Has anybody bought fake "custom"minifigures

bill_istic82

any of those boot leg mini figures from overseas on ebay they come in a little box with an illustration of the figure I am kind of curious as to the quality of the materials.
please understand that I am not selling or endorsing or have any affiliation with these
I don't post here a lot so if this violates some rule of posting I appologise

bricknation

It's a fake. Why would you buy it? See this thread: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/5411/clone-brands

samiam391

If they are to lazy to make their own unique items, then they'll be to lazy to make them even remotely good quality.

It would be in your best interest to not be deceived by the allure that customs can sometimes have, and stick with the original LEGO product.

That has always been my view on these types of items.

nkx1

It would be nice if you could type the title of your thread in the Discussion Title field. "Has anybody bought...." isn't a sufficient title, since it's not enough information for people to judge whether or not they want to read the thread. That is all.

mrseatle

The whole thing is quite criminal. The Danes should send some Vikings over to smash those forgers' factories.

akunthita

To answer your question, there was a discussion about these minifigs over on BrickLink just the other day. People who bought them pointed out that the quality of these fakes are getting better and better, and the most recent ones are so good you can't really tell them apart from real LEGO minifigs, except that they don't have the LEGO logo on them anywhere. Here is the discussion: http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=781390

This is of course a great concern for LEGO collectors and resellers, but it is the reality and how LEGO and the LEGO community will deal with them is yet to be seen.

madforLEGO

If you buy a fake you taking money away from LEGO -you know the Company that actually ACQUIRED the licenses to make these.
If someone buys these they may as well switch to MB IMO.

I get people seem to think LEGO is too pricey and this and that, but if you buy these then I feel you are hurting their brand. They look near Identical to the LEGO figures and stupid people that cannot tell them apart will rail against LEGO for poor quality. Never mind the possible health issues if they are using substandard materials in the plastic (or like some other products that are from China have lead or other contaminants in them)

vitreolum

Well, if this garbage isn't stopped anytime soon, say bye bye to buying MF lots on ebay... I dread the coming day I will have to check a MF for authenticity when I get one outside a set.

And if Lego doesn't put a stop to this, they deserve all the negative reaction they get from this. Nevermind how the consumer harms Lego by buying this, it's how consumers get harmed by them allowing this crap to exist.

margot

Just how do you propose that Lego can prevent fakes?

vitreolum

I have no clue. But there has to be a way to either stop the sale of these on larger marketpalces at least if they can't prevent the existence of them... This are a much bigger threat to both Lego and consumers than the Star Ninjago Thunder Man stuff.

BTHodgeman

All Lego can really do is what they are (likely) already doing. They can continue to pressure the governments of the countries where these items are coming from. They can continue using legal action to protect their trademarks. In the end, that's about all they can do.

joel4motion

Having worked a short contract for Paul Smith (building bespoke displays) I was made aware that they have staff who trawl eBay and report fakes and anyone using the brand name to sell "like" items.
Lego are far bigger and surely can afford to employ someone to do a similar job. Ebays policy to not sell counterfeits means a quick complaint from Lego will surely get the the listings removed. There is no other selling platform the seller could use to put these out there as quickly as they could on eBay. Close the eBay avenue for them and you would be hard pressed to find them for sale.

BrickDancer

^Exactly! Legal precedence on branded handbags and clothing set wheels in motion a while back. So Lego has the ability to go hard on these ebay pirates, they just choose not to yet. They have done it in the past, but they seem to be inconsistent on how quickly they act upon the influx of cloned fakes. But in terms of attacking the pirate country of origin such as China, Lego should get in line with all the other manufacturers. Since that won't be corrected by a court of law any time soon.

CCC

They could of course also only make them in their own factories, run by their own employees.

Coyotelily

I actually came across these recently and the quality isn't bad the only visible difference seemed to be that the legs are hollow - however the box is clearly designed to look like lego and I'm sure the artwork had been directly ripped off from lego.

But they are fake and it's going to make life very difficult when buying from ebay and the like- as you really can't tell when viewing the front of the figure!

margot

^Yup. I used to buy nice handbags and you just couldn't buy used, some of the fakes were just really good it was getting difficult to tell the difference without close inspection. I was relieved when I first started buying Lego to learn that there wasn't a counterfeit problem, unfortunately that's changing.

CCC

Fake LOTR too on ebay now ..

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Custom-LEGO-Lord-of-the-Rings-Gandalf-Hobbit-Saruman-aragorn-Froddo-Sam-Merry-/191057308373?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item2c7be72ad5