14 ms·

The curious case of the handlebar bag scam

202 points by Zhenya 6y ago

woleium 6y ago
It's not often the best solution is to "send the boys round", but in this case it may be the only workable option.
- mint2 6y ago
  Violence is not the answer and it’s also not even feasible to”send the boys around”. Send them where? You’d have to hire a team of investigators just to have the possibility of finding the location of the perpetrators. And then when you did they’re likely going to be on another continent. It’s not a brick and mortar store or flea market stall or guys on street corners selling the fakes.
  - crazydoggers 6y ago
    You’d be surprised. Often times it’s usually one guy. There’s tons of these scams. Often they’re selling stolen merchandise, or found some super cheap inventory left over somewhere... which is why they can make money. They’re not manufacturing this stuff. But... they’re also usually engaged in other criminal activity. So while “sending the boys around” might not be the best idea, actually uncovering the identity and sending law enforcement for a check could bring dividends. Companies and people treat them like other companies that care about letters from lawyers. Those just go in their shredder. But police and fed calls usually get them spooked. If enough of these con men had some heat they may stop, but the problem is most companies just don’t follow through on that level and accept it as business as usual as in the article.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
This is essentially a global expansion of what has been normal everyday life in much of Asia for decades. Any successful brand will see counterfeits and, indeed, sometimes before the quality brand even launches. A prestige brand’s logo will be thrown on some cheap, low-quality anonymous thing, and ordering online you are just as likely to get a counterfeit as the real thing. Now it goes beyond physical products to media too; another example is blogs these days. Someone finds a successful blog, pays some developing-world person on a freelancer platform to rewrite every post just enough to avoid a DMCA takedown, and then puts the counterfeit site up with a heavy load of SEO and advertising. This started with recipe blogs – that cajun cooking site that claims to be by a born and bred Louisianan has grammatical mistakes suggesting an Eastern European or Southeast Asian author – but is now spreading through all kinds of other hobbies and interests. With recipe blogs, this phenomenon is now so mature that counterfeiters are copying from previous counterfeits.
- thaeli 6y ago
  I've never understood why recipe blogs have so much extra text, unless it's an SEO thing to start with. The text all feels useless fluff to me anyway; all I'm there for is the actual recipe card itself. And from a user's perspective, it's impossible to tell the difference between the original and a "counterfeit", both are full of borderline malware ads, too much scrolling, and infuriating modal popups wanting my email address. I don't want your newsletter. I don't want your life story. I don't want intrusive ads. I just want the (functional, non-copyrightable) recipe itself. /rant
  - wodenokoto 6y ago
    It’s an SEO thing.
  - watwut 6y ago
    It is google algorithm. It pushes doen pure receipts in result, so they add fluff to go up in search. The text is useless fluff. They gotta have something that looks like ranking worthy text to google and takes as little effort as possible (since humans will skip it).
  - maccard 6y ago
    Most of the "decent" blog recipe sites have a "jump-to-recipe" button at the top.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    > I just want the (functional, non-copyrightable) recipe itself. There's the rub. You can copyright your story. It's easy to scrape recipes from webpages. It's harder to translate a story into a recipe. If you post a plain & simple recipe to the internet, it will be copied and folks (and the bots behind search engines) won't have a clear incentive to visit/link your recipe over the numerous copies. If you've got a clear copyright violation, there's a chance you can get the copies taken down, or at least hidden by search engines. If it's just the functional, non-copyrightable recipe itself, no such luck. And then, with all the expense of creating and hosting the content, plus fighting the deluge of spammers, how do you monetize? The easy way: the borderline malware ads, modal popups, dickbars, etc. Blech. I'm with you, it sucks. But it's not just "an SEO thing"; it's also a case study on how "information wants to be free" meets the gritty reality of the internet economy.
lallysingh 6y ago
Real world products have anti-forgery mechanisms -- holograms, serial numbers you can check, etc. How about a 'spot the fake' section on the kickstarter site to identify the countermeasures?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  The problem for the original brand is that some people are going to receive the fake bags, believe that they are the real thing, and then leave negative online reviews saying that the product is low-quality. Even if you had a hologram or serial number on the real thing, you can’t expect people receiving the fake to be aware of that or care.
  - DiabloD3 6y ago
    Then you just reply to the review, notifying the customer that they have received a counterfeit, and then report the review as fraudulent, and move on. This is what a lot of businesses do. It's the only way to fight back without spending a lot of money to stop Chinese organized crime.
    - ecshafer 6y ago
      "Chinese Organized Crime" is a bit much. Its most likely some small time guy in China that is just doing this stuff for a quick buck. They would probably not even see anything wrong with it morally or legally, as its the fault of the person for falling for such an obvious scam. And they still get a product.
      - toss1 6y ago
        So, then, it's just "Chinese Disorganized Crime"?
    - warkdarrior 6y ago
      If reviews are easily marked as fraudulent, all merchants will just follow this route to eliminate negative reviews.
PEJOE 6y ago
I encountered a similar situation to one mentioned in the article on Etsy - a scammer made a fake store for a real shop in Brooklyn selling high-end aprons. To me it looked like the legitimate web-presense of the store. After placing the order I received no response, and after disputing the charge a month later they sent a tracking number. (The package never came, and a helpful UPS rep broke the rules to tell me the tracking number wasn't even addressed to me - a saving grace and made me wonder if tracking numbers from legitimate purchases are resold to run this scam.) Etsy refused to take any part in helping with the refund, and despite deleting the store they refused to tell paypal to refund people's (including my) purchases. Paypal had the tracking number, and could ask UPS for the address and recipient, but refused to help and made me feel like I was the scammer for wanting my money back. They insisted to the end that they could do nothing, despite knowing the Etsy storefront was banned and that the seller never sent me a package. I would have been out $100 if not for Chase, who did the chargeback and got paypal in line. I will never use paypal or Etsy again, as it is clear they don't care about criminals using their platform to steal money from trusting consumers. The lack of response from Paypal in this article is no surprise - a lot of their business comes from people using their platform to steal from their users. Can anyone who works at Etsy or Paypal explain why this system is so broken and anti-consumer?
