STAY AWAY.

I purchased 2 sets of bose in-ear headphones from what seemed like a legitimate store (http://www.store-audio.co.uk/) having a sale as presents (at that time they were 39.99 including postage and packaging - a bargain for headphones that usually cost 69.00 from the official website excluding postage and packaging). The website said only 4 were in stock and the sale was for a limited time only, so I quickly bought two (I have now learned that it ALWAYS says only 4 in stock and it is ALWAYS on "sale" although the current price has acually INCREASED to 44.99!). The headphones arrived in sealed official looking packaging. Upon opening them, I soon was very suspicious of its quality. Upon further inspection and comparison with a pair of genuine bose headphones I own, it was painfully clear that the headphones were fake and the quality of sound was nowhere near the originals. There are absolutely no reviews of this particular website online, but I then realised that 1- I cannot find this website through searching on google, but 2- I came across it via headphone-outlet.com (which is now http://headphone-warehouse.co.uk ) which has a link sending me to this "audio store". Headphone-outlet has plenty of terrible reviews of similar experiences online, but the owners of this "business" seem to try to get around reviews by changing the opening site address and leading it to a different website (audio store). I hope this review prevents anyone from purchasing anything from this website!!

I have since complained and actually surprisingly received a full refund as I threatened to report them to alertpay, the site that payment is done through. I have a feeling this was done to quiet me and not report the website as clearly their headphone-outlet one resulted in their previous paypal account being shut down. Since I have received a refund, I cannot complain to alertpay. They claimed that they were unaware that the headphones were fake and sent out return labels for me to send them product back (which they have not, and I can only assume is because they knew they were fake). Not everyone else will be lucky enough to have a pair of genuine headphones to compare their (very convincing) fakes to, so I just want to warn everyone! This website is run by the SAME PEOPLE that run headphone-outlet, and they are clearly trying to run for as long as they can under a different name!!!!

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Bobby K. smart that you threatened to report them to alertpay and got your money back!

2/15/11  •  Votes (0)

Chris O. I was caught on Ebay by a fake set of Bose earpieces, long ago. Then I found that these are one of the most-counterfeited audio/electronics items on the site. And some of the copies are extraordinarily good, complete down to the exact packaging. They will even sound reasonable, unless you know what to expect.

So, yes, be very careful and do some research before you buy. If at all possible, buy them from Bose or a respectable authorized reseller and stay well away from discount prices online.

I learned the hard way and ended up buying the real deal.

Sound quality aside, Bose could do more to protect their product from counterfeiting; build quality isn't that good for a device at this price level.

2/15/11  •  Votes (0)