COUNTERFEIT Black Diamond Rope being sold by Dick's Sporting Goods

M Wolfwrote:

A lot of online storefronts (even from some well known companies) work just like Amazon now, where your order could be fulfilled by any number of potentially sketchy 3rd parties. I’m sure Dicks doesn’t sell enough climbing gear to stock it in a warehouse or store themselves, but with this model they can still make money selling gear online.

pretty wild that a major retailer would expose themselves to such risk by selling questionable life safety equipment though. Interested to see what they do with it

It’s enticing to copy extremely successful business models. Sucks for us, works for them.

The sewn ends with the plastic thimbles are definitely from China, or there abouts.  American, EU and UK sewn connections have about half the length and never have the thimbles, which only lead to easier cross loading.

To the Sherlock’s on page 2 here, It is not in question whether it’s a real BD rope.  The fake was established by the OP and Ubu posted the real (or one of) the actual Chinese manufacturers/ distributors.   The question isn’t whether it’s Chinese, the question is how/when the switch was made and by whom.  

Should send it to Ryan at How not 2 and put it through some tests.  

Pretty crazy that any shop is reselling returned soft goods, if that is what went down. I have no problems with buying used soft goods from other climbers, but retail stores always do, especially big giant corporations like dicks. 

It should also be kept in mind that this could very well be laying the foundation for an elaborate “mouse in the beer” scheme.  Can anyone vouch for ewetzel W ?

Mark Pilatewrote:

It should also be kept in mind that this could very well be laying the foundation for an elaborate “mouse in the beer” scheme.  Can anyone vouch for ewetzel W ?

Oh Mark, shouldn't this post go in the old fogey forum?;)

Seriously though, I'd just go break a leg somehow and sue them for millions. I bet they would pay more attention to details after and everyone would be more safe. You could donate the extras to the local charitable organizations.

ewetzel Wwrote:

I doubt that it could be that Dicks is taking "returns" on climbing ropes from people who actually bought on amazon and want a free BD rope from Dicks. In this scenario Dicks would be taking counterfeit ropes provided by consumers and then sketchily repackaging them with official BD labelling. Not great, but could be solved by them not allowing returns on safety gear (like other authorized dealers do). I doubt this scenario is what happened, because Dick's return policy seems to require a "Valid Proof(s) of Purchase" such as the "order number, order confirmation email, original sales receipt, pack slip, or return barcode."

Isn't the more plausible explanation the one that Shaniac suggested above? Someone bought a genuine BD rope from Dick's for $99 and a cheap rope from Amazon for $19, slid the cheap rope into the BD packaging sleeve and took advantage of Dick's lax return policy to get a $99 refund.

I think you've done all the right things by notifying Dick's and BD, and publicizing the incident here. If you want to get your money back from Dick's, have you tried going through their normal return process and telling them that what they sent isn't what you ordered? Their policy says that they "may accept returns for items that are clean and in good condition, even if they have been opened, tried on, or tested". Now that the packaging's damaged it seems unlikely that they'd try to resell it (again) – at least one hopes not.

In an ideal world this would come to the attention of someone senior at Dick's and they would change their return policy for climbing ropes, but I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you didn't continue fighting that particular crusade.

A peanut gallery comment:

counterfeit - adjective: made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud.

What the OP received was not counterfeit, but a miss packaged item. As said, the question is how/when miss packaging was made and by whom.  But even that question is moot as it is for Dick to figure out. Send it back, get it replaced with the right product and move on. Crap like this is not worth the 5 minutes it took me make this post.

Possible, also, that the OP bought the fake BD rope from a fake Dick's website without knowing. My Facebook feed currently has a fake "Mountain Hardwear" retail site trying to sell me fake MH stuff that could easily fool a lot of people. 

Andrew Ricewrote:

Possible, also, that the OP bought the fake BD rope from a fake Dick's website without knowing. My Facebook feed currently has a fake "Mountain Hardwear" retail site trying to sell me fake MH stuff that could easily fool a lot of people. 

Actually just saw one just like the fake Mountain Hardwear “outlet” advertising a shit ton of ropes (BD, Maxim, etc) for $59 bucks or so on store closing “clearance”.   They’re pretty convincing fake websites.   Don’t fall for it.  
and if you do, don’t fall on it.  

Mark Pilatewrote:

Actually just saw one just like the fake Mountain Hardwear “outlet” advertising a shit ton of ropes (BD, Maxim, etc) for $59 bucks or so on store closing “clearance”.   They’re pretty convincing fake websites.   Don’t fall for it.  
and if you do, don’t fall on it.  