- croutonwagon 6y ago
  This is why I stopped using PayPal back in the early 00s. They would staunchly side with a charge/seller over their actual customer for any reason and just frustrate the process. Even when their company had all the info, like eBay purchases. People say companies like American Express are a scam. But I can, and have in these instances just filed a charge back and walked. To the point that if a place won’t take American Express (like Costco) I’ll just move along. The number of times I’ve avoided scams and headaches because I can get a rep on in under 5 minutes is incredible. Everything from someone be swiping my numbers and running up charges online (that the store won’t discuss even when I give them the charge auth #), to car rental companies playing games with tolls when traveling in places like Denver. It’s frankly odd to me it’s not the standard.
  - 6y ago
klyrs 6y ago
Sad about the scams, but I admire the original maker's sticktoitiveness. The scammers are successful because, and these are my own words, that's an awesome handlebar bag. They wouldn't be successful honestly selling whatever basic-ass bags they have to ship. So, I'm kinda glad for the scam, because it brought the product to me through this story. I'm gonna buy one for me, one for my mom, and one for my brother. And when I can buy an extra mount, I'll do that so I can swap my bag between bikes. Not because of charity, but because it's a damned good product and suddenly I've got birthday presents sorted for 2021.
- juskrey 6y ago
  Exactly, good product is antifragile to such types of problems.
justinator 6y ago
This seems to be a very similar problem to knock off haute couture.
lambda_obrien 6y ago
I just wanted to say, that bag looks like a great handlebar bag, I love how it's acting like a base for other accessories so you don't have to overload your handlebar and you can switch everything between bikes with one move. I hope they manage to squash the fakes.
Waterluvian 6y ago
I'm not a cycling person, but I'm curious. Does the cycling community know about the book "Mrs. Armitage on Wheels"? As an outsider peering in, this reminds me of that book, given its a way to mount your laptop and everything else to your bike.
- scrooched_moose 6y ago
  I'm not all that deep into the bikepacking/touring world (just some weekend rides) but it's not something I see referenced, however they have some pretty amazing storage and packing options that remind me of it: https://www.davestravelpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/mexican-around-the-world.jpg https://www.davestravelpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/... https://robertaxleproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/panniers-1024x768.jpg https://robertaxleproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pan...
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Pannier bags are the go-to design for both bicycles and motorcycles, for good reason. They keep weight off your back and the center of gravity as low as possible. They also don't interfere with swinging your leg over the bike, unlike rear baskets or top boxes. When properly attached, you don't really notice them at all, other than making your bike a bit heavier up hills. I DIYed my own pannier bags from military surplus shoulder bags. They're not pretty, but then again neither is my bike. Handlebar bags are more of a bonus item, you use it for things you need to grab while riding, small snacks and that sort of thing.
- bengale 6y ago
  Now that’s a blast from the past! I used to love that book.
- URSpider94 6y ago
  When they say “computer”, they don’t mean a laptop. They mean a cycling computer, a little gizmo that tracks your speed, distance, pedaling cadence, grade, climbing distance, and maybe heart rate. In the cycling world these days, if you didn’t log the ride, you didn’t do the ride :)
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Heck, this nothing new. I guess the cycling community isn’t familiar with it, and new tech makes it easier to do these scams. At least, they aren’t full-fat counterfeit bags (I’m sure those are on the way, now that the bag is shipping). New York has had Times Square Rolecks watches for decades. It’s so bad, that even high-end watch sellers are getting fooled. Welcome to the big leagues, guys. I’m sure you’ll do well. As pointed out, this isn’t really a bad thing; just annoying.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Counterfeit cycling parts have been around for a while. Mostly they're taking advantage of the obscene profit margins that western companies have been racking up over the last couple of decades. Look at the ridiculous prices for name brand carbon fiber bottle cages than go look at the Aliexpress knockoffs.
  - mrslave 6y ago
    Are the AliExpress sellers using the exact media taken from the market leader's websites? This is what I have noticed, even for somewhat unbranded products (e.g. furniture).
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      I don't know about AliExpress, but the Rolex clones definitely use branding, marketing and other IP from the manufacturer. Sometimes, the packaging is an exact match. No kidding. Some of the knockoffs are so good, that heavy-duty watchmakers get fooled. I’m told they are pretty much indistinguishable, unless you open the watch. Apple had a problem with apps on the App Store, where knockoff vendors would get their crappy apps approved, then would grab screenshots from big-name apps, and replace their pathetic screngrabs with the big-name ones, so people thought they were buying the big-name apps. That's why Apple locked down the App Store, so you can't update screengrabs and previews, anymore.
momeunier2 6y ago
I fell for this scam... I've been even dealing with their customer support and they've been answering all my emails. They know exactly what kind of game they were playing. They were polite and were answering the right thing and were never really lying. I hate them...
fattybob 6y ago
I really struggle to see how the bag they show as a copy is anything remotely like a scam copy, now the duper duper bag I could easily see as a copy of numerous other handlebar bags though. Sorry , can’t see their problem here re scam copies at least. Scam advertising may be a better headline.
