AZBOX WARNING: AzBox Premium HD Plus counterfeit units now being sold in the North American market!

[Slartibartfarst]

I was about to take the plunge and drive to Dr Sat's, in Burlington, Ontario, to buy an AZ Box but I am so glad I held off now.

This childish behavour and multiple personality thing is doing nothing at all for me.

Now I am even questioning my decision to even BUY an AZ Box at all, how the hell do I know if it is legit or not.

All this has done for me, is to look for another Receiver, which is a shame.

Dr Sat, Serge, PwrSurge, whatever, move on, you just lost one sale for sure and I am sure you will loose others......

 

[Pixl]

I was about to take the plunge and drive to Dr Sat's, in Burlington, Ontario, to buy an AZ Box but I am so glad I held off now.

I bought a miniMe from Dr. Sat. It was buggy, and very hard to use. Mr. Power Surge said they would fix this, but never happened. Sadly a common story. Save your money for something else. Mr. Surge can not deliver.

 

[Slartibartfarst]

That is becoming a very common comment, I have had a few PM's about the same sort of issues with the split personality.....

 

[scopus]

I bought a miniMe from Dr. Sat. It was buggy, and very hard to use. Mr. Power Surge said they would fix this, but never happened. Sadly a common story. Save your money for something else. Mr. Surge can not deliver.

I have to agree. It has had about 3 updates and the thing is still bugged, blind scan is awfully slow, and duplicates channels, you cannot stop a blind scan mid flow you have wait until it completes. Coming in and out of the media player takes for ever! In radio mode sound starts breaking up after about an hour of listening. We await a further update, but they have the new Titan box to play with now so as per usual support for older boxes will dry up! Really with the current software I would say it's 'Not fit for purpose'

Mr Serge is spending too much time squabbling about fake boxes rather than sorting out a stable firmware for the MiniMe!

 

[catamount]

I have to agree. It has had about 3 updates and the thing is still bugged, blind scan is awfully slow, and duplicates channels, you cannot stop a blind scan mid flow you have wait until it completes. Coming in and out of the media player takes for ever! In radio mode sound starts breaking up after about an hour of listening. We await a further update, but they have the new Titan box to play with now so as per usual support for older boxes will dry up! Really with the current software I would say it's 'Not fit for purpose'

Mr Serge is spending too much time squabbling about fake boxes rather than sorting out a stable firmware for the MiniMe!

I'd have to agree with most things. However mine will quit a blind scan in about seven seconds. Just tried media player last night. Plays divx and mkv fine, but takes a long time between movie stop and return to movie file listing. Manual TP scan is fast. Blind scan is like my Pansat, where it finds the TP's and then gets channels from them. It finds the transponders in about two minutes. Getting the available channels is slow, because it logs TP's with no quality, and this slows it down. If they fix that, I could see the blind scan being in the four to five minute range.

Catamount

 

[Lone Gunman]

In the meantime, please feel free to assist us in our fight against AzBox counterfeit units by:

- Reporting ebay user "tv-watcher" as a seller of counterfeit products. We have been in contact with ebay since late November about this seller but it is often difficult to get ebay take action unless they receive complaints from several different users.

Best regards,

PwrSurge


EDIT: The "tv-watcher" user account has now been suspended and ALL his items got delisted! For those people who had a chance to report this item, THANK YOU!

OK so question now is does "tv-watcher" get his account back with fleabay along with an apology? Here is a copy and paste of a message I sent him and his reply when this first got posted!

Dear tv-watcher,

A member on satellite guys forum called pwrsurge has posted a thread there claiming that your AZBoxes are China clones as he is "suppose" to be the only authorized AZBox reseller in Canada. He says that he also has pending legal action against you?

So are these China clones or what?

Thanks

- lone_gunman45


"tv-watcher" reply:

Dear lone_gunman45,

Its the other way around. Mr. Cormier is getting a legal letter from my supplier which he mention as well on the forums.
We buy only original azbox direct from the real master distributor not a pretend dealer on a power trip. Contact azbox directly and see.
Thanks

 

[Kraven]

Am actually pissed moreso than the average fellow as I defended this guy on several occassions when his business practices were being questioned by some.

This whole operation reaked of something. I never said anything publicly about this obvious dual persona thing until I had enough when clonegate blew up (or backfired).