Also just had the Ad Monster direct me to that fake MH site… times are weird 

Andrew Ricewrote:

Possible, also, that the OP bought the fake BD rope from a fake Dick's website without knowing. My Facebook feed currently has a fake "Mountain Hardwear" retail site trying to sell me fake MH stuff that could easily fool a lot of people. 

I've had fake LLbean, fake Lowes but not fake MH yet. It's actually amazing that FB lets this crap happen and even more surprising the press hasn't warned the consumers...

M Mwrote:

I've had fake LLbean, fake Lowes but not fake MH yet. It's actually amazing that FB lets this crap happen and even more surprising the press hasn't warned the consumers...

Agreed. I always flag the ads as fraudulent, with the hope that FB's Borg mind actually does something about that.

Andrew Ricewrote:

Agreed. I always flag the ads as fraudulent, with the hope that FB's Borg mind actually does something about that.

Not sure what the meta borg will do but in the past I have alerted the manufacturer about counterfeit items as they are the ones who have to take action. And even for them it is a game of whack-a-mole.

Allen Sandersonwrote:

Not sure what the meta borg will do but in the past I have alerted the manufacturer about counterfeit items as they are the ones who have to take action. And even for them it is a game of whack-a-mole.

Yeah, I know manufacturers already employ teams of people to chase down counterfeiters. But if FB and other social channels didn't make it so EASY to promote the fraudulent sales of counterfeit goods it'd be a lot less of an issue. 

Not Hobo Greg wrote:

Why are you buying climbing gear from Dick’s Sporting Goods?

 *shrug* 

Back before they closed, Sportsmart used to sell climbing gear and you could occasionally score 50% off Mastercams in store at the Oxnard location.
I'm sure I sold those used for more than I paid, some years later.

I guess it could be argued that that was the local gear shop, for Oxnard, though.

ubuwrote:

There are a ton of crappy Chinese "climbing ropes" like this on Amazon.  They show up at the local crag every now and then, kinda scary.  

How do you know that these ropes are crappy?
There is a chance that they are produced exactly on the same factory that makes ropes for major brands.
There is also a chance that these ropes are made somewhere else using exactly the same equipment and exactly the same materials.

How do you know that these ropes are crappy?

I shouldn't have to wonder. If the company would ship exactly what was ordered there would be no confusion. The default assumption "it's crap" is the correct stance to take. 

I am amazed at how easy you guys can go down a rabbit hole! 

I've seen zero proof of anything, just what one guy says! No receipts, no confirmation that BD was contacted, no anything. 

Yury, NO!

Update...

- Still no response from Dicks Sporting Goods customer service

- My communication with BD has now been transferred to another person. They said they "will talk" to Dicks. (I guess they haven't talked to them yet, since I am continuing to ask with no answer: What actually happened here, and what have they done to make sure this doesn't happen again?)

- Just to be clear, I don't care at all about getting my own money back. (I have little doubt that I can walk into any Dicks Sporting Goods and return just about anything wrapped in Black Diamond packaging and they will re-sell it to someone else.) I also don't care to stir the pot and turn the climbing community against any company. My goal is to figure out HOW this happened and prevent it happening again. 

- A note on re-packaging:  

The packaging could not be slipped on and off of the rope. If someone did return a counterfeit rope in BD packaging, they went to GREAT lengths to disguise their counterfeit(s) with the Black Diamond packaging.  I can pretty much guarantee no Dicks employee slipped the BD packaging on the rope by accident, since the packaging could NOT be removed without cutting. Furthermore, if someone DID nefariously go to a lot of trouble to execute this counterfeit return scam, it would hardly be worth their money and time to only do it with one rope. Seriously, they must have used a razor blade to peel apart the sheath and some gorilla glue to glue it back together over the counterfeit, all while making sure the weird-looking rope ends were completely hidden. Without more transparency from Dicks or BD, we won't know if this was a cleverly repackaged one-time thing or a bigger scam. 

Here are some topics I'm interested in discussing...

How can these companies, and the climbing community, make sure that Dicks is not reselling ANY more climbing rope returns? (Simply avoiding Dicks is not enough... Even if experienced climbers know that it's best practice to go to a local gear shop, many new climbers aren't going to know this.)

Could we effectively encourage BD and Dicks to take accountability?

Some people have suggested shopping only at locally owned stores. How do we communicate that to ALL climbers in the community? Especially those who don't have the luxury of living nearby a locally owned store?