- wtallis 6y ago
  I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you saying this isn't really a scam? It obviously is, because what the scammers are advertising isn't what they're actually shipping. Or are you saying that Route Werks has nothing to complain about because the scammers are shipping bags that obviously do not resemble the Route Werks bag? Because there's still the problem that the scammers are using the Route Werks product images to advertise.
- nebulous1 6y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding. The scammers are using the pictures and branding from the kickstarter but sending a completely different bag.
Theodores 6y ago
Handlebar bags are not a big seller by any stretch of the imagination. I have spent years in the bicycle trade and have probably bought more handlebar bags for myself than I have sold to customers. This is not much of an exaggeration. Then the ones I do own are just for the grand tour rather than daily usage. That bracket on my handlebars is invariably not holding anything and there is invariably a bag on my back. As much as I adore the handlebar barbag as a product and will gladly try and sell it to customers, truth be told is that it is niche. Baskets for shopper bikes outsell bar bags 100 to 1. To get £45 out of a UK customer for a high quality handlebar bag is hard work. I can't imagine trying to get 179 dollars out of them for a handlebar bag. I wouldn't even pay that myself even though I like this product. The unique selling points are interesting. So it goes with gravel bikes. You can mount your phone and lights to it. The top isn't designed to hold a map which was 1970s USP. Let's look at what other manufacturers offer. Nowadays that top map pocket is for putting your phone in. Brackets for lights are not so common but I have LED lights on both of mine, albeit with brackets that are less than ideal. This 179 dollar bag lacks reflective strips which is weird. I also prefer standard Klickfix brackets as I can mount my handlebar bag behind the seat on my commuting bike, thereby getting better aero and handling. I don't think that fake pages trying to sell knock off versions of products are uncommon. Using such tales to hype your product is something else. Admittedly it is a curious story. Common sense would tell you that the cycling world needs this product. But try selling any handlebar bag to any customer on a busy Saturday in a wealthy area where customers happily spend 350 on cycling shoes. The handlebar bag is a hard sell.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Yeah, this bag looks pretty neat. Most bar bags swing a bit and don't work well with my wife's cantilever brakes. But, the price tag is a bit much. I can get a handmade bag from any of a number of boutique bike bag producers for the same or less. Or, I can buy a small camera bag, rivet on a KlickFix and call it good enough for <$80.
- analog31 6y ago
  As an avid cyclist, I've noticed a couple of problems with bike accessories. First is looks. Folks have an idea of how a bike should look for a certain activity. Second is the huge variation in bike designs that make it hard to standardize attachments. A handlebar bag is likely to conflict with your controls, cables, light, and so forth. Gone are the days when a single Wald basket would fit on any bike that wasn't a racing bike. And the bike was already ugly. And if the basket messed with your brakes, it didn't matter, because the brakes never really worked anyway. For myself, I took a pair of worn out jeans, cut off one of the legs, sewed it into a bag, and attached it to my handlebar or saddele with a couple of old toe straps. Then again the whole bike was assembled from spare parts. ;-)
ljp_206 6y ago
A family member of mine got a start out of college working for a medium-sized law firm that sent out cease and desist and etc. notices to counterfeit sellers. They were a 'full service' system that sent notices and handled takeovers/shutdowns of websites, through ICANN and various channels, I believe. The firm did this full time for really large clients (think designer handbags). This was back some ten years maybe - it was long ago that we were wary of the fact that the job was a newfangled remote position, which he nabbed off of Craigslist via a local ad. All that to say, it's not surprising there is a market for taking care of this problem. I wonder if there are smart folks out there who have made some kind of service out of this for littler guys than the global size clients that firm used to serve.
CivBase 6y ago
Never ever ever crowdfund a project unless you are familiar with the producer and have confidence in their ability to deliver... or you're just willing to loose all of the money you pledge. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are rife with scammers and the platforms do as little as they can get away with when it comes to preventing scams and helping victims. It's a lesson I heard the hard (and rather expensive) way.
- troymc 6y ago
  Did you read the article? This is not the usual story of the Kickstarter that didn't deliver.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    Yes. The most successful crowdfunding scams deliver something to avoid retribution from the planforms, payment processors, and legal authorities. My advice is the same regardless.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      This reply only serves to make it seem even more likely that you didn't read the article, or at least completely failed to understand it.
      - CivBase 6y ago
        Why? Just because the scammer tried to add extra legitimacy to their scam by committing fraud, pretending to be some other legit company?
        jeffgreco 6y ago
        The scammers weren’t using crowdfunding sites.
        CivBase 6y ago
leviathant 6y ago
How many of these scam sites were running Shopify?
crazygringo 6y ago
> Bizarrely, the buyer doesn’t leave empty-handed, because the scammer then actually sends them a much cheaper and nastier alternative handlebar bag – complete with tracking details and proof of delivery. This isn’t out of benevolence: it fulfils their contractual obligations, and removes the ammunition for buyers to dispute the transaction with PayPal or their bank. I don't understand how it removes ammunition at all. I show eBay or my bank a photo of what was advertised, a photo of what I received, the charge gets reversed, and if this happens too many times to the company they lose the ability to take credit cards or to list on eBay at all. What am I missing? Is this specifically a bank account - PayPal - AliExpress combo or something? Marketplaces don't usually exist very long if they provide zero buyer protection from fraudulent/deceptive sellers.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Neither eBay nor PayPal care enough to even have a human review the disputes most of the time. A valid tracking number (even if the package is empty) is often enough to lose a dispute. If you’re lucky, you’re going to get a monkey reviewing it which isn’t paid enough nor is competent enough to evaluate the quality of the item received based on the pictures. Your bank will indeed care more but most people don’t bother or value access to PayPal more than the scam money (since PayPal will often close your account if you file a chargeback with the bank).
