My first fake Cuban (Partagas D4) experience

[Christophe]

My wife decided to order me a 10-count box of Partagas D4 from a certain online store claiming to be Swiss at below-market-prices (not sure if I'm allowed to name them by forum rules).

Thanks to this forum, and all I've learned, I was able to pretty definitively call them out as fake, though the company in question continues to deny it. To their credit, they did cease arguing with me after a few emails (maybe because I threatened to get Mastercard involved) and did refund me. 

Just wanted to share that here, to thank all the members here (and Lounge Lizards Podcast) who've unwittingly given me the knowledge I needed to be wary of people counterfeiting cigars and knowing what to look for. And hopefully, this can help someone else in the future. 

No fancy equipment needed, all I did was borrow my daughters magic UV-ink penlight and magnifying glass from her science kit. My doctoring and pictures below, compared with a pack of  D.4 tubos from an LCDH.

First off, notice they even put a fake (or stolen?) "garantia de calidad" from Tabacelera on that. This sticker has a number, does anyone know if you can use it to at least try to verify authenticity, like the Habanos SA barcode? 

For my objective evidence:

1) Muddled printing on the warranty seal (especially the numbers matching the barcode) when viewed up close. Probably a high-quality photocopy. The numbers were muddled but they did match the barcode. Don't know if the barcode itself was legit, Habanos verification website isn't working properly for me. 
 

2) UV-ink seal and dots missing from warranty seal. This is strange to me, seems like an easy-thing to fake, or at least attempt to.
My daughters UV-ink penlight wasn't the brightest, by the way. 

3) Band is a half-decent attempt at first glance, but an obvious fake when you look for longer than a few seconds. Embossing is less deep, gold ink is less shiny, and the gold bands are not aligned (more distance in the bottom then top). It was even more clear when I took the bands off to compare, but I think this photo shows it quite well. 

4) The cigars lacked triple caps. They tried to tell me it was variation. I told them, no, it's consistent, and consistently not Cuban at that. 



I would love for anyone who's able to add to this, to do so, and hopefully save other people the trouble or even prevent them from ordering from questionable online sources. 

Thanks again, everyone on FOH. 

Christophe

[HailState]

Absolutely fake. Rule number 1 in today’s market, you won’t be finding Cubans (especially something as popular as PSD4) under market prices. If anything, you’ll be paying well above market prices. If it’s too good to be true, it definitely is. 

[JohnS]

1 hour ago, Christophe said:

My wife decided to order me a 10-count box of Partagas D4 from a certain online store claiming to be Swiss at below-market-prices (not sure if I'm allowed to name them by forum rules).

Thank you for bringing this up. As per Rule 5, we don't mention other vendors on our forum as below...

Rule 5 No Discussion Of Sources And Prices

There are thousands of online suppliers of cigars around the world. Some good, some average some thieves. This board does not discuss any. This country has some of the most stringent defamation laws in the world and I am liable for any lawsuits that come from threads such as "**** sent me fakes". You are intelligent people. Use the PM feature or email me if you have any questions. Where I come across flagrant sellers of fakes I may post it. However, it will be a post coming from me, based on 100% certainty. 

In relation to prices from sources, this can always be done through internal PM between members, which the forum supports. It will not occur on the Forum or Shoutbox. The only exception is when Regionals or specific country cigars are released. These are priced by distributors and are uniform; thus general discussion of the price is permitted but not discussion of a specific vendor.

[Christophe]

13 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Thank you for bringing this up. As per Rule 5, we don't mention other vendors on our forum as below...

Rule 5 No Discussion Of Sources And Prices

There are thousands of online suppliers of cigars around the world. Some good, some average some thieves. This board does not discuss any. This country has some of the most stringent defamation laws in the world and I am liable for any lawsuits that come from threads such as "**** sent me fakes". You are intelligent people. Use the PM feature or email me if you have any questions. Where I come across flagrant sellers of fakes I may post it. However, it will be a post coming from me, based on 100% certainty. 

In relation to prices from sources, this can always be done through internal PM between members, which the forum supports. It will not occur on the Forum or Shoutbox. The only exception is when Regionals or specific country cigars are released. These are priced by distributors and are uniform; thus general discussion of the price is permitted but not discussion of a specific vendor.

Thanks for clarifying. Is the post ok as is then, or should I change anything?