Website Alerts / Fraud Cautions
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DANGER - ELECTRICAL FIRE WARNING:
We have received notice from consumers that at least one digital scale importer has been selling scales in the USA with improper AC adaptors (CCC type, not UL-Listed). Some of these adaptors are easily identified because they use prongs (blades) that are missing the normal round holes that you would find on the blades of a proper UL approved AC plug. If you have received one of these illegal AC adaptors please DO NOT PLUG IT IN - you could cause a severe electrical fire. This is especially dangerous if the AC adaptor remains plugged into a socket for a long period of time - Normal random power fluctuations may cause a fire at any time, such as when you are sleeping.
The Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) has been working with legitimate companies and US Customs to try and stop these substandard adaptors from being sold. There have been many recent cases of fake UL Listed adaptors being seized and Underwriters Laboratories strongly recommends only purchasing adaptors from legitimate well-known companies to avoid this dangerous type of fraud.
According to Underwriters Laboratories it is difficult but not impossible to spot fakes:
"While it is sometimes difficult to uncover counterfeit goods, some counterfeiters are sloppy in their work. Consumers should be cautious of products found at deep discount stores that are packaged in boxes that don't display the brand, product name or certification label on the box or the product itself. A good rule of thumb is if the price is too good to be true, then it probably is. Make sure to look for a reputable certification mark on the box and on the product that will help the odds against buying counterfeit products" Underwriters Laboratories Copyright 2008.
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Priority Alert: "Rite Weigh Digital" / Pocketscales.net / ""DigiTronics" We had so many complaints and issues relating to Rite Weigh Digital that we put them on a special alert page. Please click HERE for Rite Weigh Digital Alerts and information.
Alert: "American Weigh / Classic Wholesales / #1 Wholesale / Sahni Imports / Wholesale-Scales.com" Updated 04/01/2007, Notification given by consumer and they mailed us a catalog!:
It is being alleged that Classic Wholesales / American Weigh / #1 Wholesale / Sahni is selling counterfeit merchandise; They have allegedly imported or caused to be imported tens of thousands of metal 'pill' boxes and cigarette cases with various band names or movie names on them. These were apparently not authorized by their rights holders, which makes them illegally imported and are illegal to purchase or sell. They are selling items printed with the names or logos PINK FLOYD, GRATEFUL DEAD, AC/DC, ELVIS PRESLEY, BOB MARLEY, KISS, BLACK SABBATH, AEROSMITH, THE DOORS, JIM MORRISON, WINDTALKERS (with movie logo), THE GODFATHER (complete with movie logo), SCARFACE (with copy of movie poster), GUNS & ROSES, BAND OF BROTHERS, FULL METAL JACKET, JAMES DEAN, MARILYN MONROE, JIMMY HENDRIX, SCHINDLERS LIST, TITANIC, AMERICAN BEAUTY, 007, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, MOULIN ROUGE and many more. We received a catalog from and were really shocked that they had apparently brazenly violated these trademarks and copyrights. In addition Classic Wholesales / American Weigh / #1 Wholesale has been allegedly selling a similarity to the Jennings JS Scale called the XP-150. Last but not least this merchant has copied My Weigh's trademarked scale name CONVERTIBLE and is offering a scale for sale that they call the "CV CONVERTIBLE". We assume that Warner Brothers, AC/DC, PINK FLOYD, Paramount, the estate of Elvis Presley and the many many others that have been allegedly violated by their actions will rise up and sue. This sort of disrespect for American intellectual property rights is really unfortunate. Attempted Resolution by Digital Scales.com Staff: We know that they read our magazine so maybe this post will help convince them to stop doing things like this. If you are Lee Van Tine or Gary Sahni we ask you "Please - Please stop, you can make a lot of money in business without resorting to these sorts of bad actions". Hopefully by posting this information above, they will take notice and stop selling any illegal merchandise (maybe time they will learn their lesson - it's a lot cheaper for them to learn it from us then it is to learn it by being sued from 20 companies!!). Here is a deal we offer them; If they will remove the offending items and promise to stop acting like this, we will agree to remove all of our alerts about them. If our readers want to help out they can contact the various intellectual property owners/attorneys or just contact Classic Wholesales directly to complain and ask them politely to stop. As you can imagine the owners of Classic Wholesales / American Weigh truly dislike us for posting these sorts of alerts. It's nothing personal against Lee Van Tine or Gary Sahni, but if we don't warn consumers - who will?
