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Βρε παιδιά, τι είναι πάλι αυτό;
Your PoPCorn is original?
Weird title I know, but seriously there are people out there that should ask themselves this question if they recently purchased a PopCorn Hour A-110. We will start this news article by issuing an alert to consumers concerning PoPCorn Hour A-110 media players. Research has revealed that somehow, with the help of "internal" people from Syabas, (or factory employees), supporting this scam "cloned" PopCorn Hours have been produced at the same factory Syabas is using to produce their players. (This is not such an unfamiliar subject when "China" comes to mind, as we know TViX replicas have also been spreading for some time.) Certain employees within the production and ordering process of Syabas media players, have decided to purchase the parts and build PCH's for their own use outside regular production. These are then sold to resellers at a reduced price who are in turn selling these players as original PCH A-110. The players are a lot cheaper for the counterfeiters to produce, and resellers pick up a few dollars selling these at close to normal prices. Click on "Read More" for the full story.
The catch for the end user here is that although these exact replicas use all the original components Syabas is using as well, no licenses have been paid and support is not covered on these units officially. There is also customs to consider and what if the end user needs any support? Well, it will not be coming from Syabas who register their Mac Addresses and some other "unique" numbers for their players. This can eventually lead to Syabas preventing updates for "cloned" players. Support for the "replicas" is directly handled by the resellers involved with one-for-one swaps for failing devices outside the reach of Syabas/PopCorn. We explain the whole situation in this article and recommend you, as a customer, verify the PCH you are purchasing is actually an original item and not a replica.
The ball got rolling when contact had been made to see "if we were interested in acquiring cheaper PCH A-110’s". Of course we are, hence we believe this is how the cheaper good players are sold - by breaking out of the niche market. During a few conversations however, we managed to find out crucial information about this enquiry that did not feel right. At first, it did ring a bell in my head knowing the enquirer (we have had contact before), is affiliated with another NMT brand. So it did not feel right that this person was now selling PopCorn Hour models which are the direct competition. On another occasion we were alerted when asked to use "Western Union" as the payment method and figured this was either a setup to get money or a "black market" offer, so we kept on asking where the players came from after having purchased a few samples...
One of Syabas’ own engineers involved in the production process, (from the office or factory), is reproducing players outside the regular and official schedules by purchasing all components and using factory time available to produce them. For a fact, we revealed that hundreds of these replicas have already been sold to resellers seeking to earn an extra buck or two, knowingly ignoring the issues that could come from Syabas blocking the ability to update these players, and having no obligation to support them at all on hardware issues that could come to the fore. This is however not the most "juicy" side of the whole ordeal. We have undeniable proof that one of the other NMT vendors we are very familiar with is deeply involved, contacting resellers to sell these replicas based on their own client list of resellers that have previously purchased their products. Could it be that their personal sales are so bad they are trying to run a scam on the most popular NMT? Now sales of PCH have reached much higher numbers it’s likely they figured "why not", creating this scam to sell PoPCorn A-110 replica's on the black market using official stores.
We’ve got involved now and have informed Syabas of the current situation for the following reasons:
- There are no benefits whatsoever rendered to the consumer who is faced with all the risks of no support and detection problems whilst the price for which the units are sold remains the same. This means all the benefits go to the scammers and resellers alone (with dubious intentions), and will inevitably lead to consumers becoming victims. We don't mind "fake" stuff being created based on an existing model if the price and information is correct and no legal issues are involved (no licenses, no support guarantee etc...)
- Only sellers earn extra money and we find it disgusting to fool consumers like this over a couple bucks (better pray we don't learn of anyone involved in this scam). The customer is led to believe they are purchasing an original PCH A-110 unit whilst it is actually a replica. Resellers actually "guide" end users to return the player to them for repair or replacement via these unofficial channels thereby deliberately keeping the users from finding out they have been sold a replica at the full price. For how long these people will be able to provide such repairs and swapping is unknown, but it’s unlikely it will last for the full warranty period. All these reasons make the whole situation totally unacceptable for us.
- If not only the players are cloned but also Mac Addresses and other info that makes a player unique, customers with original players could find themselves in trouble when filing support after someone has filed support with a replica using the same details. Likely a block by firmware will eventually be put into place to detect and lock the players abilities (either for updates or to operate at all), which would cause a serious problem if this information on a player is cloned too.
