- 16/3/13
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I've been around the rep game for several years now. In the last year alone I've purchased over 20 watches for our respected TDs.
From the day I've discovered this industry, there is a sense of illegal / secrecy vibe.
TDs charging 50%-100% fee on reps to cover their cost of doing (illegal) business. Hiding their true names and faces to prevent capture.
Factories are shutting down by the Chinese police every once in a while.
Customs all over the world counterfeiting watches.
...
However, I was able to buy more than 20 watches in the last year, the TDs section (and m2m) is full of life (and transactions), TDs sites are up and running without changing domain for months.
So what is going on here?
When it comes to other illegal merchandise like drugs, weapons, people, software, illegal pornography and etc, the trades are done in the dark web, under extreme paranoid measures. But here everything is out in the open.
Every US law enforcement officer can search replica watches and arrive here, make some transactions with the TDs, shut down their site, ask PayPal for the bank account in China and cooperate with the Chinese police to arrest them, from them to the distribution and to the factories. The minute a new site is published (so we can buy) it will start again.
This is why other illegal industries don't have sites like that, don't do business over PayPal and sending goods using FedEx...
Plus the Chinese are investing a lot to move from labor economy to IP economy (I know that from the software industry I'm working in). They want to stop all IP violations in China because they understand that for the long term it will hurt them. The western world (US and Switzerland in this case) also have a great interest to stop this industry (B$ industry, taxes, import fees).
So this makes me believe that maybe it is just not that important to stop this industry or there is no governmental budget for this issue, or this is actually a marketing aid for gen companies (see it as a getaway drug for gens) and they don't want to stop it (just makes it looks like by stopping a factory or a watch here and there). Any option that you choose leads to the same conclusion: it probably not that risky and mysterious, just marketing...
To be clear, I respect our TDs and buy from them a lot, just wondering...
What do you think?
From the day I've discovered this industry, there is a sense of illegal / secrecy vibe.
TDs charging 50%-100% fee on reps to cover their cost of doing (illegal) business. Hiding their true names and faces to prevent capture.
Factories are shutting down by the Chinese police every once in a while.
Customs all over the world counterfeiting watches.
...
However, I was able to buy more than 20 watches in the last year, the TDs section (and m2m) is full of life (and transactions), TDs sites are up and running without changing domain for months.
So what is going on here?
When it comes to other illegal merchandise like drugs, weapons, people, software, illegal pornography and etc, the trades are done in the dark web, under extreme paranoid measures. But here everything is out in the open.
Every US law enforcement officer can search replica watches and arrive here, make some transactions with the TDs, shut down their site, ask PayPal for the bank account in China and cooperate with the Chinese police to arrest them, from them to the distribution and to the factories. The minute a new site is published (so we can buy) it will start again.
This is why other illegal industries don't have sites like that, don't do business over PayPal and sending goods using FedEx...
Plus the Chinese are investing a lot to move from labor economy to IP economy (I know that from the software industry I'm working in). They want to stop all IP violations in China because they understand that for the long term it will hurt them. The western world (US and Switzerland in this case) also have a great interest to stop this industry (B$ industry, taxes, import fees).
So this makes me believe that maybe it is just not that important to stop this industry or there is no governmental budget for this issue, or this is actually a marketing aid for gen companies (see it as a getaway drug for gens) and they don't want to stop it (just makes it looks like by stopping a factory or a watch here and there). Any option that you choose leads to the same conclusion: it probably not that risky and mysterious, just marketing...
To be clear, I respect our TDs and buy from them a lot, just wondering...
What do you think?