Counterfeiting is becoming a real problem in Magic The Gathering. Just this past week I received a counterfeit card in an order from a reputable business. Once you start buying expensive MTG cards you need to know how to spot a counterfeit in order to protect yourself. Luckily with MTG cards the printing process is the same with cheap cards and expensive cards so you can easily compare the cards for differences. I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with.
I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming? It seems like counterfeits are only going to become more frequent in the future and payment processors should have some awareness of counterfeits when investigating a chargeback claim.
@"I imagine most people buying Yeazys don’t have an authentic pair to compare with." — that's right! It's the position I was in, which is what I come close to mentioning in the article: it's why I made the app in the first place.
So even better than that would be a public guide where both the fake and the real are. That, plus somebody who's put in the hours to do a thorough job to explain the differences they've found.
@MTG - Somebody was just telling me the other day about these perfect (or 99% perfect) clones of Warhammer figurines. I didn't even know they can reach $1,000+ figures, but hey, with today's asset products, that doesn't surprise me.
Magic The Gathering, Pokemon games (not cards — we've covered a free guide on that), Warhammer — it seems like sky is the limit really. Whatever can be replicated and is worth $200+ will be replicated IMO
> I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming?
A bit more! They trust our Certificate with less pushback these days, more than 2 years ago, when we discovered our Certificate can get people's money back. We guarantee the Certificate nonetheless, so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us.
I know you said payment processors, but it's the banks (exception: AMEX) that are responsible for that segment of the transaction, AFAIK — with chargebacks and what have you
But if there would be an easily integrable solution for banks/payment processors, I can see them moving vertically into that
The bigger issue is that the good counterfeits can get PSA or BGS graded (either officially, or a fake slab). PSA guarantees that their graded cards are genuine but Beckett does not.
With an Alpha Black Lotus going for over $500K, it's only a matter of time before undetectable counterfeits exist.
I bought some proxies to use in different EDH decks. The quality of the fakes was actually better than the real ones (anyone who follows MTG will know what I’m talking about).
Using a microscope it was pretty easy to tell them apart, based on the different printing technologies making different and hard to replicate pixel patterns (I don’t know the printing equivelent of a pixel).
Each proxy was $2, and you get to pick what you want. At that rate it’s pretty close to the rate you’d get if you bought a standard booster pack.
I wonder if it would be feisable for games like Magic to put technology like passive RFIDs into the cards themselves. Assuming you could make it work, it would also have some logistical advantages (automatically submit decklist, automated deck legality checks, anti-cheat checks for sealed pools...)
In what way is it a problem exactly? are counterfeit cards printed with unreadable font? do they fall apart when used? oooh, you mean its a problem for speculat^^^^investors, not for actually playing the game?
What would stop a particularly clever counterfeiting factory from using this service as a 'check list' of things to change, to improve the authentic appearance of their work product? Seems like a bargain for the price.
I don't think counterfeiter need a website like this to know what to change. They know what to change, they are probably way more expert on the thing they counterfeit than this website. The thing is, they don't need to improve it at all, that's not their market, they try to be cheap, that's their market.
I say more power to them! I really don't understand why some fashion accessories are so darn expensive in the first place.
If all it means is that a few rich folks will feel bad because some poorer people have the same handbag as them at a party, I'm okay with that. They could probably do with being a little less materialistic anyway.
One thing I couldn’t figure out by skimming through the article is who performs the actual authentication (checking if an item is counterfeit)? Is it the two founders? Do they have a team working on this?
I don't know why this is flagged. It's a legit entrepreneurial story(We can't know if the the claims are true but the story is a legit one).
At first it was hard to understand what it is all about and sounded like get rich quick scheme but essentially it is about someone building a service to check the authenticity of physical items.
I actually found the writeup refreshing in acknowledging the luck (but also the hard work) behind the success.