Cheers, K

 

[pwrsurge]

As previously discussed, the following is our official statement in regards to this clone issue explaining all events that occurred since early 2012:

• In early 2012, we at AzBox Canada were informed by a business associate that GTA Electronics (aka. Worldwidesatellites.com) was planning to attack the markets of its rival competitors and our authorised dealers Angel Electronics and Dr. Sat by engaging in various unethical business practices and suggested to keep an eye on them. Angel Electronics and GTA Electronics have historically always been fierce competitors as their retail stores are both located in the same city within 8.9 km (5.6 miles) from each other.
• Shortly thereafter, GTA Electronics added AzBox to the list of carried brands on their worldwidesatellites website without any prior contact to AzBox Canada. However, no products were listed under this brand but a message stating: “Coming in March 2012” was posted. At this time, we did not take any action in order to allow the opportunity for GTA Electronics to contact us on their own in order to become an authorised AzBox Canada dealer.
• At around March of 2012, AzBox Canada ordered some AzBox Premium HD Plus units through our regular OpenSat shipments. These units were identical to all the other AzBox Premium HD Plus units we previously ordered with two rows of ventilation holes on the top cover. These were the last authentic AzBox Premium HD Plus units available from OpenSat as this model ceased being manufactured in late 2011.
• As GTA Electronics still had “Coming in March 2012” posted on their worldwidesatellites website in May of 2012, it was believed that they had abandoned their intent to carry AzBox products and had simply forgotten to update their website. They eventually removed the date reference and simply stated “Coming soon...”. At this time, we believed that they had abandoned their intent of carrying AzBox products and simply wanted to improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking of their website by keeping the AzBox keywords on their website as it is a popular search engine keyword.
• In August of 2012, AzBox Canada discovered that production began in China of AzBox Premium HD Plus counterfeit units. Many competing companies in Shenzhen, China quickly began producing this unit as listed on trade websites such as alibaba.com. As all AzBox Premium HD Plus units were made in South Korea, it is clear that any unit made by a Chinese factory is a clone. Furthermore, authentic AzBox Premium HD Plus units are no longer being made as manufacturing of this model ceased in late 2011.
• On October 3rd, 2012, GTA Electronics added the Premium HD Plus on their worldwidesatellites website. As Chinese companies began production of AzBox Premium HD Plus counterfeit units about 2 months earlier, we strongly suspected that they had directly imported these units from China. Shortly after GTA Electronics began selling these units, one of our business associates purchased one in order to analyze and compare to our authentic units.
• After inspecting and comparing the GTA Electronics unit with one of our authentic units from our March 2012 shipment, we immediately noticed many differences between the two units with some of these described below. Please note that with all these pictures, the test unit being analyzed is on the left while our reference authentic unit is on the right:
  • The test unit clearly has differences with the layout of ventilation holes on the top cover above the tuners as shown below. The reference authentic unit only has two parallel columns of 16 holes each while the test unit has three parallel columns, the first one with 16 holes and the last two with only 6 holes each.
    
    
    
  • Differences in the ventilation fan attached to the back panel of the unit as shown below. The test unit uses a different fan than our reference authentic unit. With the core of the fan being larger on the test unit, we can clearly see the white and blue sticker on the fan through the ventilation holes. As well, the wires leading up to the fan are at a different location as indicated by the red arrow. By using a fan that is too large to fit inside the unit's ventilation holes, the test unit may have ventilation issues down the road as the fan blades are partially obstructed by the unit's chassis.
    
    
    
  • As indicated by the arrows in the picture below, we can clearly see that the test unit is missing two plastic "dimples" on each side of the CAM slot visible when opening the front panel door on the left. These dimples are found on all authentic AzBox models which have a CAM slot and includes the Elite HD, AzBox Premium HD and AzBox Premium HD Plus units. Please note that this same difference was also reported by OpenSat with the now discontinued AzBox Premium HD (non-plus) clone units.
    
    
    
