Lasersman: Avoid like the plague

xoul said:

So far a whopping 2 or 3 good ones have been named out of the hundreds of bogus ones. I stand by my statement that MOST chinese vendors are fraudulent.

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That comment is just plainly stupid.

I'm sure I've placed 500 orders from China over the past 10 years. While some of those orders would have been repeats from the same sources, my experience still spans at least several hundred different vendors. I'm sure many on this board can relate to this volume, as many of us purchase from China constantly.

Over those 10 years, a couple items haven't arrived, never anything high value, and I've had a few encounters that I would call borderline-fraudulent. But that's a handful I could can on my fingers, out of maybe even a thousand purchases (if I'm being honest with myself). At least every other day I order something online, and it's generally from China.

Sorry xoul, but Hak was right to call you out. You made a totally ridiculous statement.

rhd said:

That comment is just plainly stupid.

I'm sure I've placed 500 orders from China over the past 10 years. While some of those orders would have been repeats from the same sources, my experience still spans at least several hundred different vendors. I'm sure many on this board can relate to this volume, as many of us purchase from China constantly.

Over those 10 years, a couple items haven't arrived, never anything high value, and I've had a few encounters that I would call borderline-fraudulent. But that's a handful I could can on my fingers, out of maybe even a thousand purchases (if I'm being honest with myself). At least every other day I order something online, and it's generally from China.

Sorry xoul, but Hak was right to call you out. You made a totally ridiculous statement.

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Sorry, let me be specific. Most Chinese LASER vendors are fraudulent, in the sense that they often claim a laser is far more powerful than it actually is in order to deceive you and charge you more for less.

We can play a little game if you want - you make a list of reputable chinese laser vendors that actually sell guaranteed on-spec or overspec lasers, and i'll make a list of ones that do not. Then, we can compare. :undecided:

xoul said:

Sorry, let me be specific. Most Chinese LASER vendors are fraudulent, in the sense that they often claim a laser is far more powerful than it actually is in order to deceive you and charge you more for less.

We can play a little game if you want - you make a list of reputable chinese laser vendors that actually sell guaranteed on-spec or overspec lasers, and i'll make a list of ones that do not. Then, we can compare. :undecided:

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Looking at your two posts, I see that in your first post (though not your second) you did limit it to chinese laser vendors.

And while I'll grant you that there are probably more selling under-spec than on-spec lasers, that's not, on it's own, tantamount to "fraud".

Have you ever tried to talk to these chinese vendors? Specifically, the ones selling under-spec lasers? If you do, you'll quickly realize that the vast majority of them know absolutely nothing about the products their selling. You'll ask a question, and you'll loose them at the most basic of terminology. You'll realize that they don't know the first thing about lasers in general, let alone the specifics like how to assess power, how to determine if a laser is on spec, etc. They merely regurgitate the specs that the manufacturers provide them with.

While those specs may be incorrect, "fraud" is an intentional deception. Regurgitating incorrect specs that they don't understand, is not fraud.

If you see someone listing their "1,000mW Arctic" for sale in the newspaper, would you say that they acting fraudulently? After all, their Arctic is surely not 1,000mW. If they're relying on the item's description from WickedLasers, and they don't know otherwise, then it's not an intentional deception.

rhd said:

Looking at your two posts, I see that in your first post (though not your second) you did limit it to chinese laser vendors.

And while I'll grant you that there are probably more selling under-spec than on-spec lasers, that's not, on it's own, tantamount to "fraud".

Have you ever tried to talk to these chinese vendors? Specifically, the ones selling under-spec lasers? If you do, you'll quickly realize that the vast majority of them know absolutely nothing about the products their selling. You'll ask a question, and you'll loose them at the most basic of terminology. You'll realize that they don't know the first thing about lasers in general, let alone the specifics like how to assess power, how to determine if a laser is on spec, etc. They merely regurgitate the specs that the manufacturers provide them with.

While those specs may be incorrect, "fraud" is an intentional deception. Regurgitating incorrect specs that they don't understand, is not fraud.

If you see someone listing their "1,000mW Arctic" for sale in the newspaper, would you say that they acting fraudulently? After all, their Arctic is surely not 1,000mW. If they're relying on the item's description from WickedLasers, and they don't know otherwise, then it's not an intentional deception.

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Intentional or unintentional, deception is deception. However, I have my personal doubts that they are all totally oblivious to how bad they're ripping people off.

Also, generally speaking, ignorance is never an excuse.:tsk:

xoul said:

Intentional or unintentional, deception is deception. However, I have my personal doubts that they are all totally oblivious to how bad they're ripping people off.

Also, generally speaking, ignorance is never an excuse.:tsk:

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That's not true. Ignorance generally is a valid excuse to a designation (such as having acted "fraudulently") that requires an element of knowledge or intention. If the definition of fraud includes "knowingly" having done something (and any dictionary definition of the word does), then ignorance absolutely is, and essentially always is, and excuse. I'm not disagreeing with you about the quality or reliability of cheap chinese crap lasers. But it's very childish to see people throwing around words like "fraud" in scenarios that are far from it.

You didn't say "The power advertised on Chinese websites is deceptive". You said:
"MOST chinese vendors are fraudulent"
"Most Chinese LASER vendors are fraudulent"

In fact, one of the previously considered "good" Chinese laser retailers, is one of the only Chinese vendors of any sort, that has ever truly committed what I believe to be fraud with one of my Purchases. That was DragonLasers. This was well documented on the forum. In a nutshell, they probably did three things wrong:

1) They sold me a really expensive laser that was 50% under spec.
2) They refused to cover ~$70 in return shipping costs.

Now so far, those are the two issues we run into with a lot of Chinese laser retailers, and that's the kind of stuff you're labelling as fraud. Issue #2 isn't fraud, it's just a really poor business practice. If they didn't know the laser was underspec, then #1 isn't fraud either. But then, the third issue arose:

3) When the refunded my purchase, they refunded about $60 less than I had actually paid them. I produced bank records and credit card printouts verifying that the amount refunded was roughly $60 short. They denied it, and claimed to have processed a complete refund, and to have completely resolved the issue.

Now, issue #3 would seem to be a valid example of fraud to me. They attempted to deceived me into believing that a full refund had been issued, when one had not. Assuming they knew this to be the case, and it's hard to imagine they didn't (I told them), their deception would seemingly have to have been intentional.

But shipping me the underspec laser in the first place, assuming they didn't know, not fraud.

rhd said:

If you see someone listing their "1,000mW Arctic" for sale in the newspaper, would you say that they acting fraudulently? After all, their Arctic is surely not 1,000mW. If they're relying on the item's description from WickedLasers, and they don't know otherwise, then it's not an intentional deception.

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This has no merit. Its not a "retail" sale, its a private ad.

Companies, at least in the free world, are responsible for proper information about their product. Even its printed in the fine print, they have to post the truth. The Chinese know this, and know that they are using deception in descriptions of their products because there is no recourse in China. Maybe in their standards its not fraud. But in our standards it truly is.

Deception in business is classified fraud.