Also unsure why it's flagged when I came back to comment after reading. The vouch button is also missing for me (or is that only for dead stuff? Not sure what the difference is)
I flagged it originally because at a glance it looks exactly like a scam. I unflagged it after seeing people actually having a discussion about it and saying there's something to it.
It's true that the title was sensationalistic, and I'm the OP. I probably hang too much in the 'build in public' sphere where it's all about the numbers
I mean it'd obviously benefit me more if we kept the old title, but that'd be too much me, and too little for the community
Title got corrected and I'm actually grateful the post wasn't fully taken down (or that I wasn't banned)
EDIT: And thanks for the comment below saying u upvoted!
Next product: a fake legit checker that produces legit-checker style prose to fool bank clerks into authorising refunds for non-fakes. This would solve the "having to pay for stuff" problem. Huge market.
Yeah, the bit I missed is why paying them 60 dollars for an official looking "I was scammed" certificate actually helps with the refund process.
Also, my next thought was that if you actually wanted to buy replicas, and were okay with gambling your money, it would be possible to buy the fake that pretends to be real, and then get refunded, you get a decent fake for free (minus risking your money).
I guess you'd need to create new accounts as the pattern would become obvious over time, but I like the idea of fakers, and platforms that don't prevent it effectively paying the price rather than dumb consumers, especially since it reduces the utility of online shopping for me.
What happens when a buyer disputes a counterfeit item with their "message" and the seller doesn't agree? It may be easy to differentiate with counterfeit shoes, but what happens with art pieces, books, collectors' items in general?
(My experience: I collect Harry Potter books. Signed copies were always faked, because it is "easy" to forge a signature. But lately I've been seen fake first printings. Some people buy 2nd or 3rd printings (way cheaper) and change the page with the bibliographical details, which is hard to spot. Other ones even printed the whole book, those are a bit easy to spot because a 25 years old book shouldn't look as new, but if you buy it online seeing only photos, you may get scammed after paying thousdans of dollars)
> It may be easy to differentiate with counterfeit shoes, but what happens with art pieces, books, collectors' items in general?
We don't do art or books, but we do some collectors' items
> What happens when a buyer disputes a counterfeit item with their "message" and the seller doesn't agree?
We ourselves can help if the customer paid via paypal/credit card — we've got the service mentioned in the article, which gets people's money back with 99.9% success rate, which we also guarantee it (so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us)
But yes — if you've been scammed by a malevolent seller, they might even believe the 'message' (they themselves know the item is fake anyway) and not care to do anyhting
We do. B2B Partnerships, some big companies trust us, and ultimately, I thought of the academic world so as to prove the expertise (I'm the complete opposite of an academic)
* We write public guides (see: https://legitcheck.app/explore-the-library/) - we have about 1m words written on the subject
* People are free to contest it. If we're wrong, we'll correct
* The more other people link to our guides, the more we get... credentials, I guess?
This is great, very impressive that they've had such success with a scrappy 2-person business.
The hard part of success like this often seems to be finding an under-served niche where you have, or can easily gain, some expertise. If anyone knows of a guide or has advice for how to solve that problem, I'd love to hear it.
I'm glad this got a second chance, because I really think it's a brilliant idea.
I just have a difficult time seeing how it could be cost-effective, without being eye-wateringly expensive.
Being able to detect forgeries requires some pretty intense domain expertise, and that tends to come with a lot of experience and schooling. Those folks don't run cheap. Very often, you need specialists in each domain. For example, you can't have a fashion purse expert determining whether an "antique" firearm (where forgery is a big problem) is fake.
I'd assume the biggest value would be to contract with auction houses or appraisers, where the workflow would be familiar. With regular users, the workflow would be all over the place, and I could easily see the whole thing taking hours, because the user keeps sending cruddy photos in a tungsten light, so the color can't be judged, or the focus is off.
But I guess if it's really just sending links to Amazon listings, things are fairly "standardized," so a number of assumptions can be made.
Nonetheless, this is not my area of expertise, and the OP insists that it is a viable service, making a profit, so I must offer kudos.
