Recently there has been an uprising of counterfeit items on eBay, espicialy mp3's and iPods according to Apple, eBay, and my personal research. These are the many ways to spot and avoid being sold fake, counterfeit, and cheaply made iPods.

First to start off you should always look at an items location, shipping costs, and where the seller ships to no matter what item you are buying.
See most people who are selling counterfeit items such as mp3s/iPods want you to think they are being shipped from the United States, when in reality they are being imported from China, Thailand and other foreign countries. Most of the time the big eBay sellers do this to get most of their product. They also have expensive shipping costs like $20.00 or more because they have to ship from a different country ( it may stop at a warehouse before you receive it) then it will arrive to you. Sometimes they like to have hidden fees; such as "required" insurance, or handling charges. Always make sure you can calculate the FULL shipping fees before you bid.

Just by the pictures below you can see the difference between real and fake ipods and the real ones, and also how poorly made they are.

    Fake      ------    Real
Ways to determine fake/counterfeited iPods

1) The shape of the fake iPod seems to be more squared off and the screen has much more room from the edge unlike the real one
2) The screen is much longer on the fake.
3) The buttons seem to be tilted on the fake showing the makers "imperfections"
4) The headphone jack is much smaller therefore does not take the standard headphones used in the U.S
5) The fake is also very flat, with a different shape
6) The fake iPods also use a different method for charging through a unique usb cord that -1st is different than the iPod and - 2nd is not used in the U.S.
7) They do not include as many accessories like software Cd's so you are unable to load by iTunes like a real iPod
8) When looking through eBay listings they have things that say 2Gb  4Gb, free accessories etc.. inside the gallery picture to attract you. when usually they are lies.These are signs of " MADE IN FOREIGN COUNTRY !! "


Other Fake/ Cheaply made Mp3 players

Though the prices of mp3 players on Ebay are really good it does not mean they are good quality mp3 players.

1) While looking for a new mp3 player avoid listings that do not include brand names. eBay users who do not include the names of the company who make them are selling fake cheaply made mp3 players that are made in foreign countries. Search for names such as Creative, Apple iPod, Phillips etc...

2) Some sellers falsely describe their items as being a 2gb mp3 player or 4gb,, but in when you get them they don't even have half of the memory. They also say the play video but the video they are talking bout is a video standard called AMV which is a Chinese video format used for Chinese mp3 players. (from Wikipedia : Source)"Video compression ratio is low, compared with other formats, though as the files are of low resolution and frame rate, file sizes are small compared to DVD/VCD/etc.....very little "encoding" is actually done." These format is currently used for Japanese Anime.

3) These mp3/ fake mp4 players are made in warehouses in China, which use cheap product to make their items, and sell for low to make a profit. Most of the stores on eBay that sell these counterfeit mp3 players get their items from the same supplier.

4) Most fake mp3 players are oddly shaped
 
5)They may look nice, and high quality when you see them, but when you get them in person like I did they are really tiny, and the user interface is difficult to navigate, and the quality is no where close to compatible like the mp3 players in the U.S. They have very few features and short battery life.

And finally if you want a Real good quality mp3 player, that you don't want to worry about, but can afford to spend the extra money, take a trip to the store and get one that you can return if you do not like it, or if it does not work.

I personally would recommend buying mp3 players from trusted sellers and regular people than sellers with stores of huge inventory, there at least you will receive  quality service, and 1 on 1 customer support.

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