Counterfeit Figures

that "thing" looks gross

That sucks, I would avoid anything that is exported from China thru ebay... My guess probably 90% fake counterfeit. Some from Hong Kong too are fakes.
I can see why you went with ebay, because the company has stopped producing the figure right?

: ( sad panda.
For collectors or lovers of particular anime nothing is worse than counterfeits ><

I know how you fell man. I actually brought a model of Lei Feng from DOA of ebay with a price that was "to good to be true." The box says kotobukiya but the figure was poor quality and had red marks all over her body. Looks like an defect model.

Quoting from your blog..."but a very cheap imitation made by a rip-off artist in China"...What I think is happening is that it's a defect copy that they sold you. Most manufacturers always have over tons of defects. For eg, out of 10 good ones that they sold, they probably threw out 100. I'm currently working as a packer in an ebay seller company, and it's a fact that I throw out hundreds of my stuffs daily inorder to send out only 20 of them. Same case for all ebay seller out there.
Yours was probably a defect and some black-hearted chinese took it and sold it to some third party dealer, which explains the lousy packaging etc..

so danny, how can you tell that they used your picture?

I never, ever trust Ebay (especially if the seller is from China, sorry if I sound racist/schmooist/whatever-ist). If a product i want is sold out, i just do a /sigh and smack myself in the head for not grabbing it sooner. Ebay is a cesspool of fakes and misinformation.

I recently started using ebay but had a feeling all the really awesome deals outta china were too good to be true. I bought a counterstrike Rei and it looked legit with the sega packaging and it came from China. Maybe I was lucky?

I had already purchased some really great and long-out-of-production figures on eBay, so I believed it to be safe, regardless of where the seller was located. Check these out (especially if you're a fan of Vagabond: http://brotherwormgear.blogspot.com/2008/03/return-of-god-of-death.html )

BTW - I fixed the links on my blog so that the fake mirei photos can be enlarged; I don't know what happened there.

got a fake Saber once,
http://www.marvinryan.com/blog/2006/09/16/fatestay-night-saber-french-doll-cerberus-project/
was a figure newbie then so couldn't tell the difference. thankfully folks at figure.fm pointed it out and I got a refund.
here's how to tell if that certain saber figure is a fake:
http://www.marvinryan.com/blog/2006/09/16/fake-figures/

Hmmm Danny are U going to complain to ebay about them using your photo without your permission? So frigging annoying ugh!

Ironic it's seems but majority of Original Figurines were also Made in China

My Max Factory Karen & Miina from Please Twins series had the "Made in China" logo too.

I thought they were made them in Japan.

oh well, i'll just follow our local trusted stores.

Yikes!!
That's horrible.

Ebay is such a bad place for figures, you can never tell whether they are legit or fake... My sympathy to wormgear >_<

I like how the bolded/colored words in the "Satisfaction guarantee" section in the ebay auction read "WE FOR WE"
>_>

ご愁傷さま。I can imagine the fevered anticipation of arrival of an out-of-print figure then falling in the crushing depths to find its a fake. Even though I've just started collecting figures myself ^^;
Personally I've only tried Hobby Link Japan <http://www.hlj.com> No major problems so far except inherent minor manufacturing defects.

Yikes, I was thinking of making my first purchase of figures from ebay soon, but this is giving me second thoughts...is it alright to assume it might be legit if the seller is from Japan?

Oh and my condolences, Wormgear, for that unfortunate purchase...

I've been careful when buying figure and also my high standard for figure would usually make me not interested in bootleg to begin with. I've been buying pretty much all my figure(and also some game and soundtrack) from http://www.play-asia.com no copy of figure their.

Hmm, the counterfeit figure is made of PVC or resin/cold cast? Because from the pics of the packaging in your blog, that kind of packaging usually used to pack resin/cold-cast figurines. For counterfeited PVC figure, usually even the box is counterfeited too.
BTW, aside from counterfeited PVC figure, you can also find lots of prepainted resin/cold cast figure too (and they are't legal either; some of them are recast of resin kit from WF etc)

Ew. :[
I once saw some trading figures on ebay that had paint peeling off, and they were leaning all over the place. That seller had to have been some sort of idiot.

I only buy figures and gunpla from stores I trust, never through Ebay because I don't trust it. A good friend of mine is most likely going to start selling his figures on Ebay and they're all legit because he owns a shop and I buy most of my stuff from him.

I have a chinese knock-off of Kazumi, which the retailer was honest enough to tell me. except for the shiny hair its almost like the original. I got it because the original is no longer available over here. I stay away from Ebay.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronaldbayan/2585962709/

There are lots of bootlegs here! its so irritating, and the worse part is they price it almost the same as the real thing so its a complete ripoff! i've had my share of rip offs,about 2 ;_;

i do most of my purchase at local shops. else its from HobbyLink Japan (HLJ). i like how HLJ do the packaging. ^^;

Terrible. Ebay is really dangerous for that sort of thing. I always check the feedback properly and *never* order anything from China. It's best to look for sellers from Japan that also offer EMS; sofar I've never been wrong with that.

This is just wrong... I guess we all have to watch each others' backs so that something like this don't happen again...

ouch...I saw few fake figures here and there, but they are easy to spot. When shop on ebay, read the description several times before the purchase... sometimes you just can't be cheap on certain things, especially the ones u love/like

I was lucky enough to own another version of Mirei-san from Kotobukiya. Got it for a bargain for $39 from www.play-asia.com. it was one where she is wearing red. I was very hesistant as it may have been a bootleg but was overwhelmed when it arrive after 2 weeks.

Hm, well the ebay listing describes it very clearly as a resin figure. Its bound to not be the official one, as it was PVC.

