Buyer Beware

Stuppored

Here's how real the selling of fake Cisco gear is:

Man who tried to sell fake Cisco kit to US army jailed

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alan2308

Two things immediately come to mind. First, that guy has to be one of the biggest idiots ever to think he'd be able to get away with that. Second, what is the DoD doing buying gear off of some random guy?

boile

Stuppored wrote: »

Here's how real the selling of fake Cisco gear is:

Man who tried to sell fake Cisco kit to US army jailed

Most people buy the Cisco gears from the e-bay. How would I know, if I am buying the right one? Any suggestion?

chmorin

boile wrote: »

Most people buy the Cisco gears from the e-bay. How would I know, if I am buying the right one? Any suggestion?

I tried to make a thread about bad buyers and how to be a wary purchaser and it ended up being a bad idea.

All I can say is read the fine print. Paypal is usually on the buyers side.

Stuppored

chmorin wrote: »

I tried to make a thread about bad buyers and how to be a wary purchaser and it ended up being a bad idea.

All I can say is read the fine print. Paypal is usually on the buyers side.

This is how most vendor supported sites work... you buy from a site supporting vendor. Why? Because they pay an amount for advertisements and if they were doing something wrong, they would not be site supported vendors for very long. You can always try your own local cisco refurb companies if you're iffy about buying online.

tiersten

boile wrote: »

Most people buy the Cisco gears from the e-bay. How would I know, if I am buying the right one? Any suggestion?

You don't. That is the risk you take from buying second hand or from non Cisco distributors.

Don't buy anything which doesn't have a photo. Doesn't have boot log. Doesn't say its been tested/working. If its sold by the seller on behalf of somebody else then stay away. Check that the serial numbers aren't plastered all over the internet in other auctions. Try to avoid buying from anybody that doesn't have a decent feedback percentage and also isn't a brand new seller.

Once you've actually received the item you need to check that it looks okay. That the serial numbers match up with what is reported within IOS and what was in the auction. There are hologram stickers on it if the item is fairly recently manufactured. If it is a popular fake item like WIC-T1 or WIC-1ENET then check the various sites which point out specific characteristics you need to look out for.

None of these checks are infallible and you may still end up with a fake. In that case you'll have to take it up with the seller and raise an issue with Paypal.

Stuppored

tiersten wrote: »

You don't. That is the risk you take from buying second hand or from non Cisco distributors.

The tips you added seem like solid advice.... considering you've already made the purchase, paid for shipping, waited for the product, received the product, and now found out that it is fake. Now look at the dilemma you're in. You don't have working product, you've wasted time... now you are trying to contact the seller for a potential refund where you will most likely have to pay for shipping if they do respond... or dispute via paypal... much wasted time. Sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

tiersten

Stuppored wrote: »

The tips you added seem like solid advice.... considering you've already made the purchase, paid for shipping, waited for the product, received the product, and now found out that it is fake. Now look at the dilemma you're in. You don't have working product, you've wasted time... now you are trying to contact the seller for a potential refund where you will most likely have to pay for shipping if they do respond... or dispute via paypal... much wasted time. Sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

Thats the thing though. Legitimate resellers can end up with fakes unknowingly so you may use the same company that you've been buying from for years but then end up with a fake because they pick up a pallet of gear from somewhere. Not really much you can do about cases like that since you'd get stung even if you did all the checks.

Oh another thing is that if its way too cheap to be true then it probably isn't something you should be buying/bidding on. There are always loads of brand new in box gear coming from places like Hong Kong or China which have amazing prices but the risk of fakes is just too high.

ZZOmega

Holy crap!

Wouldn't you be able to tell if it's a legit Cisco product by ID numbers on the device and the OUI of all the MAC's inside of it?

As long as the seller on eBay, or wherever you're using PayPal claims for it to be a legitimate Cisco product, and the documentation doesn't match up, you should have grounds for a return, right?

