Millennium Falcon 75192 from Amazon Warehouse sent with fake instruction manual - check ifset fake ?

taposh

Afternoon all.  Can I pick your brains for a second please.  Purchased UCS Millennium Falcon 75192 from Amazon Warehouse.  About 30 quid off Amazon normal price due to damaged packaging.  However on receipt, apart from ripped and patched up packaging found the instruction manual was a fake !  From one of the 'King' ripoffs.  But inner boxes and external packaging appear to be genuine.  

After some wrangling with Amazon they have offered 25% refund, which is tempting to keep the set but how do I check the set itself is genuine ?  

The 4 inner boxes have quotes from the films and have line diagrams of the falcon in them.  Boxes are numbered 6206395, 6206398, 6206399 & 6206400.  I've not opened these yet - probably will do tonight to check the individual bags.  Fake instruction manual is worn - has been folded in half and well dog-eared.  But the white inner boxes are mint condition. 

I can only assume someone really wanted a genuine manual.  Stickers may be fake as well.  

Any advice would be appreciated.  anyone aware of a proliferation of good fakes of these historically ? 

CCC

I'd open up those boxes as soon as possible and check the parts for LEGO logos. I would have done that before contacting amazon about the fake manual.

It could well be someone purchased a real one and a fake and have returned the fake parts in the genuine box.

taposh

Thank you CCC.  Once I discovered the fake manual I wanted to not interfere with the rest of the contents in case it caused issues with return.  But yes will have a look at the contents tonight.

klinton

If I were in your shoes I would just send the whole thing back, tbh. No discount is worth the annoying constant niggling feeling you'll have about the set. It's a large enough chunk of change that I'd insist on perfection when I opened that box.

taposh

You may be right.  Don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the set !  

Lobot

@taposh - it's currently available in Smyths & John Lewis for £550....

taposh

Evening guys.  Lobot - thank you so much for the heads up.  Set ordered !

And I opened up the inner boxes - instantaneously identifiable as fake !  Biggest giveaway is it comes in a number of polybags - so get a number of number 1 bags - basic sealed plastic bag just a solitary 1 printed in black.  The bricks arent marked Lego but also look off in terms of colour.  

Each inner box had been very, very carefully opened.  

Thanks all for acting as sounding board.  Without a doubt this would have been obvious but re-confirmed not to keep it even if it had looked pucker !

Shropshire

I hope they can track who first returned it (it's likely to be a previous customer return than a fake taken into stock issue) rather than it just being on the pile of returns... you'd hope whoever did it wouldn't get away with it.. buy a fake, buy a genuine, and return the fake as the genuine !

CCC

Exactly as I thought it would be. They buy a real one and a fake one, return the fake in the real box and they get the real one for the price of the fake.

taposh

Yeah its an interesting one.  I assume it was a standard item and packaging got damaged in return process, hence wound up on Marketplace.  Given the care the internals have been re-packed I guess the fraudster didn't count on this.  

I don't know how detailed Amazon product tracking is, but as a Marketplace item rather than off the shelf I assume it may be easier to tracks its history.   

Shropshire

I would imagine they damaged the packaging on purpose to create the reason to return that attracted least scrutiny. Likely maybe Amazon have a deal with their courier for damage so likely to just get dumped or sold as seen via their sell out the back door route (they offload to companies to resell unwanted sometimes - according to that TV programme) rather than be sold back out to a customer.

CCC

I thought all amazon returns went to warehouse and not back to their new stock.

Cyberdragon

It's fake Lego...I hope it ends up in a garbage incinerator.

cody6268

Given some of the items I've received from Amazon--they'll slap some tape on it and resell it as a "Warehouse" item; with damaged packaging, intentionally failing to disclose it's a return and defective.   All defective items in my mind should be returned to manufacturer. All counterfeits--ran over by a CAT 797F and incinerated. 

ReesesPieces

Saddest part is that even if they could track the individual who did the switch, that person will get away with it and will continue to do it.

andhe

taposh said:

Don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the set !  

Missed opportunity for 'I have a bad feeling about this' quote.