Fake Britain bbc1

Have I missed this or is it on later in the prog?
 
Not a great programme, they said that a grey import was a fake, I'm not going down the pros and cons of grey imports, but most aren't fakes, they are just not made for the UK market.

A trawl through the posts on here will show the pitfalls.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up, Nick!

George.
 
well I guess that showed the D7000 focus issues and the canon 7D £1600 that was a long time ago and he now shoots a Sony A7Rii by the looks of it.
 
How old was the programme? D7000 and 7d are ancient.

I'm sure there were people on here a few years ago that found theirs had the serial numbers messed with and no warranty.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0920bpt/fake-britain-series-7-30-minute-reversions-episode-5

(from 15:30)

Programme is dated 2016, though the first guy had probably bought his Canon some time ago if he was sending it in for service. They muddy the water by mixing up 'fake' (like the dodgy chargers and batteries) and 'grey' (really black) market. I liked 'With a fake serial number, there was no way of knowing whether it was even a genuine Nikon product!' (yeah, right). Is that 'Canon' P&S an actual fake, though?

One of their screenshots looks like it's from SLRhut if you Google the SKU...
 
Yonks ago I saw a programme or some evidence where the camera (I think a Nikon DSLR) was indeed fake. The internals had nothing to do with a Nikon. Unfortunately the BBC followed the lines of the manufacturers' in calling the DSLR camera fakes. Nevertheless, the implication seemed to be that Canon would not touch the "fake" camera whilst it seemed as if Nikon would (at a cost).
 
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TLR-330 said:
Yonks ago I saw a programme or some evidence where the camera (I think a Nikon DSLR) was indeed fake. The internals had nothing to do with a Nikon. Unfortunately the BBC followed the lines of the manufacturers' in calling the DSLR camera fakes. Nevertheless, the implication seemed to be that Canon would not touch the "fake" camera whilst it seemed as if Nikon would (at a cost).
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Maybe it was a decent, genuine Nikon outer casing, but someone had ruined it by sticking Canon internals in there ...... :D
 
TLR-330 said:
Yonks ago I saw a programme or some evidence where the camera (I think a Nikon DSLR) was indeed fake. The internals had nothing to do with a Nikon.
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That P&S that they claim is a fake with fake software might be in the same category - those things are much more generic than SLRs, so it would be easier to fool people by re-badging a Brand X.
 
If you're going to make a fake product surely it's better to fake something expensive than something cheap.
You wouldn't forge 10p coins when with the same effort you could counterfeit £1 coins.
 
Brian G said:
If you're going to make a fake product surely it's better to fake something expensive than something cheap.
You wouldn't forge 10p coins when with the same effort you could counterfeit £1 coins.
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The analogy is flawed, no one makes 'cheap slr's' that you could easily butcher and upsell, but there's lots of cheap Chinese p&s size cameras.

Back to your analogy, you'd have to make your own £1 coins (which might cost 50p) whereas you can buy fake 10p's for 2p.
 
Hard to make a convincing fake of something as complex as a dSLR, though. A lot of fakes of all kinds of products start with something similar you can buy as a generic product and then dress it up. Phones are easy, because the cheap ones look a lot like the big brands to start with. The same is probably true of random P&S cameras. A fake Rolex is presumably based on a standard movement found in other cheap watches with fake detailing. Those fake vintage Leicas are old Soviet Leica clones with false engravings added. With dSLRs there's not really a 'Brand X' to base the fake on, so it would be a lot more work, which costs money.
 
I am can remember a discussion on this very forum some time back about Digital Rev, a grey market seller, changing the serial numbers on their cameras
 
The odd thing is that Nikon dSLRs also have internal serial numbers that are in the metadata of every file shot with that camera, so Nikon will presumably always know where the camera came from originally if they ever get one in for service. So who is the tampering intended to fool? Maybe a cursory check at Customs, who may know the serial number ranges for various markets?
 
Wouldn't be surprised if the whole lot wasn't a setup by Canon and/or HMRC to try and stop people buying grey imports by calling them fake or counterfeit.
Both descriptions are wrong, Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorised replicas of the real product, which these cameras were not.
The charger and battery were probably counterfeit, not sure about the compact camera though.
 
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I only seen a small part of the programme but it seemed odd to me that they called the slrs counterfeit when they just had the wrong serial numbers, seemed very much like a bit of scare mongering to put the general public of buying grey import. The battery thing though is a bigger problem though the fake batteries seem to be everywhere now. I have bought some myself and while they worked fine and looked exactly the same as the standard retail one's I stopped using them just in case. I also received one battery form a well known retailer that is mentioned on here regularly which turned out to be fake. To be fair to them they were very good about it and as well as refunding the payment, they removed the batteries from sale. To be honest it was very hard to tell the difference between the real and the fake and I only noticed there was a problem when I tried to register them on Nikon's website. Nikon said that there is literally hundreds of thousands of fake EN-EL15 batteries around and it's next to impossible to tell them apart from the real thing.
 