Very interesting! Out of interest with say a 'super fake' Rolex, would it still be possible to tell if it's real/fake from only external photos of the watch?
I'm curious if they have or might reach a point whereby you'd need to open up the watch and look at the movement quality?
There is a spectrum of replica quality in the watch world. Some watches are very obvious to spot while others would be impossible to spot from a photo. There is also the concept of a frankenwatch: a watch that is a blend of original and non-original parts. Assuming the builder has done their research and due diligence with part selection, you would likely not be able to identify a frankenwatch from an original if they were sitting right in front of you. As a result, all watch exchange forums that I have visited have suggest that authenticity of a purchased watch be verified from a authorized dealer for that brand.
To expand on this, serious watch collectors will keep service records from authorized dealers as proof of authenticity. For example, many models of Rolex have “service” parts that differ from the parts originally used in the model. Pricing general follows the hierarchy: original parts > oem service parts > non-oem replacement parts. The pricing gap between each of those steps can be in the tens of thousands. So if eBay authenticates a Rolex as original and you later on find out it has some non-oem replacement parts, you’ve likely lost a significant amount of money on that transaction.
It'd help us to open the watch, naturally, but we can still rely on pics. Make no mistake though — the watches can be 99.5% perfect, but (at least for the watches we're handling, which have high values) the compromise in manufacturing processes is spotted one way or another
It's worth pointing out that the discussion about replacing pieces of a fake watch with authentic pieces (making a so-called 'franken' watch, as rep watch connoisseurs call it) is a totally separate discussion
You have to imagine someone paid money for this and is eagerly awaiting a response. Queue "I got an e-mail!":
1) Green checkbox: So the item is legit?
2) "Good news!", so it must be legit?
3) "the item is 100% fake"
You should really consider changing the design and the tone of this message. People literally pay to get one answer so it should be the most obvious thing about the message.
I wonder if this is a good use case for deep learning. I am wondering if you rely completely on images or, in some cases, does it boil down to things that images cannot portray? Like texture, weight, flexibility, etc.?
I wonder what percentage of luxury goods are fake on Ebay? In my own experience, 100%. The sellers are not even apologetic - they take your return, issue a refund, and immediately relist the item.
They started efforts to curate that, but it's far from cleaning eBay 100%
What you're saying happens, more often than we wish it'd be the case.
That's why we never considered charging for our guides, even something as little as $1 → The point was to allow people to inform themselves about fakes, with as little friction as possible
That way, if we bump the % of people who get scammed by even a few negative points, we'd still be happy for a positive contribution
I don't fully understand this business and so it seems a little off to me.
You claim:
> An authenticator that has public, verifiable proof to their claim of expertise will be assigned to your order.
Can you please share some of that public, verifiable proof?
You are averaging $28 per order and you say you have a 'team' of experts to help you do authentication. Is an expert's time really worth so little that this price point is profitable? Or is authentication really that trivial to do?
You only track revenue and net revenue and not profit. You are getting around $200k in revenue per year. It would be very enlightening to know the costs of the team of experts and now much of that revenue is profit.
You seem to be running something like 6 other lines of businesses at the same time:
- Layered Ink, a new way to do digital writing.
- Price Unlock, a SaaS pricing tool.
- Synergy, something that helps with decision making.
- Dear Mom/Investor, writing up progress/financial number of your businesses for subscribers.
- LegitCheck Price Comparison, a tool to find the lowest prices
- LegitCheck Organizer, a reselling tool (without those unnecessary fees)
To do that many things well would be extraordinary.
Doing some brief investigation into your competitors, this industry seems to be full of companies putting forth an image that they are a large and respected team with real expertise, while further digging suggests they are one person writing their opinions of questionable value and calling them certificates of authenticity. Why should your users trust that you aren't another one of those companies?
You claim expertise in 91 brands. In order to truly be able to authenticate those, it seems like it would require a good amount of expertise and time. You claim:
> Real expertise, not self-claimed.
