There’s few things more aggravating than being ripped off. Every once in a while it happens to us here where we’ll have a cool story and then it’ll be copy and pasted to someone else’s site with no mention of where it came from but that is small potatoes from the kind of stuff that is getting ripped off on the manufacturing side of the speed parts industry. We’ve all seen the stories and heard about counterfeit products that look kind of like a real product but are built on a shoestring and with a quality level roughly 50 rungs less than the thing they are pretending to be. It is hurting companies and we know SEMA and other groups are working to actively battle the rip off artists. The story we ran last week about a high level Ford executive stealing intellectual property from the company and apparently getting it back to Chinese car companies made OUR blood boil, so we can only imagine what it was like at Ford itself. The worst email I got last week was right down ol’ rip off alley. No, not a counterfeit speed part or car, but a scooter. The thing you will see below is trying to look like a Segway scooter, which you see all over creation being used by people at events, on tours, etc.

This thing just cheesed me off because I know what it feels like to get screwed over by someone grabbing your hard work and trying to claim it as their own. I can only imagine what that feels like when you have taken something from an idea in your head to a physical prototype, to a manufactured and marketed object. It would keep me awake for the remainder of my life. So, that’s what THIS is the worst email I got last week.

Here’s the worst email I got last week, copied and pasted right from my inbox –

Dear Manager,

How are you, hope everything goes fine in your side.

Here are our hot products, this may help your business. 

 

Please see the picture with the specification as below for your reference.

We hope that you are interested in it.