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    I don't even know how to file a dispute without a human involved. Customer service handles it. When you deal with them over the phone it's usually pretty reasonable. They're not evaluating the cut of a diamond. All the photos in the article would obviously be settled in favor of the buyer. Also why would PayPal close a buyer's account after a chargeback? They'll just debit the seller. Why would PayPal even care? I searched online and can't find a single instance of anyone complaining about that having happened.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      > Customer service handles it Customer service is not always the one actually making the decision. They might be some early-stage filter to guard against obvious mistakes/misunderstandings, but after that it can very well go into a queue where either a automation or an underpaid human handles it. That's the only reason I can think of for the various horror stories where people have been left out of pocked by PayPal despite evidence that would convince any reasonable person. > Also why would PayPal close a buyer's account after a chargeback It's common in "big tech" to close entire accounts in retaliation after a chargeback (I've heard of Google doing it, and maybe others) so I'm assuming PayPal would do the same. Chargebacks also cost them a fee (in addition to the disputed amount) so there is a business case for discouraging chargebacks. And when a huge chunk of your business is based on screwing people and the margins are already razor-thin, do you really want to keep customers who demonstrated their ability to fight back?
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Perfect privacy is perfect protection for scammers. There are always trade-offs.
ThrustVectoring 6y ago
The product is too niche for this to be some small-time scam, this is more likely the result of streamlined and specialized parts of organized businesses. This dynamic is likely not even the brain-child of any one individual; it's entirely plausible that it's the result of AliExpress drop shippers that offer commissions for sales referrals and don't look too closely at the process that generates them. The drop shippers take on the payment/chargeback risk for the spread above ordering directly from AliExpress, and pass along part of that spread to the SEO and advertising specialists figuring out the cheapest way to funnel the most traffic to the highest-commission targets.
AussieWog93 6y ago
I saw a similar scam on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/cCoQPuCGAMg https://youtu.be/cCoQPuCGAMg The difference between the pictures and what he received was genuinely amusing.
hycaria 6y ago
What do these AliExpress/Wish buyers expect exactly ? I don't understand why some people keep using these crap platforms. Also this is not a curious case at all, routine stuff on chinese crap resellers..
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  They have pretty good dispute resolution, and after ~70 transactions on AliExpress I never had such a thing happen
- theshrike79 6y ago
  Using Aliexpress is a skill, you need to figure out which sellers are full of crap and which are actually reputable. Wish is 100% scam preying on those without the skills to use Aliexpress. Wish translates the UI for multiple languages along with the product names/descriptions and provides direct payment without credit cards (Klarna).
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  The AliExpress listings could very well be for the scammers themselves. One company makes the similar-looking bag that's intended to be used in the scams. Another company actually dropships said bags for orders from their scam websites.
- Krisjohn 6y ago
  It depends heavily on what you're buying; Parts for projects, or cables - mostly great. Pet toys - usually fine. Small household tools and other utilitarian bits - good as long as it can't get bent or dented en route. (Western) Name-brand products - don't go there, they're more expensive or fake. I've bought around 400 things on AliExpress, with an average value of, guessing, about A$7.50. I'd say just under 10% had a problem that needed a full refund -- mostly just not arriving or arriving beaten up. I only had to complain bitterly when a surface-mount component fell off a PCIe card and I refused to accept their recommendation to fix it myself. Fewer than 2% of goods had a disappointingly short life span. Meanwhile, the price is at most a third of what I'd pay to get the same (or seriously similar) product locally. Doing the math very roughly, I've probably paid about A$3k for stuff that would have cost A$10k. And all I had to do was wait 1-3 months for everything.
Nextgrid 6y ago
> We can flag the ad on Facebook, but they’re not technically violating any Facebook rules – there’s nothing in Facebook that says you can’t advertise something that’s not yours. Surprise surprise, when something nefarious happens online, Zuckerberg is never too far away. Facebook seems to be yet again profiting off fraud & scams in total impunity.
vzaliva 6y ago
Perhaps putting their brand name on thier bag in prominently visible location could have helped? Right now their bag have no visible branding and that allows scammers easily replace it with inferior product.
- XargonEnder 6y ago
  I think you've got a good point, but I hate products with logos and that would make me not want to get it.
megablast 6y ago
2 years to design a handlebar bag?
sequoia 6y ago
When you pay $19.99 for a $179 brand new product... I’m not saying it’s OK to scam but caveat emptor? At least a bit?
FounderBurr 6y ago
Doesn’t the Asian banking system have the equivalent of the MATCH list to put bad merchants permanently out of business?
mtnGoat 6y ago
I’m currently going through the same issue as their end users. Bought something based on an Instagram ad. It never arrived after 3 months. I contact PayPal for a dispute after finding the sellers Shopify site offline. The seller gave PayPal a tracking number of a package that arrived at my house in early January. Oddly, that was the first time I was provided a tracking number. I did in fact get a package with a cheat plastic wallet around the same time, which I figured was some sort of brushing scam. So seller currently has $35 of mine, and they sent me <$1 item instead of what I ordered. I guess we shall see how PayPal decides. If all else fails, I’ll call MasterCard. I kinda thought PayPal and Shopify were trustworthy and keeping the trash off their systems.

