As I hinted at in a few recent threads, there has been a development in the fight against these Fakes being sold on e-bay. With e-bay making the change to hide all winning bidder ID's leaving no way to contact them to warn them after an
auction closes, it became a pressing matter.
On 11/20/2008 I became an Authorized Verified Rights Owner [VERO] Agent for Hoshino Gakki Ltd.
In short, I can report Trademark and Copyright violations directly to e-bay, and they will be closed.
I have a limited directive at this time, and that would be the factory made mass produced fakes, copies, and clones, what we typically call "
Chibanez", even if they are not branded Ibanez but are copies and clones using the Ibanez headstock, JEM grip, and claw. It is undetermined if this will expand to include non Ibanez branded non JEM clones of other Ibanez models, Ibanez decals, and other forms or Trademark and Copyright violations.
What will be left alone are the private project and personal custom guitars, no matter how branded. Ibanez is not after Ibanez aficionados that create a "custom Ibanez" for personal use. Those doing it for profit are in an entirely different category. If Ibanez is going to go after the "Custom Shop" builders they will do that directly with cease and desist orders. I will edit this if this policy changes.
I find a lot of these, but I cannot find them all. This forum is a great resource of helpful members that are also very good at distinguishing the real from the fake, and the "custom" from the mass produced.
If you are inclined to help,
please post the auction number only of an auction that should be reported to e-bay.
Please check the last few auction numbers posted to try and limit duplicate postings of the same auction. I receive all posts by email and will check and verify directly to e-bay from there. It doesn't matter if it's on US or one of the other world sites, they are all reported to the same address.
Please use this thread to report auctions only.
Discussion and verification of fakes should be done in the Master Fakes Thread here:
http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f29/fr...etc-49018.html
I would like to take this opportunity to say
THANK YOU to all that will post in this thread. Your help is greatly appreciated, especially by those that would become unwary victims of these dubious products.
