LiQua at B&M - Fake? Original? Take a guess...

[naith_kk]

Purchased this in a store that was selling a variety of products in a mall in town. e-Cigarettes and accessories were recently being sold by them at a promotional price. I stumbled upon reading about LiQua's "how to spot fakes" page a couple days back - and it was a primer for me to be prepared to detect counterfeits, but I wasn't expecting this kind.

Upon first impression it looks legit, but after opening it and smelling the contents, its no where near what I expected.

Below are two comparisons. One is fake (bad rancid taste) and the other is the proper flavor I borrowed from a friend for comparison. Can you tell which is fake?



Expiry date... on box and bottle.



I'm guessing you know which one is probably fake by now, but this particular bottle was the only flavour that I could compare to another stash bottle of the same flavour (but is good tasting) which I borrowed from my friend for comparison (and this bottle was the only bottle of the batch I bought that happened to have an overlapped sticker). Without a bottle to compare to, you would never know the difference until you unboxed/unwrap everything and smelled it.

The other bottle (Apple flavour) which I purchased together with the flavour above, also tasted rancid and surprisingly had only one sticker on it. Expiry dates are all the same... barcode numbers are all unique.

I personally find this a fake based on a couple reasons. The taste: rancid - something once you put in your dripper, you'll have a hard time removing the smell and aftertaste. Washing my dripper dry twice and trying to overlap the smell with a stronger juice and you'll still taste that horrible flavour... so bad, that I had to replace the wick.

The other reason was that the sticker was a dead giveaway - overlapping another in this particular bottle; its one of the unopened bottles which I unfortunately found out much later. Surprisingly, all the bottles are encased in plastic wrap that needed tearing up to get to the contents... very much in the same fashion like the original.

Below shows the sticker that was being covered (and is going to be my reason for a refund/exchange):



All I know is... if this is truly fake, then they are getting better and better at their game.

I know what some of you may be saying: that it could be legit as there are different manufacturers for the e-juice. But look at those expiry dates and batch numbers. Both expiry dates are 2015 but the fake tastes horrible. Just on visual inspection, The fake one is a "more recent batch" than the original if those numbers represent what I think they represent.

Another possibility is, chances are this compared bottle was probably old and had its sticker manipulated - its feasible explanation, but the plastic wrapping on the bottle? The other apple flavoured rancid bottle that shows no sign of being tampered in any way (based on personal observation) but is still nasty - is giving me doubts on this batch's authenticity.

I'm going to sample flavors before making a purchase next time...

P/S - The images above show the following for those who still can't tell:

Box (for both pictures above):
Left box (Fake) - Right box (Original)

Bottle (for both pictures above):
Left bottle thats clearer liquid (Original) - Right bottle thats darker liquid (Fake)

 

[tunggua]

That's a scary thought. I used to think I can spot fake liquas reasonably easy. Does the fake have that transparent embossed triangle sticker on the back of the label? Can't see clearly in the pics.

 

[naith_kk]

Does the fake have that transparent embossed triangle sticker on the back of the label? Can't see clearly in the pics.

Yes. both the fake and original have the sticker... however, there is a difference. The original transparent sticker doesn't darken/contrast the background of the label its stuck to... the fake one does.

By turning the bottles to a specific angle - it becomes noticeable.

 

[Melis]

Ok, so this is probably dumb... But Im new and would hate to be turned off to a vendor bc of a fake. First , is the fake the lighter or the darker?? Also, is there a way to tell their fakes b4 you open the inside plastic packaging and compare the expire stickers?

 

[Dweeb]

it looks like the fake? isn't printed as nicely, i noticed the coffee beans on the front are kind of smudged into the background vs sharp on the darker liquid bottle.

 

[naith_kk]

Ok, so this is probably dumb... But Im new and would hate to be turned off to a vendor bc of a fake. First , is the fake the lighter or the darker?? Also, is there a way to tell their fakes b4 you open the inside plastic packaging and compare the expire stickers?

The lighter liquid bottle is the original.

it looks like the fake? isn't printed as nicely, i noticed the coffee beans on the front are kind of smudged into the background vs sharp on the darker liquid bottle.

Upon close scrutiny, yes... but the picture doesn't show justice. It looks crisp nonetheless. When I showed the fake to my two vaper friends... both of them had a hard time telling the difference until we compared fake to original.

 

[naith_kk]

is there a way to tell their fakes b4 you open the inside plastic packaging and compare the expire stickers?

I managed to notice some differences between the two:

The bottom lid of the box is a serial number... the original seems to reflect light whereas the fake didn't and had faded numbers; but noticeable if you look properly at it.



For the bottle, the only noticeable difference apart from the triangle sticker contrasting that I could tell - was the font print. The original had finer fonts printed on certain sections. Whereas for the fake, the fonts weight was constant.

 

[tunggua]

I'll have to thank you for pointing these out as i do regularly buy liquas fo r their tobacco flavors. So far the b&m shop i frequent seems to be selling the ori,it's when at other places that i need to be more alert,especially the contrasting triangle sticker.
BTW, i have the exact multimeter in your avatar,but without the lol,hehe

 

[naith_kk]

Today, I got into talking with the seller - and made the seller compare the smell and to my surprise, she agreed it was horrid and offered an exchange with something else of the same price range because that was the best she could do. A fair enough deal. I opted choosing another juice brand - I made sure I unboxed/unwrapped inspected the flavor before agreeing with what was exchanged.

I took a step further after the exchange and decided to inspect other vendors who are selling their juices. I'll update more as I compare other malls and shops before I write my experiences here...

 

[naith_kk]

As mentioned in the previous post, I went around nearby vendors selling e-juices... inspecting their products based with the new knowledge I gained and found out there were quite a number of them selling these fakes.

I also wrote to Ritchy Group regarding about these fakes and provided them with pictures. According to their representative, he seems to believe these are repackaged bottles of the original - filled up with another juice. I disagree, telling him about it still being in its plastic wrapping and I've yet to hear his comment about what I said.

So it means that either a juice manufacturer doing something wrong with these juices... and that its a batch gone awry, or the representative is right and its faked with another juice formula - but bottom line is, its getting harder to tell... until you pop the lid open... and/or smell.

Anyways, the differences I found managed to detect the majority of the fakes I happened to test at the vendors I visited. The only exception was other brands... (seeing I don't have an original sample to compare to) The sad thing was, that despite some vendors honestly don't know about where they get their juices from - a number of irresponsible vendors do seem to know about these bad tasting juices - and jumble their batches together with good batches... so far I've seen 3 out of the 7 shops I went to, doing this. They seemed very adamant in wanting me to buy the bottles first before opening them to sample - and for my case, after being unable to get a refund but get another brand in exchange I decided it was just not worth my money... I'm very angry and disappointed with those vendors.

Now I need a credit card... buying online based on positive reviews seems to be the best idea for future stocks right now.