> Find out the truth about your item and either start wearing it proudly or we’ll help you get your money back. > Our expertise is backed by the 1,000,000+ words we've written on this subject.
but with all due respect, writing lots of blog posts is not a basis for 'real expertise' rather than 'self-claimed'. You could be an expert in authenticity for 91 brands (I have no idea), or you could be a rando on the internet regurgitating (mis)information found on the internet. Being good at something and getting noticed for talking about something a lot are different skill sets. Why should your users believe you have real expertise in all 91 of those brands?
Some very good questions in this post that I would have also liked OP to answer. For context, I run a marketplace (https://vendiapp.com) where we physically verify every product transacted on our platform. We are focussing on Phones and similar high value electronic products susceptible to fraud. And visual inspection is definitely not enough to detect fakes in this industry. Also, average cost of having external experts is more than $20. So, there is a need for deep tech and a great supply chain to make the unit economics work.
What's to protect? There's no secret. You send them pictures and money and they tell you if it's fake or not. There's no secret sauce beyond their personal knowledge.
[+] [-] __turbobrew__|4 years ago|reply
I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming? It seems like counterfeits are only going to become more frequent in the future and payment processors should have some awareness of counterfeits when investigating a chargeback claim.
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
So even better than that would be a public guide where both the fake and the real are. That, plus somebody who's put in the hours to do a thorough job to explain the differences they've found.
@MTG - Somebody was just telling me the other day about these perfect (or 99% perfect) clones of Warhammer figurines. I didn't even know they can reach $1,000+ figures, but hey, with today's asset products, that doesn't surprise me.
Magic The Gathering, Pokemon games (not cards — we've covered a free guide on that), Warhammer — it seems like sky is the limit really. Whatever can be replicated and is worth $200+ will be replicated IMO
> I’m wondering how “counterfeit aware” payment processors (VISA, Mastercards, etc) are becoming?
A bit more! They trust our Certificate with less pushback these days, more than 2 years ago, when we discovered our Certificate can get people's money back. We guarantee the Certificate nonetheless, so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us.
I know you said payment processors, but it's the banks (exception: AMEX) that are responsible for that segment of the transaction, AFAIK — with chargebacks and what have you
But if there would be an easily integrable solution for banks/payment processors, I can see them moving vertically into that
[+] [-] alasdair_|4 years ago|reply
With an Alpha Black Lotus going for over $500K, it's only a matter of time before undetectable counterfeits exist.
[+] [-] idoh|4 years ago|reply
Using a microscope it was pretty easy to tell them apart, based on the different printing technologies making different and hard to replicate pixel patterns (I don’t know the printing equivelent of a pixel).
Each proxy was $2, and you get to pick what you want. At that rate it’s pretty close to the rate you’d get if you bought a standard booster pack.
[+] [-] qsort|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|4 years ago|reply
https://bychgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/image-1-102...
What would stop a particularly clever counterfeiting factory from using this service as a 'check list' of things to change, to improve the authentic appearance of their work product? Seems like a bargain for the price.
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
e.g. for this very item in the screenshot, the guide is: https://legitcheck.app/guides/real-vs-fake-hermes-birkin/
Partly answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090248
Partly answered by someone else here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27089111
[+] [-] nug|4 years ago|reply
Most people cant tell the difference between 90% and 99% close to original so they dont need to improve their quality to that point.
[+] [-] tux3|4 years ago|reply
Counterfeits are bad for consumers because they are often low quality similes with shoddy attention to details and cheap materials.
If the end result of this site is that counterfeits increase their quality control?
Well, it'll still be illegal, but at least I might be happier with half my Amazon purchases =]
[+] [-] dwild|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osrec|4 years ago|reply
If all it means is that a few rich folks will feel bad because some poorer people have the same handbag as them at a party, I'm okay with that. They could probably do with being a little less materialistic anyway.
[+] [-] ohadpr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koreanguy|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] whalesalad|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|4 years ago|reply
At first it was hard to understand what it is all about and sounded like get rich quick scheme but essentially it is about someone building a service to check the authenticity of physical items.