Qord

Often times, individual military units do whatever they can to stay in budget. If that means buying from some dude on ebay, then that's what happens. This isn't something rare, but it only really goes on in smaller units who don't have the clout to increase budgets. This dude probably started as a legit broker/dealer, and after he gained the trust he needed, started moving the fakes.

ZZOmega wrote: »

As long as the seller on eBay, or wherever you're using PayPal claims for it to be a legitimate Cisco product, and the documentation doesn't match up, you should have grounds for a return, right?

Yes. In fact, if you pay by credit card through Paypal, you're doubly protected. Best way to do it.

tiersten

ZZOmega wrote: »

Wouldn't you be able to tell if it's a legit Cisco product by ID numbers on the device and the OUI of all the MAC's inside of it?

No. Nothing stopping the counterfeit device manufacturers from using those numbers. These counterfeit devices aren't like the cheesy fakes you see at the market where the names are deliberately spelt wrong to alledgely avoid legal attention. They will at first glance look exactly like the real device.

ZZOmega wrote: »

As long as the seller on eBay, or wherever you're using PayPal claims for it to be a legitimate Cisco product, and the documentation doesn't match up, you should have grounds for a return, right?

Yes. Paypal generally side with the buyer as well so make sure you only pay via that and do what Qord said to pay Paypal with a credit card.

tiersten

Qord wrote: »

Often times, individual military units do whatever they can to stay in budget. If that means buying from some dude on ebay, then that's what happens. This isn't something rare, but it only really goes on in smaller units who don't have the clout to increase budgets. This dude probably started as a legit broker/dealer, and after he gained the trust he needed, started moving the fakes.

Pretty much. The other big route for fakes is outsourcing the procurement to somebody else. It is difficult to get a clear and accurate picture of the supply chain for every single item.

Your regular trusted supplier may have gotten a really good deal on buying out the old stock of some other supplier or they may be short on stock for some particular device and source it from somebody else.

Military -> Trusted supplier -> Random supplier A -> Random supplier B -> eBay -> Counterfeit supplier

alan2308

Qord wrote: »

Often times, individual military units do whatever they can to stay in budget. If that means buying from some dude on ebay, then that's what happens. This isn't something rare, but it only really goes on in smaller units who don't have the clout to increase budgets. This dude probably started as a legit broker/dealer, and after he gained the trust he needed, started moving the fakes.

Maybe things are a bit looser now, or maybe I was just a bit naive on everything behind the scenes. Or it could just be that things are a bit different in the Marine Corps than the other branches. I was in a smaller unit but everything was reviewed by higher up as it happened, plus the entire unit was gone through with a fine tooth comb in an audit every year or two. I can remember having to produce receipts for a $1 screwdriver that replaced the one in a standard issue toolbox.

Paul Boz

What typically happens is that the DoD (or some other .gov or .mil) contract out these types of jobs. They USUALLY use reputable contractors. However, many of these contractors actually sub-contract some of the work, sometimes including the procurement and deployment of these counterfeit devices. The problem arises from the fact that the government doesn't have any transparency into these sub-contractors so usually they only get busted if the original contractor is at fault. There are hundreds of thousands of counterfeit cisco devices currently deployed by the US government. This dude getting busted isn't even a drop in the bucket. What's 50k fake GBICs when you can provide that to the market in a week?

wastedtime

alan2308 wrote: »

Maybe things are a bit looser now, or maybe I was just a bit naive on everything behind the scenes. Or it could just be that things are a bit different in the Marine Corps than the other branches. I was in a smaller unit but everything was reviewed by higher up as it happened, plus the entire unit was gone through with a fine tooth comb in an audit every year or two. I can remember having to produce receipts for a $1 screwdriver that replaced the one in a standard issue toolbox.

If this is happening in the military it isn't from small units and someone on the military side of reviewing this would be in on it. Government purchase card (GPC) holders can not buy from 3rd party suppliers without authorization from the GPC program coordinator.

Edit: More then likely it is exactly as Paul Boz said.