How to spot a fake LEGO web store
Posted by Huw,
There has been a sharp rise in the number of fake websites cropping up recently purporting to sell LEGO for a fraction of its retail price, often advertised on Facebook. Regular readers here will be able to spot them a mile off but unfortunately many people have been fooled and were scammed.
Earlier in the year there were a couple that included 'brickset' in their domain name which prompted people to get in touch with us asking where their orders were, or why they'd been sent socks, or something else random. All we could do was tell them they'd been scammed and to cancel their credit card.
Anyway, LEGO has been reacting to reports of such sites and getting them closed down, although in many cases not before the scammers have ripped off a few unsuspecting buyers. Now, it is seeking to educate people to avoid them falling victim in the first place by producing an infographic 'How to spot fake LEGO website'.
So, distribute it to everyone you know and if you come across any such sites yourself, report them to LEGO Customer Services.
109 likes
46 comments on this article
I had no idea this was a real problem, but I can't say I'm surprised. More generally, when searching for Lego online (e.g. on Google or eBay) I find it pays to look for the actual word 'Lego' in the product description. I don't imagine its presence is a guarantee of the real thing, but its absence is definitely a red flag.
The ads for such sites always bother me, and unfortunately I imagine they’ll always exist in some form. I’m glad LEGO is taking action against them, though I’m sorry it’s proven necessary.
I find it mildly amusing that LEGO is encouraging spending more time on fraudulent websites to investigate them... it seems like that itself is risky, but I suppose not if only the sale itself is the scam. Hopefully that is indeed the case.
I also appreciate that LEGO does not seem to be taking the opportunity to (directly) encourage shopping at LEGO.com instead... I really appreciate that LEGO is putting people first, rather than sales opportunities, though I realize their brand and reputation is also partly at stake.
Look out for “Lego Compatible”. My advice is usually, just avoid Facebook and the Facebook Group Apps (eg. Instagram) if you’re not computer literate. That being said, experienced users fall foul to scams as well so maybe just avoid full stop.
Thanks for these top tips, LEGO!
I've frequently reported such ads to Facebook when I've seen them pop up. They're usually along the lines of "80% off all LEGO!" accompanied by photos of genuine LEGO boxed sets such as the UCS Millennium Falcon or anything else very expensive. They just scream 'scam' to me, but must seem like a legit sale to the uninitiated. Facebook have never responded to my reports, and the frequency of the ads doesn't seem to have been affected which is a real shame.
The infographic seems helpful, but because I'm not the target audience it's difficult to say if it's likely to be effective.
I almost got scammed a couple of days ago on unfamiliar territory. I was trying to download a older app game onto a new iPad. The app had been removed from the main app stores as it was no longer supported by the publisher. There were dozens of very convincing YouTube tutorials with hundreds of likes and reassuring comments from a multitude of apparently successful users, but it was all 100% fake requiring you to download and sign up to other services first. I'm far from gullible, but anyone outside of their comfort zone is a target, and I was very close to making what to others might seem a 'schoolboy error'.
The best advice to follow may simply be the old aphorism that “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
I appreciate their efforts but I don't have high hopes that this will translate into less people getting scammed. Seems like every other day that an adult posts in one of the Afol facebook groups asking if this ad for "brick.garbo.netweb" offering 87% off the latest set is legit or not.
You will never find a review less than five stars on those sites. Fake ones, that is
Kind of sad that there are people out there whose only talent is ripping people off. Even sadder that there is a whole country of them...
I've had someone ask me if it was trustworthy for this kind of thing. Of course, 80% off online for a popular Lego set is certainly a scam. If you're lucky you'll get a good fake. Just always make sure to check independent reviews for the site (google).
This almost happened to me, I almost ordered from familytimesindia.com, and it either seems to have been thankfully taken down or I got the URL wrong. And of course they were hosted by GoDaddy. They should be indicted for indiscriminately hosting many criminal operations from a myriad of scammers like that.
Especially on Black Friday I would suggest to also check the domain registration date. You can use sites like this one per example: https://whois.domaintools.com/
Most of the times the domain is registered couple of days before the site goes online. Per example if you check the site registration date and it's registered in the last few days is probably fake.
This is great. Have been seen a lot of facebook ads and a few that pops up in search on Lego.
One problem when we report those and Lego try to research on it, is that the site you riported is gone. How do they then stop it. More that reports, More information they get to try to stop those.
80% off seems to be the popular figure for scam sites. If you see that, forget it.
Love it. To paraphrase TLG: "if it sounds affordable, it isn't genuine" ;-)
@OuterRimTradingCo_ said:
"80% off seems to be the popular figure for scam sites. If you see that, forget it."