202 points by Zhenya 6y ago

woleium 6y ago

It's not often the best solution is to "send the boys round", but in this case it may be the only workable option.

mint2 6y ago
Violence is not the answer and it’s also not even feasible to”send the boys around”. Send them where? You’d have to hire a team of investigators just to have the possibility of finding the location of the perpetrators. And then when you did they’re likely going to be on another continent. It’s not a brick and mortar store or flea market stall or guys on street corners selling the fakes.
- crazydoggers 6y ago
  You’d be surprised. Often times it’s usually one guy. There’s tons of these scams. Often they’re selling stolen merchandise, or found some super cheap inventory left over somewhere... which is why they can make money. They’re not manufacturing this stuff. But... they’re also usually engaged in other criminal activity. So while “sending the boys around” might not be the best idea, actually uncovering the identity and sending law enforcement for a check could bring dividends. Companies and people treat them like other companies that care about letters from lawyers. Those just go in their shredder. But police and fed calls usually get them spooked. If enough of these con men had some heat they may stop, but the problem is most companies just don’t follow through on that level and accept it as business as usual as in the article.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

This is essentially a global expansion of what has been normal everyday life in much of Asia for decades. Any successful brand will see counterfeits and, indeed, sometimes before the quality brand even launches. A prestige brand’s logo will be thrown on some cheap, low-quality anonymous thing, and ordering online you are just as likely to get a counterfeit as the real thing. Now it goes beyond physical products to media too; another example is blogs these days. Someone finds a successful blog, pays some developing-world person on a freelancer platform to rewrite every post just enough to avoid a DMCA takedown, and then puts the counterfeit site up with a heavy load of SEO and advertising. This started with recipe blogs – that cajun cooking site that claims to be by a born and bred Louisianan has grammatical mistakes suggesting an Eastern European or Southeast Asian author – but is now spreading through all kinds of other hobbies and interests. With recipe blogs, this phenomenon is now so mature that counterfeiters are copying from previous counterfeits.

thaeli 6y ago
I've never understood why recipe blogs have so much extra text, unless it's an SEO thing to start with. The text all feels useless fluff to me anyway; all I'm there for is the actual recipe card itself. And from a user's perspective, it's impossible to tell the difference between the original and a "counterfeit", both are full of borderline malware ads, too much scrolling, and infuriating modal popups wanting my email address. I don't want your newsletter. I don't want your life story. I don't want intrusive ads. I just want the (functional, non-copyrightable) recipe itself. /rant
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  It’s an SEO thing.
- watwut 6y ago
  It is google algorithm. It pushes doen pure receipts in result, so they add fluff to go up in search. The text is useless fluff. They gotta have something that looks like ranking worthy text to google and takes as little effort as possible (since humans will skip it).
- maccard 6y ago
  Most of the "decent" blog recipe sites have a "jump-to-recipe" button at the top.
- klyrs 6y ago
  > I just want the (functional, non-copyrightable) recipe itself. There's the rub. You can copyright your story. It's easy to scrape recipes from webpages. It's harder to translate a story into a recipe. If you post a plain & simple recipe to the internet, it will be copied and folks (and the bots behind search engines) won't have a clear incentive to visit/link your recipe over the numerous copies. If you've got a clear copyright violation, there's a chance you can get the copies taken down, or at least hidden by search engines. If it's just the functional, non-copyrightable recipe itself, no such luck. And then, with all the expense of creating and hosting the content, plus fighting the deluge of spammers, how do you monetize? The easy way: the borderline malware ads, modal popups, dickbars, etc. Blech. I'm with you, it sucks. But it's not just "an SEO thing"; it's also a case study on how "information wants to be free" meets the gritty reality of the internet economy.

lallysingh 6y ago

Real world products have anti-forgery mechanisms -- holograms, serial numbers you can check, etc. How about a 'spot the fake' section on the kickstarter site to identify the countermeasures?

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
The problem for the original brand is that some people are going to receive the fake bags, believe that they are the real thing, and then leave negative online reviews saying that the product is low-quality. Even if you had a hologram or serial number on the real thing, you can’t expect people receiving the fake to be aware of that or care.
- DiabloD3 6y ago
  Then you just reply to the review, notifying the customer that they have received a counterfeit, and then report the review as fraudulent, and move on. This is what a lot of businesses do. It's the only way to fight back without spending a lot of money to stop Chinese organized crime.
  - ecshafer 6y ago
    "Chinese Organized Crime" is a bit much. Its most likely some small time guy in China that is just doing this stuff for a quick buck. They would probably not even see anything wrong with it morally or legally, as its the fault of the person for falling for such an obvious scam. And they still get a product.
    - toss1 6y ago
      So, then, it's just "Chinese Disorganized Crime"?
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    If reviews are easily marked as fraudulent, all merchants will just follow this route to eliminate negative reviews.