[+] [-] matsemann|4 years ago|reply
Also unsure why it's flagged when I came back to comment after reading. The vouch button is also missing for me (or is that only for dead stuff? Not sure what the difference is)
[+] [-] guerrilla|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
I mean it'd obviously benefit me more if we kept the old title, but that'd be too much me, and too little for the community
Title got corrected and I'm actually grateful the post wasn't fully taken down (or that I wasn't banned)
EDIT: And thanks for the comment below saying u upvoted!
[+] [-] FlagBrigade|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] meltedcapacitor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|4 years ago|reply
Also, my next thought was that if you actually wanted to buy replicas, and were okay with gambling your money, it would be possible to buy the fake that pretends to be real, and then get refunded, you get a decent fake for free (minus risking your money).
I guess you'd need to create new accounts as the pattern would become obvious over time, but I like the idea of fakers, and platforms that don't prevent it effectively paying the price rather than dumb consumers, especially since it reduces the utility of online shopping for me.
[+] [-] saadalem|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 101008|4 years ago|reply
(My experience: I collect Harry Potter books. Signed copies were always faked, because it is "easy" to forge a signature. But lately I've been seen fake first printings. Some people buy 2nd or 3rd printings (way cheaper) and change the page with the bibliographical details, which is hard to spot. Other ones even printed the whole book, those are a bit easy to spot because a 25 years old book shouldn't look as new, but if you buy it online seeing only photos, you may get scammed after paying thousdans of dollars)
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
We don't do art or books, but we do some collectors' items
> What happens when a buyer disputes a counterfeit item with their "message" and the seller doesn't agree?
We ourselves can help if the customer paid via paypal/credit card — we've got the service mentioned in the article, which gets people's money back with 99.9% success rate, which we also guarantee it (so if it doesn't get your money back from the bank or from PayPal, we refund the $60 you paid us)
But yes — if you've been scammed by a malevolent seller, they might even believe the 'message' (they themselves know the item is fake anyway) and not care to do anyhting
[+] [-] bradleyjg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Codesleuth|4 years ago|reply
I find it ironic that you are selling authenticity checks, and yet I can't tell if the check is authentic.
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
* We write public guides (see: https://legitcheck.app/explore-the-library/) - we have about 1m words written on the subject * People are free to contest it. If we're wrong, we'll correct * The more other people link to our guides, the more we get... credentials, I guess?
[+] [-] magneticnorth|4 years ago|reply
The hard part of success like this often seems to be finding an under-served niche where you have, or can easily gain, some expertise. If anyone knows of a guide or has advice for how to solve that problem, I'd love to hear it.
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|4 years ago|reply
I just have a difficult time seeing how it could be cost-effective, without being eye-wateringly expensive.
Being able to detect forgeries requires some pretty intense domain expertise, and that tends to come with a lot of experience and schooling. Those folks don't run cheap. Very often, you need specialists in each domain. For example, you can't have a fashion purse expert determining whether an "antique" firearm (where forgery is a big problem) is fake.
I'd assume the biggest value would be to contract with auction houses or appraisers, where the workflow would be familiar. With regular users, the workflow would be all over the place, and I could easily see the whole thing taking hours, because the user keeps sending cruddy photos in a tungsten light, so the color can't be judged, or the focus is off.
But I guess if it's really just sending links to Amazon listings, things are fairly "standardized," so a number of assumptions can be made.
Nonetheless, this is not my area of expertise, and the OP insists that it is a viable service, making a profit, so I must offer kudos.
[+] [-] raldi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anfractuosity|4 years ago|reply
I'm curious if they have or might reach a point whereby you'd need to open up the watch and look at the movement quality?