^^^^This
That 80% off is the biggest dog whistle of all those scams. Is it tempting to buy a UCS Falcon at $140? Yes. Is it a real offer though? No. It seems I used to see a lot of those scam sites advertised on Facebook although they have died down in frequency recently, maybe people are finally catching on and reporting them before they go further and scam more people.
If you want a chance at cheap Lego go to a reputable Lego re-sale marketplace such as Bricklink or Bricks and Minifigures stores.
LEGO have a new slogan: “Reassuringly expensive”
Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does.
@Cherroids said:
"Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does."
That's because they also rip the designs straight from Lego and Afols. You'll find very little goodwill for ripoff bricks here.
Geez, the infographic is nice but you'd think they would have done a couple more design passes... The background-matching text on the pink and yellow panels are darn well near unreadable.
How to spot fake LEGO website:
Step 1: It's
"advertised on Facebook"
It doesn't help that you report the ads to Facebook and get a reply saying that there's nothing wrong with them :(
Please don't post links to dodgy websites.
@Cherroids said:
"Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does."
Lepin is fake, if by fake you mean bricks posing as Lego brand. You don’t have to go farther than their logo to know they are capitalizing on another brand’s reputation.
On the topic at hand, one tip that most consumers can understand is to look at the domain, meaning the word before “.com” or “.org” etc. Most people don’t want to dive into url details but I’ve found that single piece of info to be easily understood.
It's so disappointing that these even get to be advertised. Really? Just flat-out obvious scams are being proudly displayed on some of the world's biggest websites? No quality control whatsoever? The only thing sadder is grown adults who fall for it.
Continuously amazed what sites and "deals" people are apparently falling for.
You could put a banner with "THIS IS A SCAM - WE'LL STEAL YOUR MONEY" across the top of the page and you'd probably still get folks asking if it's legit.
Very helpful. Didn’t realise this was a major problem, but thanks!
Also, just don't shop on Facebook or Instagram.
From my experience, it's awful. They barely try to add some security measures.
@Cherroids said:
"Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does."
Lepin intentionally is designed to make people believe they are LEGO while also stealing designs from both LEGO sets and AFOLS online. Their bricks are definitely much crappier, sets often include the wrong (or missing) parts, and there is a good reason they're seen as a cheap knockoff.
If you want a LEGO alternative with some integrity, Mega Blocks and K'Nex are what you may wnat to look into. I feel weird typing that, but they at least are trying to make their products somewhat distinct.
I don’t think that infographic will help anyone. It’s too vague and doesn’t look like it will protect anyone from actually buying fake sets or losing their money.
I think the biggest culprit (that I’ve seen) is advertisers on Facebook purporting to offer “building block” sets using stolen images from Lego but scrubbing any mention of the word Lego from their ads.
Judging by the comments left on these ads they seem to be quite popular because they can break through to people who don’t pay close attention Lego, and they wouldn’t be aware of what is going on. If people do end up buying and receiving a product, firstly Lego’s hard work and design is being unfairly copied with no compensation, and more importantly the customer will be receiving a poor quality knock-off.
And yes, even though Lepin had been shut down, knock-off sets are still very commonly found.
I have run into a few myself, one such page claimed to have LEGO compatible dinos but out of the six creatures 5 were from the JW line and the sixth a Pteradon from what I suspect the Dino Attack.
Easiest way to tell a fake: it processes your order quickly and with no hiccups on the ordering site...especially on Black Friday week and the day of release of the UCS MF!
@ComfySofa:
Based on how things worked on Bricklink, the aggrieved party has to request that something be taken down, partly because it's too easy to target a competitor by reporting everything they post as a trademark/copyright/patent violation.
Ironically, the Nigerian Prince scam is now reported to be even more effective than it was the first time someone came up with it. Back then, lots of people would bite, but trust their gut and back out after the con artist had wasted a lot of time trying to reel them in. Now, most people know about the scam and just delete the e-mail without reading it, so the only people who actually contact them are the truly gullible.
@CCC:
They can take down 50 sites a day, but if there's a guy out there who can generate 51 sites a day, they'll never catch up. They are uniquely positioned to get sites taken down with far greater ease than any of us, but it takes a lot of leg work to track them all down. If people report as many as they're able to identify on their own, now they can take down 100 sites a day.
@xboxtravis7992:
It takes effort to set these sites up. Bricklink was plagued by scam sellers at one time (maybe they still are). But the more often people get burned, the more wary they become. Eventually it's not worth the effort, and they move on to greener pastures until those are full of mud and trampled grass as well.
@Cherroids:
Lepin is the definition of fake, which is why The LEGO Company was able to get a favorable decision when they sued to have them shut down by the Chinese government. They ripped off old LEGO model designs, and then they moved on to ripping off the MOC designs of famous AFOLs, all while fraudulently claiming they'd signed a deal with these same AFOLs to license their designs.
Of course, this is China, so the CEO who got jail time is probably already back on the street, and the company is probably operating under a different name. Or several.
