Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Ebay Zeiss Clone Warning

I unwittingly bought a Zeiss Conquest Clone from Ebay. It was advertised as a real Zeiss but in actuality is was a Sniper brand 4-16x50mm. This Sniper scope is available at Optics Planet for $78. It had Zeiss labeling and came in a Zeiss box. A good way to tell the difference was that the objective adjustment was at the objective lens and not a turret focus. Some Ebay retailers are labeling them as clones but there still are retailers trying to fool dummies like me.

I agree that is too bad. There are lots of those on
there all the time. Ebay does not seem to care about
the copyright violation, they just want to collect the
fees.

Can you return this, and did you know beforehand, tell
us more about it.

I didn't know beforehand. There were warning signs that I ignored. Scope has "Made in the USA" on it but a Chinese company was selling it cheaper? Seller claims this model is not available in the U.S. Only available in the Asian market. I couldn't find it on the Zeiss website and I thought that was probably the reason. The illuminated reticle feature was not implemented like other Zeiss scopes. Markings on the scope were pretty good quality. The box markings appeared to have been run through a cheap printer. The included scope manual had the trademark Sniper in it and that was what lead me to discover it really was made by Sniper. The seller had sold several of these and all the buyers had responded with positive feedback. I thought surely all the buyers couldn't be wrong. We were.

If you paid with a credit card you can possibly dispute the charge. Not sure if that helps you any. Postal money order with counterfeit goods may give you some leverage also. Thanks for the warning.

Good luck,
David

That sucks. With all of the scammers out there, I will only buy that stuff from authorized dealers.

Contact the seller through eBay and tell them you want your money back. If they don't respond then file a claim with eBay. You will likely get your money back unless there was some disclaimer in the item description you didn't pick up on.

There is a fake Leupold 1.5-5x20 on eBay too, auction # 262547664058.

The ad has pictures of what appears to be a VX3(?) 1.5-5x20, but the title of the ad reads "Leupold Style", so they probably suck in guys who think that they are getting a great deal.

If you bought it with PayPal, you'll be fine.

I was scammed years ago on an ebay purchase and paypal refunded my money.

This is why I do not buy from Fleabay.

Buyers are 100% covered by Ebay (and Paypal). Tell them it was a misrepresentation on the ad, and not the product AS ADVERTISED. They will refund you, and may or may not even draw the funds back from the seller. You no doubt will have to pay shipping.

Also, file a complaint (where it says "report this seller". They let you file one for every reason, so file as many as you can. They take this stuff seriously, and the seller can get banned.

File a dispute through both Ebay and Paypal if at all possible. They are not linked companies anymore, they are separate.

If it has the Zeiss name on it it's not a clone, it's an illegal counterfeit! File a claim with PayPal and you will get your money back. I unknowingly bought a counterfeit Mophie phone case, Icontacted the seller and said either refund my money or I would report them to eBay and to PayPal. I also told them that I wasn't going to send back the counterfeit item and would destroy it instead. In less than an hour I got a refund and then I contacted eBay and PayPal and they deleted their account.

One nice thing about using paypal on eBay purchases is the seller can't just take the money and run. eBay sits on the money for a certain period of time till all aspects of the transaction are complete. Problem with a transaction, contact the seller through eBay. The funds won't get released till they feel the issue is resolved.

If you see a Zeiss priced for 78.00 this should be a warning sign of its own

A while back I was checking prices for silver Panda coins for my wife so she could properly price the ones she wanted to sell. You'd be amazed at how many counterfeit Pandas are for sale, all from Chinese sellers of course. Some sets are very elaborately cased and even feature counterfeit "Certificates of Authenticity".

My wife, who's Chinese, laughed when I showed her the fakes and said,"Oh yeah, we're very good at that".

If it sounds too good to be true...........

I checked the reviews on Amazon, and it appears that if you get a good one, they're not bad, especially for the money.

Get a dud, and you're probably screwed, unless you bought it from a reputable U.S. seller.