I have recently had a narrow escape (possibly.) I bought a TNF Summitt Series Goretex XCR jacket off ebay. It looked the dogs bits, waterproof zips, taped seams etc etc. I then learnt there is a shed load of fake TNF gear about, mainly going via ebay. I found a web site detailing the points to look out for: sleeve logos on wrong sides, label inside which shouldn't be there, bad spelling on Gotetex tag. Does anyone know any hard and fast rules for spotting a dud?
PS. Seller was too quick to offer a refund when I expressed some concern as to the jacket's authenticity for my liking.
I remember The North Face had an article in Trail mag a few months ago with a website you could report iffy TNF stuff..I'll see if I can dig it out. A friend of mine got ripped off a few years ago too, problem is he had never felt real goretex to compare against fake stuff, and was completely taken in by the jacket. Mind you, the inner fleece was ok and he still uses that.
Having read this article I have realised that the NorthFace jacket / fleece I bought on ebay is a fake. I felt something wasn't right, but the tapped seams, detail etc seemed OK. ALthough i've never bought a 'proper' jacket before (or indeed ever). But it felt gortex ish. I thought, well even if its fake it would do the job, and a decent gortex jacket and windstopper fleece for £100 was good, even if it wasn't NorthFace.
Silly me.
Then when I climbed on Sunday the inside became soaked, so it's obviously not even Gortex!
But the earlier writer was correct, the fleece ain't bad... but not worth 100 quid!!
This is of some interest to me topically because we bought a 'TNF' windproof fleece on Sunday (for Bob to use when sailing) from Ebay for only £12.50. Now if it's a fake when it comes, it only cost us £12.50 and at least we have a cheap warm top if the guy won't refund it.
I got caught out last year with a pair of alleged TNF Mountain Pants which I bought from a guy on ebay. Was quite happy (although not 100% impressed by breathability) right up until the point (no pun intended) when I put a crampon through them and tore out the arse climbing a mixed route in the Alps.
How I laughed when I sent them to be repaired/warrantied only to be told that they weren't genuine, or Goretex, or anything of the sort! I'm a product designer with (I like to think) a good eye for detail, and I've owned plenty of kit, but there wasn't a single thing that had made me suspect that they were fake. A bit of a shock.
In all fairness to the guy (an individual rather than a shop, who I'm convinced had bought them in good faith but then found they didn't fit him), he refunded me immediately and set off to take issue with whoever had sold them to him originally.
It does make you wonder. I used to buy, and still use, a lot of TNF gear, but what with an arguable deterioration in quality/functionality of some of the new stuff (a thread subject in itself) and the amount of dodgy copies floating around, I'm a lot less inclined to do so now :o(
I think TNF is largely unique in this respect, as the brand has had such pop-culture and "townie" appeal over the last few years - I can't imagine there being a sufficient black-market for counterfeit Rab Latok jackets or whatever. Ditto things like tents I suppose - TNF tents are still sh!t-hot, and I think you could be pretty sure of any one being genuine.
There is some genuine but hot North Face gear around, too. The chap that runs my local wall has had a load stolen over the last couple of weeks, so I guess it's only fair to keep our eyes open:
