Bogus Gear...

[NoKnees]

My folks just got back from a trip to China where they grabbed a nice jacket combo for me for the price of about $20 usd... So, I'm sure it's worth it's price.. For the most part.. ;)

The jacket claims to be a North Face Summit Series jacket/parka with a matching North Face fleece liner. The jackets come sealed in North Face plastic bags, seem to have all the normal North Face labels, on it. A legit looking Gore-Tex XCR info thingy is zip-tied to the zipper. So, I popped onto ebay to see what this thing is going for since it doesn't really match up directly to anything currently in North Face's catalog. They seem to go from $40-$120...

Now the quality aspect... The liner is kinda funky.. Has a Gore-Tex label on the inside with the care instructing... Odd for a fleece jacket.. ;) Nylon shoulders, ultralight soft fleece outside, mesh lining. Inside chest pocket with the zipper already starting to loose threads and fall apart..

The shell really isn't bad. Has all the normal features, even the high quality waterproof zippers where expected. The thing is, you can see the stitching in places is really not normal North Face quality stuff. Many loose threads, some black ones sticking out against the tan shell layer. The shell itself feels like my older 2-ply goretex shell, not the new nifty xcr stuff as the label leads you to believe it's made of. Although, it is a bit lighter than my older true North Face parka of similar design. Some of the listing online do say 2-ply Goretex XCR.. Thought XCR was always 3 ply? Dunno..

Has anyone else run across these things first hand? Your thoughts?

Just don't try to buy one of these things off ebay thinking you are getting a genuine North Face product. No way can the one I have be... Might be genuine north face parts, but it sure wasn't built in a regular north face factory..

Here's a link to a similar jacket on Ebay... Jacket (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3906869400&category=57988&sspagename=rvi:1:1) Claims jacket is worth $370 and liner $170... Right.... * disclaimer - I'm not saying the above link isn't a real North Face jacket. It just looks and sounds like what I have and I feel mine isn't legit. Buyer beware is all I say..

Oh, folks grabbed a couple silk "Tommy Bahama" shirts for around $17 each as well. Look and feel like the real thing too... Saw these on eBay too, but they are going for much closer to their real market price..

[Gam]

There's place in Alabama where they have "trade day" every Saturday. You can get anything from a Black and Tan Coon dog to a North Face jacket, My secretary and her husband bought a couple of jackets which are obviously counterfeit, haven't had the heart to tell them though. The dogs seem real enough.

[NoKnees]

Yah, I hear ya. I haven't told my folks that it's bogus either, but I honestly don't think they'd care. The price was right..

Now if I could trade it for a nice coon dog, I'd be stoked... Maybe a droopy eyed blood hound?

[ericleckey]

I just returned from trip to China last week. While there I picked up a NF jacket just as you described with fleece liner and all. China is full of knock off's but for the price most of time they are a good deal. i picked mine up for about $25. The outer shell seems pretty good especially for the price however the inner fleece liner is not so impressive. I later found a matching pair "summit series" Gore-Tex ski pants for about $20 which really seemed like a good buy. I picked up my jacket and pants in the Beijing area. honestly I've never purchased a real NF GoreTex jacket or pants because of price so i have not had much experience with them except for browsing in the store but they seemed pretty close to the real thing to me.

[NoKnees]

Cool.. Definitely for the price you can't beat it. The inside pocket on my liner is already coming apart, but the rest looks like it'll hold up fine. As for the shell itself, it should hang around for a while. Don't expect anything like taped seams, but everything else should keep you happy, especially for the price.

Enjoy!

[ND Sol]

I have a different take on this, so pardon me while I get on my soapbox. If it says The North Face (or Rolex or Oakley) on the article, and it isn't, then it is illegal.

Is there anything really wrong with this activity that most of us wink at? Well, it's a common misconception that this is a victimless crime, and that's a big battle that the companies who are fighting the plague of counterfeiting have to deal with all the time. It's not victimless.

First of all, while you may figure that the jacket is counterfeit because you have a general idea of how much something should cost might not be a "victim," there's a huge segment of the population in this country that really doesn't know how much a North Face item (or for that matter, a Rolex or Burberry bag) costs. And people are sometimes under the misconception that goods purchase off the street "fell off the back of the truck." So people routinely come to North Face with a counterfeit jacket and say, "My jacket is ripped; could you fix it?" Or people come to Rolex with watches (that you or I might look at and laugh) and say, "My watch stopped—could you put in a new battery?" And then they find out that what they've purchased is counterfeit. So there are people who are actually confused.

But in addition to that, it hurts the company. These are companies that have invested huge amounts of money in research and development and in advertising and promotion to create a name for themselves—to create goodwill for themselves—in order to attract a strong customer base. Let's assume you have enough money to buy a genuine, high-end watch. So you ask yourself whether you are going to buy a Rolex or a Cartier. And while you are thinking about it, you walk down the street and see the guy with the briefcase full of "Rolex" watches, or you see a friend wearing a $15 "Rolex" he bought off the street. You might think to yourself, "Wow, I'm going to buy a different brand because there are all these fake Rolexes out there." So that hurts the company because some of their legitimate consumers may choose to buy another product because of the existence of the counterfeits. So both the consumer and company can be hurt economically.

