


As for counterfeit Leatherman, yes, there are quite a few. Mosty the smaller ones, Juice and Squirt sized but also a few bigger ones.

Mammut Wave for instance.

http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,44518.msg719953.html#msg719953

The difference is mostly very obvious though.

[sawman]

Ya, it could be perfectly legit and they just fell off a truck 

[PTRSAK]

Ha, if that turns out to be the case I'm predicting a flood of MTO addicts members buying them.

[Dale]

 Had the same thing happen with a pair of Carhartt boots.  Myself, i never deal with anyone below 1000 sales & a rating below 98%. No matter how good the deal may look.

[sawman]

Had the same thing happen with a pair of Carhartt boots.  Myself, i never deal with anyone below 1000 sales & a rating below 98%. No matter how good the deal may look.

I look for as close to 100% as possible and if it's not, I peruse the negative and neutral comments to see what the problems were. Sometimes it's obviously not the seller's fault.

[MGill]

I saw that same listing and thought long and hard before deciding not to go for it. It is almost too good to be true. But like Chako said stranger things have happened. The biggest red flag to me was the size of the shipment window.  Let us know how it turns out. That way we can act like a bunch of soccer moms on Black Friday. Best of luck!!!


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[Aloha]

Welcome to the forum, I'll be hoping for the best outcome for you.  It very well may be in route but with shipping that far out I tend to be wary and when price is so low it may be a bum deal.  I try to stay away from anyone on the bay of fleas with bad feed back that I deem legitimate.  I have seen low ratings and read thru comments only to discover buyer was totally out of line. 

Luckily I have has super dealings with some outstanding sellers.  I tend to give them my business first and stray away when the hair on my neck stands on end with others.  All the best to you.   

[gregozedobe]

I am very skeptical of these Hong Kong/China sellers with no feedback, very cheap prices and an Ad that has been cut and pasted from another seller (who does have feedback and a much higher price).  I keep reporting them to eBay as "possibly fraudulent" but new ones keep popping up all the time. 

They are selling quite a few so they are taking in considerable money.  It remains to be seen whether the buyers will actually receive their tools.

[Syph007]

Yes new vics or leathermans with a good price being sold out of China are fakes.  They are not made in China so there is no 'some slipped out the back door and sold on ebay' situation as happens with electronics and other things made in china.  The sites that sell china products are flooded with fake and knockoff knives and tools.  Search multlitool on aliexpress.com and there are tons of leatherman and vic knockoffs.

[agentsmith23]

I ended up opening a dispute with PayPal back on May 6th and the seller never responded to PayPal or ebBay so I got my money back and still haven't received anything in the mail even though the seller said they shipped something back on April 22nd. The seller still doesn't have any feedback. I have learned my lesson and I hope this helps educate others of this type of scam.