@MegaLucario:
I can read both just fine, as long as I use the zoom tool (otherwise I can't read anything but the large white and green text without difficulty). Everyone sees color differently, and how they see color changes constantly as their eyes attempt to white-balance to anything they're looking at. It's entirely possible this may have seemed perfectly fine to whoever designed it, but that some percentage of the world population will have great difficulty (besides people who are actually colorblind).
@Rob42:
In the US, there have been print ads asking you to send in a dollar or two and they'll send you what they claim is valuable information (how to avoid paying taxes, how to secure unclaimed grant money, etc.). I read about someone who ran an ad just asking people to send in $1. They got over a million people to do so, and then got arrested for fraud...even though they never once promised to send anything in return.
"Very low priced LEGO products can be fake or non-existent"
Ain't that the truth
@PurpleDave
Interesting that you mention Bricklink having issues, I’ve never had any problems, but I’ve also not used it for a very long time, maybe 5 years or so. I’ll have to brush up on what to look for over there.
@PixelTheDragon said:
" @Cherroids said:
"Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does."
Lepin intentionally is designed to make people believe they are LEGO while also stealing designs from both LEGO sets and AFOLS online. Their bricks are definitely much crappier, sets often include the wrong (or missing) parts, and there is a good reason they're seen as a cheap knockoff.
If you want a LEGO alternative with some integrity, Mega Blocks and K'Nex are what you may wnat to look into. I feel weird typing that, but they at least are trying to make their products somewhat distinct. "
Yes as weird as it is saying it... I would recommend Mega Blocks I mean... Mega Construx, over Lepin. The thing is Mega while a Lego compatible brand is not a Lego clone brand (its important to recognize the patents protecting the original Lego brick has long expired). So all of Mega's products are in house designs and original content, properly licensed to IP owners (Halo, Star Trek etc.) and sold through reputable markets/stores. Sure I haven't bought a Mega product in years, but I have heard rumors their plastic and molding quality has increased as they are more seriously trying to compete with Lego. I actually have been tempted to try one of their Halo sets and see if the rumors of improved quality are true, the last time I built a Mega product was one of their older Halo sets though (the Pelican dropship from about 2010-2012ish) and it was a piece of junk. But while Mega is a Lego competitor, they are doing it fairly and by the books and deserve praise for that (probably helps that Mattel another toy giant owns them though in that regard).
Lepin's biggest sin in my opinion is copying AFOL designs. Lego is a massive company they can eat the cost of Lepin running around with fake UCS Falcon's and other sets not to mention Lego has the legal team to fight against Lepin when they desire. But the AFOL's, fans who put time into designing a MOC and usually posting the instructions for free only for Lepin to run with it and mass produce a set? That is dirty, very dirty.
I think one of them is going by the name "wish" ...
@fakespacesquid said:
" @Cherroids said:
"Not all are fake. I've used Lepin before and had amazing quality and way better pricing. Ngl it's not branded as lego (same brick just no logo). I will say it's little sketchy as they use same marketing photos Lego does."
That's because they also rip the designs straight from Lego and Afols. You'll find very little goodwill for ripoff bricks here."
While that is definitely true, I have to admit, had I never bought that Lepin set that I did, I would never have realized that there were other manufacturers of bricks at all. Let alone that their products can be as good as the original.
Nowadays I buy far more sets from - legal mind you - alternatives than from LEGO themselves. And I have found that, while the quality of most is not 100% that of LEGO yet, many are very close, and getting closer all the time. Especially since the quality of LEGO themselves has been dropping noticeably in recent times.
So, while the vast majority of my collection is still LEGO, it is now joined by excellent alternative products as well.
I like to keep an open mind, and since LEGO aren't producing anything the likes of which I am buying from the alternatives (especially German trains, vehicles, ships etc. as well as Western and Medieval buildings), I am not even taking away from what I would buy from LEGO anyway.
As for those fake stores, I am even more glad that I am not using Facebook or the like.
The 80% off websites rely on two kinds of victim. People who are fooled right away, and people who are suspicious but send their money "just in case it's real". They will not get cheap Lego, they will lose their money and they will probably put their financial and identity details at risk
A proper Lego store typically has a full or near full selection, but scam stores do not: many of these websites will only offer $100+ sets (for around $20), but not the $10-$20 rrp sets. Just one more sign to look for.
