Re: Almost over!
The Truth about "Steve" and Wicked Lasers
Feb 03rd 2007 at 07:14:23 1) "Steve Liu" is nothing more than an alias for Chris Tao (Xiao Pei Tao), who started WL a few years ago. If you order from WL, this is usually the name on the customs form. Even the WL trademark is registered by Xiao Pei: (I'm not allowed to post links on the board, but go to USPTO.gov and search trademarks for Wicked Lasers).
2) Chris started by modifying Leadlights and selling on eBay and eventually his own site. He also sold bootleg Abercrombie t-shirts, electric massagers (his dad retails these in a mall in CT, where they're from), and fake Lord of the Rings rings. Chris had a ton of eBay usernames - he had to come up with a lot because of the negative fbs he was getting. Among them: "apricotscrub," "ringwriath," and "aussielazers." Check it out on eBay if you don't believe... most have significant negatives.
3) Chris' username on forums is usually "apricotscrub." One really funny example is on a Mercedes Benz forum where he spammed for his company, posing as a guy who happened to find WL and fall in love with their amazing products: (again, the board won't let me post a link but just Google "apricotscrub wicked lasers" and it's the first result). Isn't this the kind of stuff Steve, er Nexus, er Chris accuses people of doing on lasercommunity all the time? Kind of hypocritical, eh? If you search Google for apricotscrub you'll see that he's uploaded stuff to wikipedia and youtube under that name as well.
4) Chris' original laser products were modified Leadlights. He started in summer '04 but was briefly forced out of business in early 2005 for a couple of reasons. First, he was modifying Leadlights and then returning the broken mods to Leadlight for warranty repair. They stopped selling to him over this. Second, authorities searched his house for overpowered lasers. They found nothing, but it was enough to stop WL for a short while. If you're curious about the volume WL did at the time, he had only purchased 100 lasers from Leadlight and that lasted him from fall '04 through spring '05 when he was temporarily put out of business.
5) Chris moved his business to China where he can legally sell IIIB lasers and he switched to CNI lasers because Leadlight wouldn't sell to him. At various stages he claimed that WL was the manufacturer (you can read "Nexus'" posts on lasercommunity to see these claims) and that WL products were of higher quality than everyone else. Of course, now that DL and some others are selling CNI, WL no longer sells CNI and their products are superior because WL now manufactures their own lasers. Logically the last two sentences will make your head spin a bit, but Chris actually says this with a straight face.
6) At various times since his move to China, Chris has obtained cheap 5mws and passed them off on eBay and Lasercommunity to be Leadlights. Did you notice the absurdly high failure rate on the "Leadlights" he was selling? Have you ever heard of so many Leadlights going bad? This forced Leadlight to make the following statement on their website: (sorry, but again I can't post the link. But go to leadlight.com.tw and click "news" and you'll see the announcement). You can get a cheap-a$$ laser for about $20ea. Of course, Chris posed this as a good deed - selling these Leadlights at cost to his loyal fan-base when in fact he's profiting about $15ea on the fake Leadlights.
7) Chris has really bad grammar. He always puts a dollar sign after the price. He doesn't know that things actually cost, say, $100 instead of 100$. Everyone gives "Steve" credit for being fluent in English but the truth is "Steve" (Chris) is from the USA (CT, to be exact) and doesn't speak Chinese at all.
Chris' biggest asset is his lack of shame. He'll say and do anything to generate sales. This information comes entirely from a few minutes of internet searching and a couple emails with Leadlight. Depending on who you ask, they're usually happy to provide an honest answer.
Steve tought DL was paying him to spam, or something like that....
), he is doing what he has to do to maximize his bussiness. Since in all fairness it is a Wicked Lasers forum, really what do you expect?, many companies would be the same. :-/ That is why I joined this forum, only in a forum not owned by any specific company can trully usefull duscusions occur. 
Hopefull more people will realize that and come here. 
I also will not be talked down to by a Chinese twat ripping the white man off, the maggot has only visited here and not yet posted i'm still waiting for that day.......