PEJOE 6y ago

I encountered a similar situation to one mentioned in the article on Etsy - a scammer made a fake store for a real shop in Brooklyn selling high-end aprons. To me it looked like the legitimate web-presense of the store. After placing the order I received no response, and after disputing the charge a month later they sent a tracking number. (The package never came, and a helpful UPS rep broke the rules to tell me the tracking number wasn't even addressed to me - a saving grace and made me wonder if tracking numbers from legitimate purchases are resold to run this scam.) Etsy refused to take any part in helping with the refund, and despite deleting the store they refused to tell paypal to refund people's (including my) purchases. Paypal had the tracking number, and could ask UPS for the address and recipient, but refused to help and made me feel like I was the scammer for wanting my money back. They insisted to the end that they could do nothing, despite knowing the Etsy storefront was banned and that the seller never sent me a package. I would have been out $100 if not for Chase, who did the chargeback and got paypal in line. I will never use paypal or Etsy again, as it is clear they don't care about criminals using their platform to steal money from trusting consumers. The lack of response from Paypal in this article is no surprise - a lot of their business comes from people using their platform to steal from their users. Can anyone who works at Etsy or Paypal explain why this system is so broken and anti-consumer?

croutonwagon 6y ago
This is why I stopped using PayPal back in the early 00s. They would staunchly side with a charge/seller over their actual customer for any reason and just frustrate the process. Even when their company had all the info, like eBay purchases. People say companies like American Express are a scam. But I can, and have in these instances just filed a charge back and walked. To the point that if a place won’t take American Express (like Costco) I’ll just move along. The number of times I’ve avoided scams and headaches because I can get a rep on in under 5 minutes is incredible. Everything from someone be swiping my numbers and running up charges online (that the store won’t discuss even when I give them the charge auth #), to car rental companies playing games with tolls when traveling in places like Denver. It’s frankly odd to me it’s not the standard.
- 6y ago

klyrs 6y ago

Sad about the scams, but I admire the original maker's sticktoitiveness. The scammers are successful because, and these are my own words, that's an awesome handlebar bag. They wouldn't be successful honestly selling whatever basic-ass bags they have to ship. So, I'm kinda glad for the scam, because it brought the product to me through this story. I'm gonna buy one for me, one for my mom, and one for my brother. And when I can buy an extra mount, I'll do that so I can swap my bag between bikes. Not because of charity, but because it's a damned good product and suddenly I've got birthday presents sorted for 2021.

juskrey 6y ago
Exactly, good product is antifragile to such types of problems.

justinator 6y ago

This seems to be a very similar problem to knock off haute couture.

lambda_obrien 6y ago

I just wanted to say, that bag looks like a great handlebar bag, I love how it's acting like a base for other accessories so you don't have to overload your handlebar and you can switch everything between bikes with one move. I hope they manage to squash the fakes.

Waterluvian 6y ago

I'm not a cycling person, but I'm curious. Does the cycling community know about the book "Mrs. Armitage on Wheels"? As an outsider peering in, this reminds me of that book, given its a way to mount your laptop and everything else to your bike.

scrooched_moose 6y ago
I'm not all that deep into the bikepacking/touring world (just some weekend rides) but it's not something I see referenced, however they have some pretty amazing storage and packing options that remind me of it: https://www.davestravelpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/mexican-around-the-world.jpg https://www.davestravelpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/... https://robertaxleproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/panniers-1024x768.jpg https://robertaxleproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/pan...
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  Pannier bags are the go-to design for both bicycles and motorcycles, for good reason. They keep weight off your back and the center of gravity as low as possible. They also don't interfere with swinging your leg over the bike, unlike rear baskets or top boxes. When properly attached, you don't really notice them at all, other than making your bike a bit heavier up hills. I DIYed my own pannier bags from military surplus shoulder bags. They're not pretty, but then again neither is my bike. Handlebar bags are more of a bonus item, you use it for things you need to grab while riding, small snacks and that sort of thing.
bengale 6y ago
Now that’s a blast from the past! I used to love that book.
URSpider94 6y ago
When they say “computer”, they don’t mean a laptop. They mean a cycling computer, a little gizmo that tracks your speed, distance, pedaling cadence, grade, climbing distance, and maybe heart rate. In the cycling world these days, if you didn’t log the ride, you didn’t do the ride :)

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

Heck, this nothing new. I guess the cycling community isn’t familiar with it, and new tech makes it easier to do these scams. At least, they aren’t full-fat counterfeit bags (I’m sure those are on the way, now that the bag is shipping). New York has had Times Square Rolecks watches for decades. It’s so bad, that even high-end watch sellers are getting fooled. Welcome to the big leagues, guys. I’m sure you’ll do well. As pointed out, this isn’t really a bad thing; just annoying.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Counterfeit cycling parts have been around for a while. Mostly they're taking advantage of the obscene profit margins that western companies have been racking up over the last couple of decades. Look at the ridiculous prices for name brand carbon fiber bottle cages than go look at the Aliexpress knockoffs.
- mrslave 6y ago
  Are the AliExpress sellers using the exact media taken from the market leader's websites? This is what I have noticed, even for somewhat unbranded products (e.g. furniture).
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    I don't know about AliExpress, but the Rolex clones definitely use branding, marketing and other IP from the manufacturer. Sometimes, the packaging is an exact match. No kidding. Some of the knockoffs are so good, that heavy-duty watchmakers get fooled. I’m told they are pretty much indistinguishable, unless you open the watch. Apple had a problem with apps on the App Store, where knockoff vendors would get their crappy apps approved, then would grab screenshots from big-name apps, and replace their pathetic screngrabs with the big-name ones, so people thought they were buying the big-name apps. That's why Apple locked down the App Store, so you can't update screengrabs and previews, anymore.

momeunier2 6y ago

I fell for this scam... I've been even dealing with their customer support and they've been answering all my emails. They know exactly what kind of game they were playing. They were polite and were answering the right thing and were never really lying. I hate them...

fattybob 6y ago

I really struggle to see how the bag they show as a copy is anything remotely like a scam copy, now the duper duper bag I could easily see as a copy of numerous other handlebar bags though. Sorry , can’t see their problem here re scam copies at least. Scam advertising may be a better headline.

wtallis 6y ago
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you saying this isn't really a scam? It obviously is, because what the scammers are advertising isn't what they're actually shipping. Or are you saying that Route Werks has nothing to complain about because the scammers are shipping bags that obviously do not resemble the Route Werks bag? Because there's still the problem that the scammers are using the Route Werks product images to advertise.
nebulous1 6y ago
I think you're misunderstanding. The scammers are using the pictures and branding from the kickstarter but sending a completely different bag.