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Moey said:
Maybe it was a decent, genuine Nikon outer casing, but someone had ruined it by sticking Canon internals in there ...... :D
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Thus rendering all those sensor recall notices entirely redundant? ;)
 
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Phil V said:
The analogy is flawed, no one makes 'cheap slr's' that you could easily butcher and upsell, but there's lots of cheap Chinese p&s size cameras.

Back to your analogy, you'd have to make your own £1 coins (which might cost 50p) whereas you can buy fake 10p's for 2p.
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I was thinking more in terms of the "fake" Canon compact that was on the show.

Retune said:
The odd thing is that Nikon dSLRs also have internal serial numbers that are in the metadata of every file shot with that camera, so Nikon will presumably always know where the camera came from originally if they ever get one in for service. So who is the tampering intended to fool? Maybe a cursory check at Customs, who may know the serial number ranges for various markets?
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I would have thought it was even easier to change a "software" embedded serial number than the printed one on the product label. It's not so much as knowing where the camera came from, rather the market where it was intended to be sold, which appears to be identifiable from the serial number. If a camera is bought legitimately abroad, surely it can still be serviced in the UK, even if it requires payment?
It's all very well to say "The inflated retail price in the UK is to cover warranty and servicing" but items sold abroad are still supplied with warranty, the cost of which is still incorporated in the sale price.
 
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Retune said:
The odd thing is that Nikon dSLRs also have internal serial numbers that are in the metadata of every file shot with that camera, so Nikon will presumably always know where the camera came from originally if they ever get one in for service. So who is the tampering intended to fool? Maybe a cursory check at Customs, who may know the serial number ranges for various markets?
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From the article @andyjholt linked above...
[The company] told us it wasn’t an authorised Nikon dealer and that it sold grey market cameras. “Our suppliers, who are authorised dealers based in the far east, do change the serial numbers on the cameras for stock purposes,” it says. “But these cameras are genuinely made by the manufacturer stated on the camera.”​

I can't understand the explanation or reasoning for altering the serial numbers. Thats the point where "grey market" becomes a bit "fake" (or at least false advertising) to my mind.

So long as its stated fully that the model was originally intended for sale in the far east and the customer knows exactly what they are getting and what expectations are (i.e. that Nikon UK / Canon UK will not generally repair the Camera under warranty and therefore any warranty is offered purely by the seller with no backup) then that isn't a fake item. When the serial number is altered (or other changes made or the identity of the camera is fudged) then the situation becomes one of trying to deceive the customer and is morally (if not legally) dubious.

All IMO and IANAL of course.
 
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Brian G said:
I would have thought it was even easier to change a "software" embedded serial number than the printed one on the product label. It's not so much as knowing where the camera came from, rather the market where it was intended to be sold, which appears to be identifiable from the serial number. If a camera is bought legitimately abroad, surely it can still be serviced in the UK, even if it requires payment?
It's all very well to say "The inflated retail price in the UK is to cover warranty and servicing" but items sold abroad are still supplied with warranty, the cost of which is still incorporated in the sale price.
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Yes you have a warranty still - its just the responsibility and legal coverage is with the manufacturer's subsidiary in that country. For example: if its a camera destined for the Hong Kong market you are covered by Nikon in Hong Kong for repairs.

On the other hand there should be no restrictions placed by the UK distributors on repairing cameras purchased abroad when they are charged repairs.
 
Eloise said:
From the article @andyjholt linked above...
[The company] told us it wasn’t an authorised Nikon dealer and that it sold grey market cameras. “Our suppliers, who are authorised dealers based in the far east, do change the serial numbers on the cameras for stock purposes,” it says. “But these cameras are genuinely made by the manufacturer stated on the camera.”​

I can't understand the explanation or reasoning for altering the serial numbers..
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Me neither. I can't see any legitimate reason for that. It would be interesting to see whether anyone here could justify it.
 
Rubbish programme, with as much nonsense, as many lies and half-truths from the BBC and Canon/Nikon, as you get with most grey dealers.

Pretty shameful standard of reporting from the beeb TBH :thumbsdown:
 
Brian G said:
I would have thought it was even easier to change a "software" embedded serial number than the printed one on the product label.
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I suspect it's not - previous purchasers have noticed a mismatch between the internal serial number (since some models use the same number internally and externally) and what is printed on the fake label, so the fakers have presumably changed only the label. You can change the number recorded in an individual image file, of course, but I suppose altering the number stored in the camera would involve changing part of the firmware that is normally untouched by updates.
 
StewartR said:
Me neither. I can't see any legitimate reason for that. It would be interesting to see whether anyone here could justify it.
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Could it be, Stuart, that they were attempting to protect the identity of their source?...although as others have pointed out it's easy to see the s/no from the exif.

George.
 
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