Is this real or fake?

[svosco]

I came across this seller

http://cyclingyong.en.alibaba.com/searc ... t=look+695

and wanted to know what you think about what they are selling. Seems to me like this is a fake but if it is not then this would be the best deal ever wouldn't you agree?

I would love to have your input on this to decide if I should even consider buying the Look 695 frame from this seller.

Thank you!

Sharon

[ianSWBB]

Sharon

We are an official seller of Look frames

The 695 retails at £3,799 and the 695 Aerolight at £4,499

So there is a good chance that this Alibaba seller, selling them at less than £1,000, is not selling real Look frames!!!

regards
ianSWBB

[DMF]

Seriously, these threads keep coming up and I must ask. And this is a sincere question: Is there in fact a single product, I only mean just even a single one, sold on Alibaba that is NOT a total hoax, a fake/copy of a brand product or just simply a scam where you'll get a wrapped brick in the mail?

Really, please tell me why anyone, anywhere, would ever buy anything at fareasternscammers-online.co... I mean alibaba.com...

I just don't get it, why does anyone even go looking for things there when there are like a million obviously fake adds and seemingly nothing else there? How does this page keep on existing?

I'm sorry, the whole Alibaba.com thing just boggles my mind...

[prendrefeu]

Alibaba is far (far) more than bicycle products. I haven't made any contacts using Alibaba on the bike products side, since it's a lot easier to contact the mfgs directly, but as for other products I've used Alibaba to make contacts with companies I didn't know existed or were very hard to find because of the language-search barrier.

For example, a year ago I was trying to source a bolt made out of particular material (in this case, direct oriented glass fibers - the fibers are oriented along the threads in their manufactured process). I couldn't find it - until very recently - in the US in some specific metric sizes, but I did eventually find a Japanese company via Alibaba that had it. They had one of the items I was looking for exactly, and I was wondering if they could also produce another variation on it using the same material but in a different size on the head, with a hollow thread. I used the system to get in touch with one of their reps. They sent me samples, we talked business a little bit. The prices ended up being too high in the end due to moq, export and shipping, but at the time Alibaba really helped source things out. I wouldn't have been able to find that company because the search engines here (Google, Bing, et al) really orient search results to same-language and same-country as much as possible. Heck, even if I search for basic news items from Munich - some may not ever show up on Google.com, but they're first and foremost when I use Google.de

As for ordering - Alibaba, as far as I've known it, isn't for ordering things per se. Instead you express interest in a product and are try to make contact with the company offering it.
Aliexpress - which I have never used and I really don't trust at the moment - seems to be the 'online shopping' side of Alibaba.


Back to the bicycles part - yes, there are a lot of legitimate products on Alibaba. Here's an easy example: search for a steel fork. Search for aluminum frames. You will find plenty of legitimate, real products. Unfortunately the bad reputation comes from:
1. People search Alibaba expecting to find brand-name products "direct from factory"
2. A seller fulfills that person's desire by posting a "brand name" product at a really low cost. The seller may or may not be legitimate. The item may or may not be legitimate.
3. Person who searched Alibaba for a brand-name product then gives Alibaba - as a whole - a bad review/reputation.

Who is at fault here?

[DMF]

So a bit of a vicious circle with naive potential buyers creating a market for scammers, sort of?

Should perhaps have been clear about that I primarily meant the bicycle related part of Alibaba, if there was some confusion there.

[prendrefeu]

Yep, vicious cycle! You got it.

By the way, from the original link in the OP:
http://cyclingyong.en.alibaba.com/searc ... t=look+695

You will find the first part of the URL is "cyclingyong.en.alibaba.com"
Let's break that down:
cyclingyong = the company. CyclingYong (we'll get back to them in a second)
en = english
alibaba.com is the search engine/system.

Now, what about CyclingYong? They're notorious for fake products.
Take a look at what happened to their original, non-alibaba, address:
http://cyclingyong.com/

As for alibaba?
HongFu, DengFu, Flyxii, Archteks, Light-Bicycle and so many other component providers that are heavily trusted and touted as outstanding STARTED on Alibaba.com before they got their own separate web address. In fact, many still maintain their Alibaba.com accounts!

Don't blame Alibaba. That's like blaming an entire country because of one bad person.

[GonaSovereign]

Alibaba is excellent in a lot of differnt ways, but you need to use your brain when shopping. The Look you linked to is a real Look - or the picture is of a real Look, but that doesn't mean they have a Look frameset to sell you.

[michaelten]

Cipollini RB1000 for $800........hahaha!

[HammerTime2]

Hey michaeltenm, thanks for the tip. I've been wanting to get a Cipo RB1000, but the $6,995.00 U.S. MSRP was just too much for me to afford right now. Problem solved. Thanks again.


Seriously, why don't these people just advertise very good, but not absurd prices? Wouldn't they get more customers, not to mention more revenues per "sucker"? Or is there some kind of more aggressive official scrutiny, enforcement, or prosecution against thefts over a certain size, so they need to keep their prices below those limits?

[michaelten]

Yeah, I've been wanting one too but the price was holding me back. I suppose Cipollini's are now for the masses!

[Irish]

A site describes road bike frames as mountain bike frames and we need to discuss if they are fake.......................

[Skorp]

I wonder what you get if you order this?
Do you recieve a Look china copy, china copies of the cranks etc as listed? Would be really interesting to se what you get..

I've seen, and know people with fake Pinarello Dogmas claiming they are real.. Or not telling they are fake atleast..
Really frustrating when its clearly a copy!

[Valbrona]

With only one post, Sharon is probably in China and sells frames. Delete this thread.

[tinozee]

As said above Alibaba has a mixture of vendors with varied product quality and business ethics. I have met some manus there that have been amazing for my business, making eco friendly products with corn pla plastic.

Cycling Yong is a fairly famous scam shop. My favorite example is the Time Ulteam with the funny grammar in the tag line.

Haha their old site - http://cyclingyong.com/

Seized by ICE.

[Rick]

Within China they don't seem to recognize any sort of intellectual property rights, trademarks, etc. And they don't seem to even consider it wrong or a crime. If you walk into a CD or DVD store, they just have the covers of the CD/DVD on display, and when you ask to buy it, they just burn a copy right there on a PC that has the softawre to override any copy protection.
I saw lots of fake things over their. When you look at them up close they are obviously not real. A lot of times they have misspellings.
I took a picture of some sandals with an NBA logo that was spelled "BNA". Most Chinese can't read Western characters, so if they paint "Look" on a bike it could be just a "cool decoration" like people who paint nonsensical Chinese characters on stuff (or get them as tatoos) over here. I am not discounting the idea that they may be actually trying to pass fakes off as real too, just to make money.