But finally, take the person who buys a pair of five-dollar Oakley sunglasses from a guy with a bag full of them. People don't necessarily understand that Oakley markets their glasses to people who are into extreme sports. If you're going to be mountain biking, snowboarding or rock-climbing, Oakley wants you to be wearing their glasses. They're obviously made to withstand all kinds of forces. Oakley actually has a video showing a mountain-biker wearing Oakley's and a pebble shoots up from the ground and just bounces off the lens. Then they show a Styrofoam head with a pair of counterfeit Oakley's, and the pebble comes up at it and goes straight through the lens. So that guy's blind because he was wearing the counterfeit Oakley's. Now, you think to yourself, "Don't people know they're fake?" Well, look at who's buying them—they're 15-year-old kids; they don’t think about things like this. And these kids are going to wear these glasses when they're snowboarding and something really bad could happen.

And in addition to that real safety concern, ask yourself, "What is the foundation of our legal system?" If your Oakley glasses fail and you're blind as a result, what do you get to do? Sue Oakley. And maybe you're blind, but at least you're rich and blind. You can't sue anybody when it's a counterfeit. There's nobody to go after. Good luck finding the guy who sold you the glasses, and even if you do, good luck getting a penny out of him. So this is definitely not victimless activity.

[NoKnees]

I pretty much agree with all you have said. And I understand that in having such "counterfeit" items, I'm not helping the problem. Personaly, I'd prefer if they didn't say North Face on them, and I definitely don't want to see them fool anyone else into thinking they are North Face. That's kinda why I brought up the topic in the first place. I didn't throw any money into the mix, but unfortunately my parent's who bought them for me did. They didn't know better at the time, as most folks buying that stuff don't.

Now what is the responsible thing to do? As a consumer if you know it's bogus, sure, you shouldn't buy it. But if you don't know, should you be held accountable if you do buy it? Tough questions...

I just try to point it out when I see it, and make sure my own money doesn't go into that system if I can help it. But hey, I'm not going to throw it away when it's handed to me either..

Anyway, thanks for contribute your thoughts on it. Good stuff..

Gimpy

[ND Sol]

I think that we are on the same page. Would your parents have bought the jacket if it didn't say North Face? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's just too bad that others are making money off of a company's good name.

I think that the best thing is for the info to get out about this and that is why I am glad that you did bring up the topic.

[Frednz]

Here's another possiblity for where that jacket came from.
I could be wrong, but my guess is that NF jackets are made somewhere in China. Many factories such as this are simply in the business of making money. NF is too, of course, but they also have to rely on their reputation. Anyway, it is possible that the factory decided to do an "extra" run of NF jackets when NF wasn't looking. I know this happens with other things (bike parts, for example). That way, the jacket came from the same place; that explains why they are generally very good imitations. They were made from the same designs, often with the same parts. They just weren't made with the same attention to detail or quality control.

I don't necessarily agree with it, but then again, in my opinion, NF gear is a lot more expensive then it should be, and no where near as good as a lot of other brands. Thus it doesn't surprise me that NF is being counterfeited.



My folks just got back from a trip to China where they grabbed a nice jacket combo for me for the price of about $20 usd... So, I'm sure it's worth it's price.. For the most part.. ;)

The jacket claims to be a North Face Summit Series jacket/parka with a matching North Face fleece liner. The jackets come sealed in North Face plastic bags, seem to have all the normal North Face labels, on it. A legit looking Gore-Tex XCR info thingy is zip-tied to the zipper. So, I popped onto ebay to see what this thing is going for since it doesn't really match up directly to anything currently in North Face's catalog. They seem to go from $40-$120...

Now the quality aspect... The liner is kinda funky.. Has a Gore-Tex label on the inside with the care instructing... Odd for a fleece jacket.. ;) Nylon shoulders, ultralight soft fleece outside, mesh lining. Inside chest pocket with the zipper already starting to loose threads and fall apart..

The shell really isn't bad. Has all the normal features, even the high quality waterproof zippers where expected. The thing is, you can see the stitching in places is really not normal North Face quality stuff. Many loose threads, some black ones sticking out against the tan shell layer. The shell itself feels like my older 2-ply goretex shell, not the new nifty xcr stuff as the label leads you to believe it's made of. Although, it is a bit lighter than my older true North Face parka of similar design. Some of the listing online do say 2-ply Goretex XCR.. Thought XCR was always 3 ply? Dunno..

Has anyone else run across these things first hand? Your thoughts?

Just don't try to buy one of these things off ebay thinking you are getting a genuine North Face product. No way can the one I have be... Might be genuine north face parts, but it sure wasn't built in a regular north face factory..

Here's a link to a similar jacket on Ebay... Jacket (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3906869400&category=57988&sspagename=rvi:1:1) Claims jacket is worth $370 and liner $170... Right.... * disclaimer - I'm not saying the above link isn't a real North Face jacket. It just looks and sounds like what I have and I feel mine isn't legit. Buyer beware is all I say..

Oh, folks grabbed a couple silk "Tommy Bahama" shirts for around $17 each as well. Look and feel like the real thing too... Saw these on eBay too, but they are going for much closer to their real market price..