If you live in America, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up a Diamond Previews catalog every month. You can find them in any comic book store. You can order figures, books, etc, that are being released in America, and also Japanese imports of books and things. Some of the stuff is for retail (meaning you'd have to buy in bulk), but most of the stuff ya'll would probably buy you can order individually.

when buying stuff from overseas, its best to go through reputable japanese links or if possible inspect them in person.

I have 3 authentic Mirei-san:

(a) HK Comic Fair 2007 Special version - red with black bra/panties (still available at Play Asia http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-8x-77-1-49-en-15-mirei-70-28pi.html)
(b) Kanto-region exclusive version - purple with white bra/panties (http://www.kotobukiya.co.jp/item/page/pvc_aos_mirei/index.shtml)
(c) Blue Abyss version - deep blue with red bra/panties (still available through http://www.kotobukiya.co.jp/item/page/pvc_aos_mirei_b/index.shtml)

I'm in the process of getting the Kansai-version exclusive - blonde Mirei san in white with purple bra/panties (http://ichigekizero.blogspot.com/2007/08/mirei-san-kansai-version-photos.html).

Basically, I bought :
(a) the HK Comic version through Play-Asia.
(b) the Kanto-version through Yahoo Japan Auction (mint in box)
(c) the Blue-Abyss version through Amazon Japan (follow the link in the Kotobukiya online store)
(d) the Kansai-version through Yahoo Japan Auction (the seller states it's second hand, but it comes nicely repacked in the box)

I'm sorry you bought the counterfeit Mirei-san.

its a shame to see people counterfeiting things, less money in the market means less quality releases...when will people learn.
anyway as for legit places i get my figures from
cd japan
hobby link japan
toyslogic

Amazing. The Mirei was obviously fake but then the saber with the box looked pretty legit...I wouldn't have known the difference.

Make that butt-ugly fake Mirei an official DC avatar LOL.

Another unfortunate joining the ranks of MOK-KOS and Sader.

wow that's a terrible Mieri. Another cheap Chinese ripoff.

Gah, I've felt that kind of burn too, from a fakish-looking Kazami Mizuho with a suspicious clear top.

That's so sad =(
I bought some counterfeit figures on ebay couple times. That really pissed me off.

I'm pretty sure I might have counterfeit Haruhi Nendoroid. It looks pretty good, but i bought it on ebay for $8. Thats a tell tell sign. But i would be pissed to pay full price for a ripoff!

Animexing.com strung me along for ages, and they charged me UP FRONT for a pre-order. Very weird.

Been getting a majority of my figures from www.toylet.net and I am saving on shipping since its only like 10 min away from work. If anyone knows frank and sons and is in the OC/ LA Area in California, they should also check out this place too. The owner larry is pretty up to date on his site and has alot of the newer figures on his site for preorder as well.

man, that sucks....Ive been buying figures from ebay on occasion, but it is usually from independent individuals looking to sell the figures due to no more space, or to buy new ones. i luckily have had no fakes and i usually ask for better detailed photos from seller. if they cant produce photos i wont buy from them!.........ive recently started buying from online companies from japan, or middleman companies like j-list.

that just looks disgusting -_-'

Wow that looks horrible! Since a lot of bootlegs come out of HK I'm usually very hesitant to buy anything from there with eBay or anything. I do a lot of research like checking feedback and googling to see if they've been mentioned in forums as possible bootleg sellers before buying and even then that's only if I can't find it anywhere else. Sometimes I request actual pics instead of stock/promo pics if I'm still not sure. Haven't got a bootleg yet but I've only gotten 2-3 figs from eBay HK sellers and thankfully they're legit.

It really is of shoddy quality compared to the original. Maybe it would be good for you to practice either your painting or customizing skills on?

Ouch.

Am so sorry to hear.

To think I was planning to order a figma from there >_<

Better not then...but it looks real...and the person claims it's from Max Factory

Man taht sucks.... sorry to hear that.... i donno if you are still looking for that figure, but in this site which i ordered from and is definitly legit, there is a alternate version of your figure in stock

http://www.locushk.com/index.php?sp=&p=6&cat2=151&cat1=19&cat0=7&id=980&cat1=19&cat0=7&new=&more=&s=0250510c9fe608c9b875d1f33ac8617b&lang=en

In terms of actual online stores, I trust Kid Nemo since every order I've had through them so far has gone smoothly and wonderfully (although I have A LOT on pre-order with them and hope I don't get screwed over like poor Meronpan has with cancelled pre-orders in the future. http://wawawawasuremono.com/figure-store-reviews/ ). You just can't fail with Hobby Search. They're fantastic! Unfortunately, the shipping costs an arm, a leg, and various internal organs. I really wish they had a North American branch. I'm not too impressed with ToysLogic so far since they've cancelled 3 of my 6 pre-orders. :(

As for eBay, I trust Tokyo Hunter the most. He's professional, responds very quickly, and there's no question about the authenticity of his products. ^_^ There's also toys.japan . It looks kind of sketchy how he raises and lowers the figure cost vs. the shipping cost constantly depending on competing auctions (I watched his auctions for a long time before deciding to buy). I know it's probably to remain competitive, but it kinda makes the eyebrow rise. I can testify that he does sell legit merch though. Max Factory's Kureha is currently directly in front of me. She's flawless and her box had the shiny, holographic "H Japan" sticker and all. =^_^=

I've never seen a real Mirei so i cant say as to how bad it looks.

I just order'ed a figure off animecornerstore.com I'm new to the whole figure buying experience and most of mine have been buys from DC and actual purchases from store's. I wont know if I got a real one or a badly made fake till I get the shipment within a few days. Hopefully I'll be getting a real "Race Queen" Rei Ayanami from Kotobukiya... I plan on posting an article as soon as I am able to due to restriction for upload's on her authenticity.

Here's hoping!