@B_Space_Man:
I haven't read the forums there in about two years, but when I did, I would regularly see posts from sellers who reported finding a likely scam seller and had submitted the information to Bricklink to take action. It's hard enough to make a living as a professional Bricklink seller as it is without potential customers being ripped off for significant amounts of money. Besides engendering mistrust in the platform in general, it also depletes their available funds, such that where they might have been willing to buy a set at a fair market price before (if they hadn't found a "deal" instead), now they might not be able to afford it. As a result, the selling community vigorously polices the site for potential scammers
Several years ago there was a guy named Bill (last name Swanson, I think) who got busted for cleaning out Target stores in three states of Millennium Falcon sets (the normal minifig scale ones) by covering their barcodes with stickers he'd made of a microscale Millennium Falcon set (so if you paid attention when ringing it up, it would still look like the correct set). I know one seller who says he'd been on too Bill having shady means of procuring his inventory for years before that, because he was pricing everything way below what could be sustainable, even with the best deals available at the time.
These days, most of those deals have dried up, because a lot of them were the result of sets that just weren't selling at MSRP being clearanced to make room for more sets that weren't going to sell either. Now that they've stopped producing as many duds, most sets either sell out completely, while a few might leave one or two boxes (often damaged) for the clearance aisle. It's a far cry from being able to load up an entire shopping cart with sets marked 20-50% off. Consequently, professional sellers will have the best part inventories, but will charge a premium on everything for the convenience. Hobby sellers are generally still just looking to liquidate unwanted parts, so their selection will be smaller, but they'll be priced to move. Used part dealers are getting hammered, though. Used lots are being priced higher as people realize there's value in them, but they're also being loaded full of chaff in the way of clone parts and random plastic bits that aren't even LEGO compatible. I've seen reports from people buying used lots of LEGO on eBay only to find that someone else had already cleaned out all the legit parts and relisted the junk.
@xboxtravis7992:
Mega is the definition of a clone brand. They bill themselves as being LEGO-compatible as their main form of marketing, they seek to be placed adjacent to actual LEGO product in stores, and the guy who created the brand even did so because he was pissed off at The LEGO Company for refusing some request he'd made of them. What you're thinking of as clone brands are more accurately termed counterfeits. There's nothing illegal about being a clone brand, provided you don't do like Hasbro did with their first attempt to horn in on the construction toy market when they copied brand-new part designs that were still very much under patent (the L/R 2x6 compound curved slopes are the one I distinctly remember noticing).
Lepin's offenses were in three stages. First, they started copying legacy LEGO designs from decades past. Next, they started flooding the market with copies of brand-new high-end sets within months or even weeks of the sets being released (you can probably blame this for the move to keep D2C sets under wraps until the very last minute, as it gives them a bigger window to sell their product before knock-offs can get to market. Finally, they went after AFOL designs because they had no legal standing to do anything about it under Chinese law. But make no mistake, it's the second one that did them in.
See, to many people, it's _ALL_ LEGO product. When someone buys a fake UCS MF, not only does it potentially rob them of a sale, but it could drive away an existing or potential customer for life. They also end up dealing with claims of defective sets that they didn't even produce, and bad word-of-mouth further damages the brand.
@CCC:
One of the "partners" that Lepin illegitimately claimed to have signed a deal with was the Arvo brothers. They publish entire books detailing how to build some of their models, at least one of which was ripped off by Lepin. If you can buy a "legitimate" copy of their set for the same price as the book, how do you think that impacts sales of their books? Especially for something like Kaneda's bike from Akira, where the X-Pod dishes will individually cost you far more than the book, even people who hated Lepin for ripping off original LEGO designs were making noise about possibly buying a copy of that set since they believed a legitimate deal had been struck.
Buying with a card doesn't help; my bank refused to refund money from one of these fake sites because the site sent me the LoZ version of the Temple of Airjitsu instead of Lego. Even though it was false advertising, the fact that something shipped out and was received was enough for my bank to tell me to pound sand.
I am far from gullible but I got scammed once in ebay. How can you have the post look perfect with thousands of positive reviews (and the feedback was for various lego sets), but still rip someone off?
@Sethro3:
It's happened a couple times on Bricklink. Someone runs a store for years, and then suddenly things go south. In one case, I think the guy was in a car accident, and ended up in the hospital for over a month. His store was not set to shut down automatically, though, so orders continued to pile up for a long time before people started reporting him as NRS/NSS and his store was suspended. But, there have been people who just couldn't keep up with the flood of business, who may have just opted to take a "retirement" payout when they left, or who were terrible, but honest, sellers all along who were able to get negative feedback removed by cancelling orders and refunding the money.
I'm less versed in what's possible on eBay, but I do know that there's a tactic that's growing in use where someone ships a bunch of fake orders (like those Chinese seeds earlier this year) and then uses those to provide a ton of bogus feedback for the seller account with all the "buyer" accounts.
@Sethro3:
One other instance I just remembered, and one of only a handful of times I got burned on Bricklink, is college students. I once bought from someone who had a good track record, only to get shafted on a $20 order in early summer. I don't remember exactly how, but I managed to trace the buyer back to a college campus. I figure what happened is that they were selling legitimately while living on campus, and as soon as they moved out for the summer, they took the money and ran.