After our post above Classic took down the items from their website so we hoped they would stop infringing - however just today in the mail we received yet another new flyer from them. This time they are offering bootleg Snoop-Dogg, Tupac, Michael Jordan, Scarface, and Bob Marley dog tags. Some people just don't learn :(
Additional Alert: "American Weigh" Updated 11/12/06, Notification given by merchant: Classic Wholesales / American Weigh has been impersonating and fraudulently misrepresenting SaveOnScales.com. Perry Costantino, the owner of http://www.saveonscales.com received a phone call from one of his customers who had recently placed an order. The customer had been recommended to his website by a friend of hers who had purchased a scale from Perry's website a few weeks prior. After the customer had placed her order she had a question about the shipping of the scale and attempted to type the URL directly into her browser so that she could contact SaveOnScales.com. Unfortunately, she mistakenly typed in "saveonscale.com" and was taken to a mirror site of ClassicWholesale.com. The customer immediately called the 800 number that she saw on the website to inquire about the status of her order. The customer was told that Classic Wholesales is the supplier for all of the scales sold on SaveOnScales.com, and that she should have placed her order directly through them at their site wholesale-scales.com. (note that this information has been updated, it has been reported that wholesale-scales.com is owned, controlled or related to American Weigh / Classic) Attempted Resolution by Digital Scales.com Staff: There seems to be nothing we can to help with this vendor other then to post the warnings and ask for help from consumers. Not only is Classic Wholesale / American Weigh attempting to misdirect consumers into thinking that they are on the SaveOnScales.com website, they are also providing consumers with false information about where SaveOnScales.com acquires their inventory. We encourage our readers to call AmericanWeigh/Classic Wholesales/Wholesale-Scales.com and to tape record your conversation with them. If you catch them saying false statements on tape, the easier it will be to victoriously litigate against them. Additional Alert: "American Weigh" (Classic Wholesales / Wholesale-Scales.com) Posted 6/13/05, Notification given by online retailer(s).
Summary: American Weigh has disseminated an illegal, fraudulent and slanderous letter that is designed to convince wholesale customers not to carry competing brands. The letter pretends to come from a fake private investigative company at a fake address (Internet Investigative Services which does not exist). Under Arizona law it is a class B felony to pretend to be a private investigator and hence a request for a criminal investigation into the sender of the letters has been made. The letter was faxed by Lee Vantine of American Weigh scales and also mailed. Some preliminary evidence shows the letter might have been mailed by a person named 'Victoria'. Victoria is a transsexual (formerly known as Chris Anderson) that works as a sales rep for Classic Wholesales / American Weigh scales and lives in the Tempe Arizona area. This story is stranger then fiction - it's absolutely amazing and sad that people who act like this are in the weighing industry. If you receive one of the letters please contact the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. Please see below for additional complaints about American Weigh; Additional Alert: "American Weigh" (Classic Wholesales) Posted 8/9/04, Complaints via Email Summary: Scales are being imported and sold in the USA with the name AMERICAN WEIGH on them. However these scales are made in China, consumers could feel deceived by this if they thought the scale was actually made in America. This is the US Regulation that we were able to pull up: United States Code, as listed in Title 19 Section 134.46 {In cases where the words "United States" or "American" or the letters "U.S.A." or any variation of such words or letters, or the name of any city or locality in the United States, or the name of any foreign country or locality in which the article was not manufactured or produced, appear on an imported article or container, there needs to appear, legibly and permanently, in close proximity to such words, in the same or greater size, letters or name, the name of the country of origin preceded by "Made in," "Product of," or other words of similar meaning.} Dictionary Definitions: AMERICAN: adj 1: of or relating to the United States of America or its people or language or culture; "American citizens"; "American English"; "the American dream" [syn: American] 2: of or relating to or characteristic of the continents and islands of the Americas; "the American hemisphere"; "American flora and fauna" WEIGH: 1 : to ascertain the heaviness of by or as if by a balance 2 : to measure or apportion (a definite quantity) on or as if on a scale weigh intransitive senses: to have a certain amount of heaviness : experience a specific force due to gravity Source: Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc. Therefore AMERICAN WEIGH would be seemingly be defined as a weighing device that is made in America. In fact the well known company DETECTO used to call themselves "The Great American Weigh" because they produced all of their scales in Missouri (they have since changed their slogan to "building a better weigh" when they went global in the 1990's).We called the US Customs Service in Charleston at (843) 579-6500 and confirmed that it appears that American Weigh would have to print "Product of China" in letters that are the same size as the printed word "American", and in a close location, in order to not violate United States regulations. American Weigh vehemently disputes these claims but in our discussion with Customs Officials in Charleston and later in Atlanta it does appear that American Weigh is not in compliance. To solve this question we requested that Customs investigate the matter further and had samples sent to them. A final determination will probably be made in the upcoming months. We will post the results of the Customs Investigation as soon as we know them. We suggest that you consult with an attorney or your local United States Customs office for advice before purchasing one of these scales, because if it is determined that they are not properly labeled, they might need to be returned for proper marking. *First we received a flyer claiming that American Weigh is the #1 selling scale in the U.S. To the best of our knowledge this is completely untrue. Then we received more seemingly false flyers (below) that claim the Blade is "Rated #1 scale in the world", who did this rating? We certainly don't consider this to be a top scale design. We hope they will cease these advertisements without forcing a complaint with the FTC. Notice their flyer above which says the Tanita 1479V that they are selling has a 10 year warranty and reads in Grams & Ounces. This is either incorrect or false, the Genuine Tanita 1479V has a 6 month warranty and reads only in Grams.
