Counterfeit Cantillon John Chris Nomad

good read, thanks for that!

 

The OP said he got the bottle via trade but didn't say how the person he dealt with got it other than it was from someone in Belgium. It could've been from an ebay purchase.

 

Doesn't change the fact that one can obtain counterfeit bottles via trades as well Lets hope, and assume, this is an exception. I would be surprised if the counterfeit bottle was made in Europe though. Here we don't have such a hyped beer market as in the USA, and IMO, it is hardly known that bottles can be worth several 100's of euros. But, who knows

 

I thought people had said that was fine. My guess is that they used multiple corks, which they've been known to do.

Yeah I loved that article and was glad something came up where I could link it.

 

The label looks legit at least. The letters are nice and crisp, and the gradient in 'chris' looks like the real sample from the last set of photos.

My guess is this whole thing is overblown. Every BA with a JCN is going over their bottle, but in reality there are probably (hopefully) very few fakes out there.

 

Not doubting that this can happen through a trade I just like to think that traders are a little more respectable than that.

I've noticed many rare beers selling for hundreds on Ebay for years now from European sellers so I wouldn't immediately cancel them out of the equation. It should be even easier to create a fake over there than here.

 

I'm willing to sample both and let you know.

 

True, but for European Ebayers it is also relatively easy to obtain most of these bottles, so less need to counterfeit IMO. I am pretty sure it takes more time and effort to counterfeit bottles, than to drive to e.g. Chris to buy a whole bunch of bottles for example.

Anyhow, about the corks, I will contact cantillon about that and post the answer here.

 

All my bottles are also have 2011 cork dates and none of them have the label flaws discussed in this thread. So I am optimistic that they did, in fact us a variety of corks.

 

How much would one expect to clear per bottle under your method above? Im not saying it isn't easy. I am saying why bother with something so small and trivial. I realize that it is easier to fly under the "materiality" radar with these small antics but there has to be a point at which it is not worth it.

 

This reminds me of the people who have a good job, but end up losing it stealing stupid shit. I knew a guy who was responsible for taking all the empty bottles/cans to the recycling center. He was pocketing the cash every other time and ended up losing his 50K a year job over an extra couple hundred bucks. I guess the point I'm trying to make is people are stupid sometimes.

 

Sounds like this guy:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/23/1327219/sap-vp-arrested-in-false-barcode-scheme
Vice president of a multinational company, caught stealing $30K worth of Legos.

 

Lots of people get off on the thrill of scamming somebody.

But there really is pretty decent money to be made in fake beer with so many bottles selling for $50-$100 and up nowadays. You sell two fake $100 bottles per week and that is $10,000 per year.

 

No it's not, you really need to be subtracting eBay fees and the money spent on making the counterfeit. It's probably half that.

Also, I'm just curious, what are the tax implications of selling on eBay? I've never done it so I don't really know, but if you have to pay income tax on that (or risk an audit) that's another cost.

 

By law you owe tax on any type of income. So you would owe taxes on the amount over any expenses you incurred. The amount of money we are talking about here could easily be written down to a loss with very little tax code knowledge. The risk of an audit making less than 250K+ a year with out taking a red flag deduction is like getting hit by lightning.

 

Fair enough, I'm definitely not a tax expert.

 

Not eBay specifically, but in general out here (AUS) it depends on whether it is a hobby or business...hobby is occasional, business is regular and of a "sufficient" scale. Hobby isn't taxable. Business, of course, is with the taxable amount being income less related expenses incurred.

 

Framboos?