Fake Xenon bulbs

[nordwulf]

I was reading the information below in an eBay listing. I never even realized they would be faking these bulbs. And would these bypass any counterfeit laws? Not sure what to think of this and if the information is legit.

NEW PHILIPS OEM D1S HID bulb 4200K Germany (Osram) | eBay
http://www.hidbulbzrus.com/vs.pdf

Please use this link to see comparison photos between real and fake Philips bulbs. Note: the printing and numbers on the bulb bases very closely duplicates the real thing so that is not as good a way to detect the fake bulbs.

Buyer beware. With rare exception, 80% or more of the "Philips" bulbs listings for new bulbs here on eBay are fake, Counterfeit look alike bulbs made in China. The Chinese have done a very "good" job to closely duplicate the labeling and the construction of the real Philips HID bulbs when making the fakes. 99.9% of people cannot tell the difference, in terms of appearance. We have purchased some of the fakes and will soon add some photos (High Resolution), comparing real with fakes. We will show you what to look for. This will help you determine that you are buying the real thing from us or others. This comparison will help all buyers and sellers on ebay for the real Philips bulbs. If we did not know what to look for we could be fooled too, the fakes are that "good" in appearance. Sellers, If you are selling HID bulbs claiming to be Philips and they come from China or some broker in USA (marked made in Germany), they are fakes. Likely some on eBay do not know that they are really selling fakes.

There are at least 2 companies in China making these fakes. We have been approached by them to switch over and greatly change our profit levels. The Chinese D1S, D1R, D3S and D3R, can be purchased (in quantity) for about $10.00 USD with a very good (tempting) profit margin selling them on eBay and other places. The Chinese are also making fake copies of all the versions of D2S, D2R, D4S and D4R.

A true 6000K Ultinon bulb from Philips will always have red colored salts in the arc chamber not yellow colored salts. Also, the ceramic tube will be blueish purple colored not brown or other colors. We do not sell any of the higher color temperature bulbs including 6000K Philips Ultinon (they are not DOT legal to use in USA) so you will need to look for another seller for those.

We only sell the standard Philips D1S, D2S and D2R 4200/4300K color (yellow colored salts in the arc chamber), These are the standard bulbs the car typically comes with from the car factories.

We purchase our bulbs directly from Philips USA and we make a small profit, too small. We have had to drop our prices to compete with the fakes. In the last 6 months on eBay we have seen a significant increase of the fake Philips copies coming from China, land of the fakes. We have lost more than 1/2 of our business to this crap and we are upset. Fair competition is fine, but this is not ok. We and the customer are the losers in this. The fakes are being sold in many cases for more than the real bulbs by highly rated eBay sellers. In most cases the prices are about the same, real or fake. The fake bulbs will not have the same life (2000 - 3000 hours+) as real Philips bulbs. Chinese HID bulbs typically last 500-1000 hours and frequently much less. This is NOT a good deal for the buyer. They will damage your plastic headlight lenses and reflectors inside. UV light will yellow clear lenses over time. The fake bulbs do not have good UV (ultraviolet) light filtration by the outer glass tube on the bulb. Philips uses high quality UV stop quartz glass. You the customers should be upset about this and make sure you are getting what you were promised and paid for.

In many or even most of the fakes, the arc chamber (where the light comes from) is off position front to back on the bulb length axis. This means the light beam from your headlight will not be accurate compared to an OEM authentic bulb. From the many samples of fakes we got recently, some of them were off by as much as 2 or more millimeters. 1/2 were off by at least 1 mm. Even 1 mm is a lot in this technology. For this reason alone, all of these bulbs would be considered rejects by Philips and destroyed. Philips bulbs are made with very tight computer controlled tolerances (precision). Each one is optically tested at the factory to be within very tight optical specs and others.

We know the origins of our bulbs so we know 100% they are real there are no 3rd party brokers involved in our Philips bulb purchases. We also have ethics and would never knowingly sell fakes as real. We get our invoices from Philips USA. Because we buy bulk in trays we do not have Philips individual bulb boxes, we do our own single packaging.

[Lex Andrews]

I've read the article above and checked my spare 4300k Xenon D2R's from my old car. Checking the details against the above post. I have 3, 1 Philips and 2 others non manufacturer named. The "philips" unit does have a different coloured ceramic tube to the post. They all have the yellow salt crystals.
Would anyone want a couple of pics of my spare bulbs to compare??

[Hirsch]

As expensive as the HID bulbs are I'd be leery 0f anyone selling them at dirt cheap prices.

Anytime I see something thats too good to be true I check it out as thoroughly as I can.

[JLausch]

I just buy from the dealer or somewhere comparable for these. Or a known aftermarket site. Considering how long they last, even at 75 to 100 a bulb, I thin it's reasonable

[nordwulf]

Any trusted site recommendations where they sell the genuine bulbs? Or is this eBay seller as good as it gets?

[nordwulf]

I recently bought some new D1S bulbs from Amazon and look and feel like the real deal.

Attachment 13879

These appear to be typical fake bulbs. The metal stamping is often poor, the bulb base is plastic instead of metal, different fonts, colors and spelling error and no security label on the box, different label on the base of the lamp.

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Looking back at the auction of the seller where I posted the information from in the first post, those seem to be a similar design. Not sure if those are original older design real Philips lamps?

Attachment 13880

Or they could be fake as well and their story may be misleading potential buyers and trying to earn trust. I don't know if Philips sells lamps wholesale in trays to regular buyers. A white box is a red flag to me.