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From movies to electronics, now vertical gear, the Chinese are ripoff artists, but these can kill you

Petzl has issued a flowchart to help ID suspect items:

http://petzl.com/en/outdoor/news/produc ... zl-product

Hmm, this flowchart suggests that if you suspect your item is counterfeit, you should destroy it, recycle it, and discard it. I bet that Gary Storrick would have issue with this.

boogercaver71 wrote:From movies to electronics, now vertical gear, the Chinese are ripoff artists, but these can kill you

Folks, just a general reminder this topic is a warning about counterfeit Petzl equipment used for vertical caving and other life safety applications.

If you'd like to discuss the poor quality of unrelated foreign items - or rant about anything else on your mind - please visit The Rant Thread. Thanks!

Post deleted.

Could it be that they are finding more problems with the equipment they are making and just trying to cover there hides? It just seems kinda funny that now all of a sudden theres counterfit vertical gear. And esp when they say there is no way you can tell between a legit product and one of the counterfited ones. I mean with all these fake purses,watches,and clothing there are all ways to tell if these are fake. I just think its a big cover up

cavemud2 wrote:Could it be that they are finding more problems with the equipment they are making and just trying to cover there hides? It just seems kinda funny that now all of a sudden theres counterfit vertical gear. And esp when they say there is no way you can tell between a legit product and one of the counterfited ones. I mean with all these fake purses,watches,and clothing there are all ways to tell if these are fake. I just think its a big cover up

That excuse would fall flat as soon as someone could source a failed piece of equipment to a Petzl dealer, and would cause a nightmare for Petzl. Petzl's line in regards to the four products is basically "have a line of sight from purchase to a Petzl dealer", yet that line of sight would incalculably hurt Petzl if they were the ones selling the equipment at issue here. It would be much better to recall four products on which nobody has yet been hurt (if Petzl were really the one making the bad gear), than to risk destroying Petzl's name if a cover-up were discovered.

A cynical mind (*cough* cavemud *cough*) might more reasonably decide that Petzl is trying to destroy the used market for equipment, and force people to buy new instead. That too would be a flimsy argument however, since the benefit to Petzl (people buying four particular products new) wouldn't be that great, and would probably be at best negligable once weighed with the negative publicity (i.e., that counterfeit products exist). At it's worst, it might just lead people to other manufacturers instead, in turn weakening the market for new Petzl equipment.

yes,

The propensity for fakes of anything valuable is well established, including climbing ropes....I doubt Petzl made it up. In addition, we are basically talking about formed metal where most of the "quality" is in the (invisible) properties of the metal itself. Thus, most ppl can't determine a 1,000lb working load piece from a 100 lb working load piece short of destroying it by testing.

Petzl's advice for destroying gear you didn't buy directly from them is the only legally sensible thing. Even without fakes, buying that used Petzl ascender from another caver is still a gamble....with your life. Did they care for it like a cherished child, or abuse it then sell it to you cheap? I don't buy used gear from cavers I don't know and/or trust. Period. (well I have bought ropes I used for utility, non life-load applications)

As an example, some friends and I wondered if you could use a Petzl hand ascender as an anchor point. (yes we were bored) Thus we clipped an ascender about to be retired to the end of a anchored rope and rigged another rope through the lower biner hole and proceeded to start hanging more and folks from it......(with a few feet of the ground btw) Now we destroyed and tossed that ascender afterwards, but some folks might have listed it on ebay........

I don't think I mentioned this particular CONSPIRACY THEORY I came up with there.

There are no fakes, but in a single move Petzl has just completely squashed the resale market.

Note, this is a CONSPIRACY THEORY and I do not subscribe to it, nor advance it as in any way accurate or likely.