Alert: "FAKE TANITA 1479V" Posted 8/8/04, Notification given by Tanita Corporation. Summary: Unscrupulous merchants both online and "brick and mortar" are selling fake Tanita products. These scales look identical to the Tanita 1479V. They have the Tanita name on the scale, on the box and on the manual. The easy way to tell the real and fake Tanita 1479V products apart is that the fake ones do not say "Made in Japan" on the bottom of each scale. If you have purchased one of these fake scales please contact Tanita at 1-800-9-TANITA. Please be careful when purchasing scales on the internet, as you can see there are many "potholes in the road". This is why we recommend using a trusted merchant such as the ones that we have listed on our Online Merchants page.
Notice the missing "made in Japan"
on the fake Tanita 1479V. The fakes are very prevalent on EBay and Online.
Note that the newest fake Tanita 1479's now say "made in Japan" on the scales
and they even have copied Tanita's hologram on the box. The only way to
know the difference between the real and the fake is to remove the cover.
The fake Tanita scales use a small load cell while the real Tanita scales use a
large metal plate system (Capacitance system). Alert: "Scales.net / Exactica / Cenladigital" Ebay & Web sales Posted 8/09/04, Complaint via Email, investigated & posted by staff Summary: This is part of the Exacta Digital / Rite Weigh Digital related problems. Seller is on Ebay, collecting money from consumers but not sending the actual items ordered and paid for. Please view http://feedback.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=mjrmjr0 for examples.
Attempted Resolution by Digital Scales.com Staff: There is nothing we can do other then to warn consumers to avoid these types of scale retailers. Please use due-diligence to avoid fraud. We suggest using the merchants we have reviewed or ones that have BBB (true BBB) registrations.
Alert: "ITIN Scale Co / MINX" Posted 12/28/2003, Complaint via Email, investigated & posted by staff Summary: Itin is pushing a physical copy of the Ohaus HH / Ohaus Emerald along with copies of Gram Precision, Jennings and My Weigh scales. We were shocked when we saw these reproductions on their website and when we called Itin "Steve" actually told us that their Minx Enterprise (the physical copy of the Ohaus) was "the same as the Ohaus". Here's what we found:
Alert: "Scale4less.com" Posted 10/01/2003, Complaint via Email Alert: "Xactica" (AKA Exacta Digital, Xactron, Exactica) Posted 4/20/2004, Complaint via Email Quoted Summary: "On August 4th, 2003 our VISA was charged $77.60 by Exacta Digital for two electronic scales. We haven't received either, nor have they ever sent us an invoice, nor returned emails or explained what happened. Phone number listed (425)882-2333 is disconnected. Doug
Anderson Attempted Resolution by Digital Scales.com Staff: It is pointless to contact Exacta about these matters. See the below complaints and information. Additional Alert: "Xactica" (AKA Exacta Digital, Xactron, Exactica) Posted 10/20/2003, Complaint via Email Quoted Summary: I needed a precision scale so I searched online and found a sweet price for one at exactadigital.com. I ordered what they called a "Global 500" which they said reads 500g x 0.01. What I received was totally different - it reads 500g x 0.1 !!! I immediately emailed them and waited 2 days but no reply, so I called them and got their answering machine. I called again a few hours later and again the next day and again later - still no answer and no reply. Now I'm totally SOL - thanks for the advice about contacting my credit card co but I paid via Paypal (they only take paypal). Paypal says that they only cover disputes regarding non-shipment not "merchandise quality issues". So I'm totally SOL and need to go and purchase an Ohaus Scout SP402 which I should have done in the first place. Anyway after reading your site I realized that Exacta also had those fake website seals. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Additional Alert: "Xactica" (AKA Exacta Digital, Xactron, Exactica) Posted 8/19/2003, Complaint via Email & Notice from our friends at Complaints.com Copy from Complaints.com (original text at http://www.complaints.com/august2003/complaintoftheday.august19.30.htm ) 
UPDATE ALERT: ExactaDigital & RiteWeighDigital are now seemingly out of business. The old websites of Exacta are run by or property of "American Weigh"
Alert: "Dreamworld" Posted 8/20/2003, Complaint via Email Quoted Summary: I bought a scale from them and the wrong one arrived. This was back in March. I contacted them and I was told to send it back and they'd send a new one, they were nice on the phone and apologized a lot so I felt OK about it. So I sent it back but a new one never came! I've called them a bunch of times and keep getting their answering machine. They took down their website except for a page that says they'll be back online soon but it's dated April 25 and now it's like 6 months later!. Anyway please be warned about this guys! Attempted Resolution by Digital Scales.com Staff: We called them and left messages, no reply to our calls as of yet :(
Alert: "Dr Bongs" Posted 8/20/2003, Complaint via Email (from UK)
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Minx
Enterprise: Exact physical copy of the 
Minx
Sidekick: Exact physical copy of the 
Minx Mini Disc:
Exact physical copy of the
Minx
Backflip: This one is more interesting - in 2001
Minx
Flip Flop: This is the cheap 
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