Theodores 6y ago

Handlebar bags are not a big seller by any stretch of the imagination. I have spent years in the bicycle trade and have probably bought more handlebar bags for myself than I have sold to customers. This is not much of an exaggeration. Then the ones I do own are just for the grand tour rather than daily usage. That bracket on my handlebars is invariably not holding anything and there is invariably a bag on my back. As much as I adore the handlebar barbag as a product and will gladly try and sell it to customers, truth be told is that it is niche. Baskets for shopper bikes outsell bar bags 100 to 1. To get £45 out of a UK customer for a high quality handlebar bag is hard work. I can't imagine trying to get 179 dollars out of them for a handlebar bag. I wouldn't even pay that myself even though I like this product. The unique selling points are interesting. So it goes with gravel bikes. You can mount your phone and lights to it. The top isn't designed to hold a map which was 1970s USP. Let's look at what other manufacturers offer. Nowadays that top map pocket is for putting your phone in. Brackets for lights are not so common but I have LED lights on both of mine, albeit with brackets that are less than ideal. This 179 dollar bag lacks reflective strips which is weird. I also prefer standard Klickfix brackets as I can mount my handlebar bag behind the seat on my commuting bike, thereby getting better aero and handling. I don't think that fake pages trying to sell knock off versions of products are uncommon. Using such tales to hype your product is something else. Admittedly it is a curious story. Common sense would tell you that the cycling world needs this product. But try selling any handlebar bag to any customer on a busy Saturday in a wealthy area where customers happily spend 350 on cycling shoes. The handlebar bag is a hard sell.

alistairSH 6y ago
Yeah, this bag looks pretty neat. Most bar bags swing a bit and don't work well with my wife's cantilever brakes. But, the price tag is a bit much. I can get a handmade bag from any of a number of boutique bike bag producers for the same or less. Or, I can buy a small camera bag, rivet on a KlickFix and call it good enough for <$80.
analog31 6y ago
As an avid cyclist, I've noticed a couple of problems with bike accessories. First is looks. Folks have an idea of how a bike should look for a certain activity. Second is the huge variation in bike designs that make it hard to standardize attachments. A handlebar bag is likely to conflict with your controls, cables, light, and so forth. Gone are the days when a single Wald basket would fit on any bike that wasn't a racing bike. And the bike was already ugly. And if the basket messed with your brakes, it didn't matter, because the brakes never really worked anyway. For myself, I took a pair of worn out jeans, cut off one of the legs, sewed it into a bag, and attached it to my handlebar or saddele with a couple of old toe straps. Then again the whole bike was assembled from spare parts. ;-)

ljp_206 6y ago

A family member of mine got a start out of college working for a medium-sized law firm that sent out cease and desist and etc. notices to counterfeit sellers. They were a 'full service' system that sent notices and handled takeovers/shutdowns of websites, through ICANN and various channels, I believe. The firm did this full time for really large clients (think designer handbags). This was back some ten years maybe - it was long ago that we were wary of the fact that the job was a newfangled remote position, which he nabbed off of Craigslist via a local ad. All that to say, it's not surprising there is a market for taking care of this problem. I wonder if there are smart folks out there who have made some kind of service out of this for littler guys than the global size clients that firm used to serve.

CivBase 6y ago

Never ever ever crowdfund a project unless you are familiar with the producer and have confidence in their ability to deliver... or you're just willing to loose all of the money you pledge. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are rife with scammers and the platforms do as little as they can get away with when it comes to preventing scams and helping victims. It's a lesson I heard the hard (and rather expensive) way.

troymc 6y ago
Did you read the article? This is not the usual story of the Kickstarter that didn't deliver.
- CivBase 6y ago
  Yes. The most successful crowdfunding scams deliver something to avoid retribution from the planforms, payment processors, and legal authorities. My advice is the same regardless.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    This reply only serves to make it seem even more likely that you didn't read the article, or at least completely failed to understand it.
    - CivBase 6y ago
      Why? Just because the scammer tried to add extra legitimacy to their scam by committing fraud, pretending to be some other legit company?
      - jeffgreco 6y ago
        The scammers weren’t using crowdfunding sites.
        CivBase 6y ago

leviathant 6y ago

How many of these scam sites were running Shopify?

crazygringo 6y ago

> Bizarrely, the buyer doesn’t leave empty-handed, because the scammer then actually sends them a much cheaper and nastier alternative handlebar bag – complete with tracking details and proof of delivery. This isn’t out of benevolence: it fulfils their contractual obligations, and removes the ammunition for buyers to dispute the transaction with PayPal or their bank. I don't understand how it removes ammunition at all. I show eBay or my bank a photo of what was advertised, a photo of what I received, the charge gets reversed, and if this happens too many times to the company they lose the ability to take credit cards or to list on eBay at all. What am I missing? Is this specifically a bank account - PayPal - AliExpress combo or something? Marketplaces don't usually exist very long if they provide zero buyer protection from fraudulent/deceptive sellers.

