speedmaster stuff pulled from Summit racing shelves

tonysrt said

Could it be Summit was getting complaints on the valve body and returns, now they send it to Broader and that's when the s---t hit the fan. Now, Broader realizes what has happened and knowing he doesn't sell to Summit opened the can of worms . Summit may not have realized what Speedmaster was doing, knocking off Broader's valve body. Still a lot of info we don't know and we try to speculate what may have happened, and we are completely wrong.

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Knowingly violating IP laws is a much eaiser prosecution. It's still not at all cheap though, so the juice has to be worth the squeeze. Summit stopping the sales will basically immunize any claims of knowingly selling counterfeit items that people would have and summit can sit back and point complaintants toward speedmaster. Since there's at least one confirmed counterfeit, it would be reasonable to assume that other speedmaster parts are also counterfeit which is likely why they pulled everything. It's cya.

Knowing how counterfeit stuff usually comes about, my guess is that someone at summit took it upon themselves (probably outside the office, for plausible deniability) to suggest to speedmaster to make an item "just like" the one in question but the guy in China they sent the sample to wasn't told to remove the logo. Counterfeits are built to demand, not just randomly pursued. I've seen this exact situation play out a few dozen times, and the story is always close to the above. Sometimes the instigator is just trying to get a freebie from the Chinese vendors by helping them, sometimes the instigator gets them for himself to resell on ebay. In the worst instances the counterfeit parts go into legit boxes and legit parts are stolen and sold off for half price on ebay, often as "blems", "seconds", or "surplus".