So, we do ask resellers directly to not purchase replicas via these counterfeiters and sell them as originals. We'd like to believe customer satisfaction is more important than a few extra bucks even in these difficult economic times. As for consumers, we ask that you verify recent purchases are an original and not a replica for the time being, as it is better to be safe than sorry...As for the PCH replicas, they are of concern to us as a clear support platform through official channels is not provided. The fact that we also spotted TViX replicas is less of a concern since users already know they get no support anymore regardless of these being original or fake... Damn, that was a catchy phrase...
Seriously, watch out!
Be safe!
Hi-Jack
Your PoPCorn is original?
The catch for the end user here is that although these exact replicas use all the original components Syabas is using as well, no licenses have been paid and support is not covered on these units officially. There is also customs to consider and what if the end user needs any support? Well, it will not be coming from Syabas who register their Mac Addresses and some other "unique" numbers for their players. This can eventually lead to Syabas preventing updates for "cloned" players. Support for the "replicas" is directly handled by the resellers involved with one-for-one swaps for failing devices outside the reach of Syabas/PopCorn. We explain the whole situation in this article and recommend you, as a customer, verify the PCH you are purchasing is actually an original item and not a replica.
The ball got rolling when contact had been made to see "if we were interested in acquiring cheaper PCH A-110’s". Of course we are, hence we believe this is how the cheaper good players are sold - by breaking out of the niche market. During a few conversations however, we managed to find out crucial information about this enquiry that did not feel right. At first, it did ring a bell in my head knowing the enquirer (we have had contact before), is affiliated with another NMT brand. So it did not feel right that this person was now selling PopCorn Hour models which are the direct competition. On another occasion we were alerted when asked to use "Western Union" as the payment method and figured this was either a setup to get money or a "black market" offer, so we kept on asking where the players came from after having purchased a few samples...
One of Syabas’ own engineers involved in the production process, (from the office or factory), is reproducing players outside the regular and official schedules by purchasing all components and using factory time available to produce them. For a fact, we revealed that hundreds of these replicas have already been sold to resellers seeking to earn an extra buck or two, knowingly ignoring the issues that could come from Syabas blocking the ability to update these players, and having no obligation to support them at all on hardware issues that could come to the fore. This is however not the most "juicy" side of the whole ordeal. We have undeniable proof that one of the other NMT vendors we are very familiar with is deeply involved, contacting resellers to sell these replicas based on their own client list of resellers that have previously purchased their products. Could it be that their personal sales are so bad they are trying to run a scam on the most popular NMT? Now sales of PCH have reached much higher numbers it’s likely they figured "why not", creating this scam to sell PoPCorn A-110 replica's on the black market using official stores.
We’ve got involved now and have informed Syabas of the current situation for the following reasons:
- There are no benefits whatsoever rendered to the consumer who is faced with all the risks of no support and detection problems whilst the price for which the units are sold remains the same. This means all the benefits go to the scammers and resellers alone (with dubious intentions), and will inevitably lead to consumers becoming victims. We don't mind "fake" stuff being created based on an existing model if the price and information is correct and no legal issues are involved (no licenses, no support guarantee etc...)
- Only sellers earn extra money and we find it disgusting to fool consumers like this over a couple bucks (better pray we don't learn of anyone involved in this scam). The customer is led to believe they are purchasing an original PCH A-110 unit whilst it is actually a replica. Resellers actually "guide" end users to return the player to them for repair or replacement via these unofficial channels thereby deliberately keeping the users from finding out they have been sold a replica at the full price. For how long these people will be able to provide such repairs and swapping is unknown, but it’s unlikely it will last for the full warranty period. All these reasons make the whole situation totally unacceptable for us.
- If not only the players are cloned but also Mac Addresses and other info that makes a player unique, customers with original players could find themselves in trouble when filing support after someone has filed support with a replica using the same details. Likely a block by firmware will eventually be put into place to detect and lock the players abilities (either for updates or to operate at all), which would cause a serious problem if this information on a player is cloned too.
So, we do ask resellers directly to not purchase replicas via these counterfeiters and sell them as originals. We'd like to believe customer satisfaction is more important than a few extra bucks even in these difficult economic times. As for consumers, we ask that you verify recent purchases are an original and not a replica for the time being, as it is better to be safe than sorry...As for the PCH replicas, they are of concern to us as a clear support platform through official channels is not provided. The fact that we also spotted TViX replicas is less of a concern since users already know they get no support anymore regardless of these being original or fake... Damn, that was a catchy phrase...
Seriously, watch out!
Be safe!
Hi-Jack