• Shortly after GTA Electronics began selling these units, we then identified other unauthorised AzBox Canada dealers in the Canadian market selling the same units. At this time, we had to take action in order to protect our Canadian market so we contacted every one of these unauthorised dealers in order to provide them with 48 hours as a courtesy to voluntarily stop selling all AzBox products and to remove all references from their online and/or retail store. At least one of these retailers collaborated with us and ceased to sell AzBox products but all others either refused to take action or failed to reply to us. After about 72 hours, all retailers who refused to take action or failed to reply to use were listed on our website at http://unauthorised.azbox.ca as unauthorised AzBox Canada retailers in order to advise the general public. This tactic is also used by other FTA receiver distributors such as Amiko Alien North America. On their clone seller master list, they even identified GO Satellite which is also an AzBox Canada unauthorised retailer.
• A few people from Canada contacted AzBox Canada concerned that they had purchased an AzBox Premium HD Plus unit from an unauthorised AzBox Canada retailer. We then had them take pictures of their unit in order to compare the same differences that we identified earlier on in order to confirm the authenticity of their unit. AzBox Canada then provided these people with a detailed analysis report outlining the differences identified between their unit and our authentic unit we received from OpenSat back in March of 2012 and all units analyzed had the same differences.
• We then sent pictures of these differences to a few representatives from OpenSat for analysis. None of these people were able to recognize the differences identified as being legitimate. Later on, we even had a meeting with an executive member of OpenSat and when asked about the differences we identified, he stated: “other one you show is definitivly a clone” (sic)
• Recently, we published a picture showing one of these differences associated with the ventilation holes on the top of the unit. Shortly after this occurred, Rick Caylor posted on his discussion forum admitting that he has been the one supplying these units stating that he purchased these receivers from Opensat. We at AzBox Canada were surprised by this revelation as none of our authentic AzBox Premium HD Plus units have any of these differences, even the ones from our last Premium HD Plus shipment ordered in March of 2012. Up until Rick Caylor's revelation, we had no idea that the units he is currently carrying were physically different than our authentic units nor did we know that he was supplying units to GTA Electronics (aka. Worldwidesatellites). Furthermore, the picture that Rick Caylor had on his website of the AzBox Premium HD Plus before he made his post did NOT show any of these differences and it was only updated after one of his members pointed out this discrepancy to him.
• Based on the above, our claims of AzBox Premium HD Plus clone units were well founded. Please note that using the unit's serial numbers by itself as a means of validation is generally not sufficient in determining if a unit is a clone as the serial numbers of AzBox Premium HD Plus units are sequential so the series can easily be reused.
  
  Best regards,
  
  
  PwrSurge
  AzBox Canada

 

[Kraven]

I give up.

 

[Keith Brannen]

I, for one, certainly understand AZBox Canada being upset (and not knowing) that the US distributor has been supplying Canada dealers. When you are listed as having a certain territory, you certainly don't expect other authorized distributors to incur into your region!

It is not uncommon, having worked in an industry where branches of the same company jealously guard their territory from each other, to the point of the same product having different model names, and the fact that they will not repair product from the other country, it doesn't matter that the customer bought it in the other country, or that it is the same product. And, of course, all units are made in Asia!

The Akimo products in North America are no different, if it does not come from an authorized dealer, not only do you not get any support for repairs, you can't even access their site for firmware upgrades.

 

[Pixl]

Power Trip,

What people care about 1st on the list of priority is does it work correctly. The answer is no. Your AZ products do not work any better than the ones with small differences in cabinetry. Do you remember the miniMe? This was a product that you used your salesman talents on me to buy one from you, or should I say your alias Dr. Sat. I think you got duped into buying a pile of these and you don't have the money or knowledge to fix them. There is no need to keep bellyaching about clones, just do what I did, sell them at a serious loss and move on.

 

[tdti1]

Hmm, maybe it's a new thing, I notice that tvrpro guy, or Glen tech/C-band forever seems to play like they are all other people, when it's all just really one guy.

I think the azbox is pretty much done, we will see how the Titan holds up if or when it comes out, it was mainly a piracy unit but they got booted out of some country's so I guess the money's not flowing in any longer.

 

[Kraven]

I wonder what Dr Phil would say about this dual personality? The dude's been exposed by many yet still he's still quoting himself in the 3rd person.
Personally I dont give a rat's behind on who's the authorized seller or not of whatever. The problem I have is the chap can't even be honest on who he is, then he quotes persona A to blast "clone sellers", then he claims he's a reputable seller.

Am still not sure if this is an ugly mess or just a sad joke.

Cheers, K

 

[Lone Gunman]

Ok this thread has calmed down a bit but there is still the question of whether or not Rick is selling clones? This last "official" statement from AZBCa says that NO Premium Plus uints were produced by Opensat after some time in 2011 yet Rick is "suppose" to have sold the units with the physical case difference to the resellers in Canada that have been "supposedly" identified as CLONES??

Next question is if there is any difference in the electronic components INSIDE the case? Anyone found any major differences there?

So if all this is "true", then does that mean that Rick is indeed selling clones? Anyone seen anything on Rick's board about this? Yeah, I'm confused??

 

[Keith Brannen]

No, Rick is not selling clones. Post #48 in this thread details why AZBox Canada thought the unit they got from WWS was a clone (unauthorized Canadian dealer, being supplied by Rick with units that were slightly different than their units).

If you go to LegitFTA they have a thread on the same topic, and one of the members there bought a clone to test and check the differences. First look by him says it is extremely easy to tell it's a clone (AZBox logo is missing on the front of the receiver, top cover has five rows of vents, bottom cover completely covered with vents).

 

[pwrsurge]

Yeah, I'm confused??

