Cheap Ass Radar Detectors
For years I’ve been warning consumers about the dangers of purchasing radar detectors from unscrupulous dealers and distributors lurking on Ebay, Amazon and other fly by night websites that sell counterfeit radar detectors and jammers manufactured in Korea and China.
There have been countless times where I was contacted by a misinformed consumer who purchased what was advertised as being an Escort, Beltronics or Blinder product for half price and received a “knock off” packaged in fancy box with a fake operators manual with the manufactures name and product proudly displayed.
Then several days or months later they get pulled over for speeding because their counterfeited device didn’t alert or the product totally failed and then they call for warranty repair and find out they’ve been taken.
During this year’s CES show I scanned the outer fringes of the floor to seek out one of these manufactures and to my surprise found Tommy Chen from Rayee Technologies in China, who had an entire display booth filled to capacity with his counterfeit wares.
As I began questioning Tommy about his products he recognized the word “Radar” on my id tag and asked me if I sold radar detectors. Jokingly I replied that I used to, but I never sold “Cheap Ass Radar Detectors”. Tommy replied “Yes, we make cheap ass radar detectors”.
At this time I waved over to my partner and asked him to begin taping an interview with Tommy and asked him about his products.
As Tommy introduced his products to me in the video I glanced over into the display and to my amazement observed products clearly labeled as “Blinder” (Blinder is a registered trademark in the USA for Blinder USA who manufactures and sells laser jammers and is not affiliated with Rayee Technologies)
On another shelf I observed knock offs of Escort’s/Beltronics GPS based radar detectors such as the Escort 9500i, Escort 9500ix and the GX65. (Beltronics owns the patent for Radar Detectors equipped with internal GPS and Rayee Technologies is clearly violating this patent).
Then on another shelf I observed knock off’s of the Cheetah GPS Mirror and their new C-50 Speed Camera Alert system.
Then in my amazement in another display they had knock off’s of Rocky Mountains Phaser – C-450 scramblers (Mike Churchman would had been proud).
During my interview with Tommy and in literature he later provided from the company, the radar detectors are advertised as all being able to defeat the Spectre III radar detector detector, along with being X, K, Ka and Ku band and POP equiped.
During the second half of the video Tommy hands me an Escort 9500ix knock off and I flip it over to see the FCC type acceptance tag. With none being affixed (as required by law) I ask if his products were FCC type accepted and he related that they were.
At the closing of my interview I asked Tommy if he would be willing to send me samples of his products for testing and he related he would.
After my taped interview with Tommy I pressed for more information as where you would download the database for the GPS features, who made the database or if it was a “hack”, and if he was aware of his products infringing on trademarks and patents of US companies.
Tommy related that you had to go to their website in China to download the firmware/gps upgrades and yes that he knew that his 9500ix was infringing on Escort’s patent (however in all honesty, I cannot say that he understood a word I said, he would often say yes and repeat my question)
During this entire process I watched as other dealers/distributors who were making deals with other reps from the company making commitments for orders. Who these dealers/distributors were I have no idea, but I’m sure that you’ll be seeing these same knock off’s soon being sold on Ebay/Amazon and some of the rip off websites that target the uneducated consumer!
Buyer beware…..
Cheap Ass Radar Detectors
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