Nextgrid 6y ago
Neither eBay nor PayPal care enough to even have a human review the disputes most of the time. A valid tracking number (even if the package is empty) is often enough to lose a dispute. If you’re lucky, you’re going to get a monkey reviewing it which isn’t paid enough nor is competent enough to evaluate the quality of the item received based on the pictures. Your bank will indeed care more but most people don’t bother or value access to PayPal more than the scam money (since PayPal will often close your account if you file a chargeback with the bank).
- crazygringo 6y ago
  I don't even know how to file a dispute without a human involved. Customer service handles it. When you deal with them over the phone it's usually pretty reasonable. They're not evaluating the cut of a diamond. All the photos in the article would obviously be settled in favor of the buyer. Also why would PayPal close a buyer's account after a chargeback? They'll just debit the seller. Why would PayPal even care? I searched online and can't find a single instance of anyone complaining about that having happened.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > Customer service handles it Customer service is not always the one actually making the decision. They might be some early-stage filter to guard against obvious mistakes/misunderstandings, but after that it can very well go into a queue where either a automation or an underpaid human handles it. That's the only reason I can think of for the various horror stories where people have been left out of pocked by PayPal despite evidence that would convince any reasonable person. > Also why would PayPal close a buyer's account after a chargeback It's common in "big tech" to close entire accounts in retaliation after a chargeback (I've heard of Google doing it, and maybe others) so I'm assuming PayPal would do the same. Chargebacks also cost them a fee (in addition to the disputed amount) so there is a business case for discouraging chargebacks. And when a huge chunk of your business is based on screwing people and the margins are already razor-thin, do you really want to keep customers who demonstrated their ability to fight back?

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Perfect privacy is perfect protection for scammers. There are always trade-offs.

ThrustVectoring 6y ago

The product is too niche for this to be some small-time scam, this is more likely the result of streamlined and specialized parts of organized businesses. This dynamic is likely not even the brain-child of any one individual; it's entirely plausible that it's the result of AliExpress drop shippers that offer commissions for sales referrals and don't look too closely at the process that generates them. The drop shippers take on the payment/chargeback risk for the spread above ordering directly from AliExpress, and pass along part of that spread to the SEO and advertising specialists figuring out the cheapest way to funnel the most traffic to the highest-commission targets.

AussieWog93 6y ago

I saw a similar scam on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/cCoQPuCGAMg https://youtu.be/cCoQPuCGAMg The difference between the pictures and what he received was genuinely amusing.

hycaria 6y ago

What do these AliExpress/Wish buyers expect exactly ? I don't understand why some people keep using these crap platforms. Also this is not a curious case at all, routine stuff on chinese crap resellers..

sudosysgen 6y ago
They have pretty good dispute resolution, and after ~70 transactions on AliExpress I never had such a thing happen
theshrike79 6y ago
Using Aliexpress is a skill, you need to figure out which sellers are full of crap and which are actually reputable. Wish is 100% scam preying on those without the skills to use Aliexpress. Wish translates the UI for multiple languages along with the product names/descriptions and provides direct payment without credit cards (Klarna).
Nextgrid 6y ago
The AliExpress listings could very well be for the scammers themselves. One company makes the similar-looking bag that's intended to be used in the scams. Another company actually dropships said bags for orders from their scam websites.
Krisjohn 6y ago
It depends heavily on what you're buying; Parts for projects, or cables - mostly great. Pet toys - usually fine. Small household tools and other utilitarian bits - good as long as it can't get bent or dented en route. (Western) Name-brand products - don't go there, they're more expensive or fake. I've bought around 400 things on AliExpress, with an average value of, guessing, about A$7.50. I'd say just under 10% had a problem that needed a full refund -- mostly just not arriving or arriving beaten up. I only had to complain bitterly when a surface-mount component fell off a PCIe card and I refused to accept their recommendation to fix it myself. Fewer than 2% of goods had a disappointingly short life span. Meanwhile, the price is at most a third of what I'd pay to get the same (or seriously similar) product locally. Doing the math very roughly, I've probably paid about A$3k for stuff that would have cost A$10k. And all I had to do was wait 1-3 months for everything.

Nextgrid 6y ago

> We can flag the ad on Facebook, but they’re not technically violating any Facebook rules – there’s nothing in Facebook that says you can’t advertise something that’s not yours. Surprise surprise, when something nefarious happens online, Zuckerberg is never too far away. Facebook seems to be yet again profiting off fraud & scams in total impunity.

vzaliva 6y ago

Perhaps putting their brand name on thier bag in prominently visible location could have helped? Right now their bag have no visible branding and that allows scammers easily replace it with inferior product.

XargonEnder 6y ago
I think you've got a good point, but I hate products with logos and that would make me not want to get it.

megablast 6y ago

2 years to design a handlebar bag?

sequoia 6y ago

When you pay $19.99 for a $179 brand new product... I’m not saying it’s OK to scam but caveat emptor? At least a bit?

FounderBurr 6y ago

Doesn’t the Asian banking system have the equivalent of the MATCH list to put bad merchants permanently out of business?

mtnGoat 6y ago

I’m currently going through the same issue as their end users. Bought something based on an Instagram ad. It never arrived after 3 months. I contact PayPal for a dispute after finding the sellers Shopify site offline. The seller gave PayPal a tracking number of a package that arrived at my house in early January. Oddly, that was the first time I was provided a tracking number. I did in fact get a package with a cheat plastic wallet around the same time, which I figured was some sort of brushing scam. So seller currently has $35 of mine, and they sent me <$1 item instead of what I ordered. I guess we shall see how PayPal decides. If all else fails, I’ll call MasterCard. I kinda thought PayPal and Shopify were trustworthy and keeping the trash off their systems.