A bunch of sellers on aliex seem to have the PD35 v3.0, eg: Page Not Found - Aliexpress.com
They’re not listed on Fenix’s list of sellers that they don’t recognise and suggest might be selling counterfeit products.
However it’s being sold for significantly less than RRP in the UK, UK sellers advertise it for about £82.95 - Fenix PD35 V3.0 1700 Lumen Everyday Carry Flashlight | Fenixtorch.co.uk
whereas on aliex with VAT added it would be more like £60.
Tempted… but… don’t know.
Store is gone.
Oh, well easy come easy go.
There were loads on there when i looked this morning. I’m going to wait and see if my S2 with XPL-HI is good enough to replace my need for a Fenix.
Some stores and products are only available during some periods of the day in AliExpress!
When I was searching for an S1R Baton, I has some difficulties because some Olight products in AliExpress were only available in some periods of the day. I had to wait for the right moment to buy it.
Also, knowing that in this phase some sales are starting/ending, it seems “natural” that some stores need to be “inactive” for some time to change prices again.
As for that store, it seems legit. Still, in case you wann verify that, maybe you can contact the official Fenix Store and verify that, besides taking a look at reviews and customers opinions !
Fenix gives 20% off on their web site for every product.
Came here to say no, counterfeiting is rampant.
Store already being gone is beyond what i expected, that was fast.
Is it actual counterfeiting or grey runs at the same factory? Ethical issues aside I doubt you could tell the difference with the latter.
Grey market will not have the same QC. And they can skimp on quality if they can juice the margins.
For 10,000 units cutting 10 cents in cost makes them an extra $1000. Pure profit.
Imagine they cut $1 or $2 on a high value item. $10,000-$20,000 in extra pure profit.
I wonder what that translates to in the real world. I’m not gonna buy a counterfeit torch because I respect what Fenix does and I want to support them if I’m buying something they made, but i find the whole grey run industry fascinating. Such products are known to have infiltrated genuine supply lines and I wonder how common it is for nobody to even realise.
What would poor QC on a Fenix light look like? Wrong/cheap parts or just stuff like machining tolerances not what they should be? I wonder if anyone has ever torn a known grey sample down just to see how it compares to a genuine light.
In any case, Fenix have ways to identify counterfeit lights and aliex orders have a returns policy so if it does turn out to be fake I guess you’d get your money back?
Like I said above , some stores close and reopen. Example: OTR official store. It was closed some weeks ago, and then reopened.
And guess what, it has reopened already! (at least it is open through the AliExpress app)
You buy grey market you are not getting your money back from the seller unless aliexpress has some kind of policy mandating it.
From crummy machining to cheaper anodizing to fake LED chips to cheaper metal to reject chips in the drivers and more are possible with grey market stuff.
In other instances products with insufficient electrical isolations that could cause fires or capacitors with low temperature ratings or plastics that melt at low temperatures or plastic formulations that are brittle and snap in cold temperatures and more have happened.
Heck mercury, lead and melamine have been found in counterfeit/grey market merchandise.
https://www.aliexpress.com/buyerprotection/how_to_be_eligible.html
According to this, if something you buy is counterfeit you can get 3x your money back in compensation!
Oh that’s only if the seller has opted in, still a good thing though
It’s not entirely clear to me how to tell if a seller is participating in this programme. Lots of the listings for the PD35v3 are listed as “75-day buyer protection” which I suspect is the same thing but not 100% sure.
Should be about the same price from fasttech if they do a 10% labor day sale.
Have you personally seen a counterfeit Sandisk flash drive?
If not then it doesn’t exist :weary:
I also know BS when i see it 
They look identical to non counterfeit drives. Thats the point.
My favourite are the ones with firmware that misreports the capacity to the operating system, what happens is if you try to fill it the newest data overwrites the oldest data.
It may be the case that grey runs at the factory produce identical products to the legit ones (how hard is it to get the correct parts, really? in china?) but since they’re unauthorised and taken away for sale by factory workers operating when the factory is meant to be closed, they are technically still counterfeit despite being identical to the legitimate ones. Buying such items deprives Fenix of their right to profit from their intellectual property and their investment in product design and refinement.
The fact that Fenix mention this on their website makes me believe that something does happen, otherwise they wouldn’t have mentioned it. Whether it’s actual bad counterfeits or grey factory runs, who knows.
Putting aside the authenticity risk, purchasing from a non-budget brand also ostensibly includes the benefit of a warranty and local support — that is unlikely to be honoured by the local agent or distributor for goods not obtained through their channels.
If anything goes wrong, the only form of support will be from an unverified seller thousands of miles away, which might be acceptable for a budget light that is a fraction of the cost, but is that acceptable for a more costly product? Is the potential savings enough to outweigh that, and the other risks?
IIRC, there was also.a plea for help recently posted here, or on r/f, about ordering a larger light from the “official” store and receiving a keychain light in the package wass’t there?
How much of a gambler are you?