We are aware that this is confusing for most people so to clarify things a little bit, we will post pictures of a genuine AzBox Premium HD Plus that Opensat had on their azbox.com website and some from third party reviews made of the unit.

Even though the azbox.com website is currently under construction, it can still be accessed as it was in the past thanks to archive.org's Wayback Machine which takes regular snapshots of most websites around the world in order to archive them over time. The following are pictures of an authentic AzBox Premium HD Plus unit straight from the source, Opensat's AzBox.com website as of October of 2012. Once on the site, you have to click on the downloads tab to view the below pictures.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20121017112833/http://azbox.com/images/bloco53.jpg

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20121017112745/http://azbox.com/images/bloco55.jpg


Next pictures come from High Tests, a consumer electronics review site from France who reviewed the AzBox Premium HD Plus on December 2010

Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vuX6eQN3fG8/TQokEam3kiI/AAAAAAAAAac/gDcgq7ABlpY/s1600/DSC_0066_GF.jpg

Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vuX6eQN3fG8/TQokY3jdNUI/AAAAAAAAAak/tNqkKTgtHXI/s1600/DSC_0068_GF.jpg


Next, another review of the AzBox Premium HD Plus made on January 2011 by the French discussion forum DZSat.org

Source: http://www.dzsat.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4205&d=1323700342&thumb=1

Source: http://www.dzsat.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4204&d=1323700342&thumb=1

If you look closely at all of the above pictures, you can see that the two identical rows of ventilation holes on the top left of the unit, the fan in rear panel and the plastic "dimples" on each side of the CAM slot clearly matches the authentic units that we at AzBox Canada distribute to our authorised dealers. You can compare the above images with the pictures we posted of our authentic unit on post #48 of this thread.

So far, it appears that all the Premium HD Plus units with 3 rows of vents came from Rick's. We even contacted all authorised European AzBox distributors and from who we have heard from so far, none of them have ever heard of a new version of the Premium HD Plus with 3 rows of vents.



Best regards,

PwrSurge
AzBox Canada

 

[stargaze]

There is one simple way to determine if the box is original or not.
I have looked at all my receivers and the original outside black box they came in all show they were made in Korea and each receiver has the opensat label on the bottom of the receiver itself.
This is on the Premium plus and the ME receivers.
I have the Premium plus receivers with both types of vents on the outside case and both have the opensat label and SN on the bottom of each case. Each has the original box they came in saying :
"Developed in Portugal"
"Made in Korea"
Each box the receiver came in also has the white "Opensat" label with "OPENSAT" and the SN of the receiver on the outside of the box and that same sticker is also on the underside of each receiver itself.

The vents have nothing to do with the receivers being a clone! That is just outright exaggeration and mistruths spouted off by pwrsurge.
I have Premium plus receiver here with both types of cases with the different vent holes.
Each box the plus receivers came in has the same identifying marks saying developed in Portugal, Made in Korea and the white labels on the underside of the receiver saying OPENSAT with the SN of the receiver and the exact same label is also on the top of the box the receiver came in.
I am surprised this was not mentioned by anyone.

All the azbox receivers here came from Ricks.

 

[stargaze]

There is one simple way to determine if the box is original or not.
I have looked at all my receivers and the original outside black box they came in all show they were made in Korea and each receiver has the opensat label on the bottom of the receiver itself.
This is on the Premium plus and the ME receivers.
I have the Premium plus receivers with both types of vents on the outside case and both have the opensat label and SN on the bottom of each case. Each has the original box they came in saying :
"Developed in Portugal"
"Made in Korea"
Each box the receiver came in also has the white "Opensat" label with "OPENSAT" and the SN of the receiver on the outside of the box and that same sticker is also on the underside of each receiver itself.

The vents have nothing to do with the receivers being a clone! That is just outright exaggeration and mistruths spouted off by pwrsurge.
I have Premium plus receiver here with both types of cases with the different vent holes.
Each box the plus receivers came in has the same identifying marks saying developed in Portugal, Made in Korea and the white labels on the underside of the receiver saying OPENSAT with the SN of the receiver and the exact same label is also on the top of the box the receiver came in.
I am surprised this was not mentioned by anyone.

 

[stargaze]

Also on the premium plus receivers, if one takes off the top cover where the internal hard drive goes you will find the
256 mb chip connected to the motherboard that also has the opensat name on it with the firmware it had from the factory installed in it.

Rick does not sell clones.
Pwrsurge has made some wildly false accusations that are unfounded!

 

[pwrsurge]

Pwrsurge has made some wildly false accusations that are unfounded!

Please state the accusations we made which were false. For the record, we at AzBox Canada NEVER stated that Rick Caylor is selling clones.


Regards,

PwrSurge
AzBox Canada