www.sportscentralonline.com online retailer selling fakes

It has been brought to my attention that www.sportscentralonline.com has supplied fake jerseys to a customer here within the UK. Whether this is deliberate or an honest mistake is yet to be established. A member of the NFLUK.com website recently contacted me and explained that he bought 4 jerseys from the site, all were advertised as replica jerseys and he paid £39.95 each for them. On arrival he was suprised to see that all the jerseys had sewn numbers. I asked him for some pictures and he supplied these.




The hologram on the Rams jersey tag is a fake and should not be on a 2007 jersey which is pertains to be. The tackle twill on his panthers jersey should be made from a ribbed material. Now you expect this from a seller on ebay, but not from a VAT registered online retailer.

I have emailed the company, with my concerns and am awaiting a response from them. I will post it here once I receive it.

Here is the response to my email:

Good morning Simon,



Firstly we have never heard of this problem and have been trading in American Football Apparel for the last 2 years and have never once had a complaint questioning the authenticity of our products. We have sold hundreds of jerseys over the years to numerous people, incuding to BAFL team members to, believe it or not, Americans living over here and also to many many collectors who are repeat customers.



We buy all our merchandise from reputable dealers in the States and have not once ever had to question the products we buy in from them, additionally we keep all invoices for all our purchases so have a traceability chain.



Furthermore, I remember personally speaking to your member (Robin Miller) who also ordered a Randy Moss and LaDanian Tomlinson jersey before this and he was at the time extremely pleased with his purchases. We had sent him out two large jerseys and he called to order two Medium ones instead of a full refund.



Regardless of all this we do offer a full money back guarantee if the customer is not satisfied in compliance with the distant selling act so if he would like to return everything to us we will not only provide a full refund but also investigate this matter further.



Best regards

Eamonn Gaffney



Managing Director



Here is my reply:

Good Morning Eamonn,



Thank you for your quick response. It is gratifying to know that you will offer a full refund.



I am sure that you have many happy customers who are pleased with the product you supplied. I started my forum site as the vast majority of fans in the UK are not aware of what is a genuine jerseys and what is not. As this knowledge becomes more widely know within the UK then you could see a rise in the questions / complaints from customers. In the beginning of my collection, I bought fake jerseys which I believed to be genuine. It's only as my passion for collecting grew that I became more aware of the ways to spot a fake authentic. As a retailer for a couple of years then you will be aware of the 3 types of jersey that Reebok makes, Replica, Premier EQT and Authentic. In my experience the replica and EQT jerseys are rarely faked, the authentic jersey is the main area of the business which is faked.



You are advertising these jerseys as replica. The items sold to Robin are not replica jerseys but authentic, are you able to explain why these jerseys were supplied? Authentic jerseys retail within the US for $200 - $250. Believe me, if you were selling genuine authentic jerseys at £39.95, then I would be your biggest customer. I believe that you have been the victim of dishonest suppliers as both of the jerseys that I have described to you are not genuine.



As a honest and reputable supplier I am sure that you will want to look into this further to ensure that the items you are selling are genuine and conform to the trading standards and tradesmarks act. Be sure that I have contacted you to ensure that you do not have problems in the future. If I can be of further help to you then please do not hesitate to contact me. I have attached photo's of both the fake helmet hologram and the genuine and the holograms which are currently used by Reebok on their Authentic jerseys for you to compare with your stock



Best regards



Simon

Here is the response to my 2nd email:

Hi Simon,



Yes we will definitely have to investigate this further, we were aware of the two different types (screen printed and stitched) but assumed we were selling genuine replica American Football apparel since we were importing direct from the US. We have recently signed up to accounts with Eastbay and ESPN but as yet have not ordered any jerseys so could not compare.



As mentioned before we are supplied by reputable stores and since this is the first time we have ever had anyone call the authenticity in to question we had no idea that there were / are any problems.



If you would like to ask robin to return these jerseys we will refund his card fully.



Best regards

Eamonn





They still didn't answer why fake authentic's were supplied and not replicas. The managing director will make a good MP.

Checked this seller again to day and he's still selling fakes. I chose to look at the Eagles 75th Anniversary jersey (blue and gold). Go to the website and there are the standard photoshop pictures of the jersey http://www.sportscentralonline.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=67_75_76&products_id=234, go to ebay and there are photo's in the listing, 160180096518, these are fakes as the 75th patch is not on a genuine jersey and it is clearly sewn and not screenprinted.

So much for investigating further.

The photoshop pic is of a EQT jersey as well??

This guy has not got a clue!!

It is a shame they haven't been stopped. I guess it could have been ignorance on their part at first but they must know otherwise now.