[+] [-] iandinwoodie|4 years ago|reply
To expand on this, serious watch collectors will keep service records from authorized dealers as proof of authenticity. For example, many models of Rolex have “service” parts that differ from the parts originally used in the model. Pricing general follows the hierarchy: original parts > oem service parts > non-oem replacement parts. The pricing gap between each of those steps can be in the tens of thousands. So if eBay authenticates a Rolex as original and you later on find out it has some non-oem replacement parts, you’ve likely lost a significant amount of money on that transaction.
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
It'd help us to open the watch, naturally, but we can still rely on pics. Make no mistake though — the watches can be 99.5% perfect, but (at least for the watches we're handling, which have high values) the compromise in manufacturing processes is spotted one way or another
It's worth pointing out that the discussion about replacing pieces of a fake watch with authentic pieces (making a so-called 'franken' watch, as rep watch connoisseurs call it) is a totally separate discussion
[+] [-] hnarn|4 years ago|reply
You have to imagine someone paid money for this and is eagerly awaiting a response. Queue "I got an e-mail!":
1) Green checkbox: So the item is legit?
2) "Good news!", so it must be legit?
3) "the item is 100% fake"
You should really consider changing the design and the tone of this message. People literally pay to get one answer so it should be the most obvious thing about the message.
[+] [-] kickbutt22|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nvarsj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
They started efforts to curate that, but it's far from cleaning eBay 100%
What you're saying happens, more often than we wish it'd be the case.
That's why we never considered charging for our guides, even something as little as $1 → The point was to allow people to inform themselves about fakes, with as little friction as possible
That way, if we bump the % of people who get scammed by even a few negative points, we'd still be happy for a positive contribution
[+] [-] iav|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FounderBurr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inopinatus|4 years ago|reply
It’s only problematic if you’re corrupt or incompetent and become a means to reinforce the fraud.
[+] [-] jeffgreco|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solidasparagus|4 years ago|reply
You claim:
> An authenticator that has public, verifiable proof to their claim of expertise will be assigned to your order.
Can you please share some of that public, verifiable proof?
You are averaging $28 per order and you say you have a 'team' of experts to help you do authentication. Is an expert's time really worth so little that this price point is profitable? Or is authentication really that trivial to do?
You only track revenue and net revenue and not profit. You are getting around $200k in revenue per year. It would be very enlightening to know the costs of the team of experts and now much of that revenue is profit.
You seem to be running something like 6 other lines of businesses at the same time:
- Layered Ink, a new way to do digital writing.
- Price Unlock, a SaaS pricing tool.
- Synergy, something that helps with decision making.
- Dear Mom/Investor, writing up progress/financial number of your businesses for subscribers.
- LegitCheck Price Comparison, a tool to find the lowest prices
- LegitCheck Organizer, a reselling tool (without those unnecessary fees)
To do that many things well would be extraordinary.
Doing some brief investigation into your competitors, this industry seems to be full of companies putting forth an image that they are a large and respected team with real expertise, while further digging suggests they are one person writing their opinions of questionable value and calling them certificates of authenticity. Why should your users trust that you aren't another one of those companies?
You claim expertise in 91 brands. In order to truly be able to authenticate those, it seems like it would require a good amount of expertise and time. You claim:
> Real expertise, not self-claimed.
> Find out the truth about your item and either start wearing it proudly or we’ll help you get your money back. > Our expertise is backed by the 1,000,000+ words we've written on this subject.
but with all due respect, writing lots of blog posts is not a basis for 'real expertise' rather than 'self-claimed'. You could be an expert in authenticity for 91 brands (I have no idea), or you could be a rando on the internet regurgitating (mis)information found on the internet. Being good at something and getting noticed for talking about something a lot are different skill sets. Why should your users believe you have real expertise in all 91 of those brands?
[+] [-] dreamer7|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redwood|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chdaniel|4 years ago|reply
I do believe in moats, and I'm trying my best to see what moats I can build on top of what we have to 'protect' the business
[+] [-] tyingq|4 years ago|reply
See one of their guides: https://legitcheck.app/guides/fear-of-god/fake-vs-real-nike-...
[+] [-] nkrisc|4 years ago|reply