Most vapes have a little QR code that goes to the manufacturer to check it’s legit. I only noticed quite recently that sometimes it goes to a URL that is _very slightly_ different from the actual manufacturer name.
Once I manually went to the real manufacturer site, and entered the number in myself, it came up as a fake. I found a few old boxes I had from the same newsagent and they were _all_ fakes.
I think if your newsagent sells vapes suspiciously cheap, or have deals for like “3 for a fiver”, it’s worth double checking. I checked the newsagent that’s right next door to them, and they came up legit. The model, make and packaging all looks mostly identical, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at it.
They really just need to ban these things. They’re clearly marketed at teens, and it works. How governments come down hard on cigarettes but give what is essentially addictive pic ‘n’ mix a free pass is beyond me
Edit: To clarify because I wasn’t clear, my issue is with vapes that look and taste like sweets. If vaping’s helped you quit cigarettes, good for you
All well and good moaning about this stuff but God, I’d sooner kids be vaping than smoking, yeah it’s new and there isn’t much long term research but you ask anyone who has smoked for 10+ years and has managed to quit with vapes just how much better they feel. Yeah it not healthy but being in a multi story car park isn’t healthy, food vacuum packed in plastic isn’t healthy, but god it’s 95% better than smoking
The latest counterfeit?
They use legit boxes, and replace the contents.
Aspire PockeX Atomisers, all over Amazon, every pack I’ve bought has been counterfeit.
The box is legit, the QR code is legit, but there were signs you could pick up on, like the atomiser not fitting, or burning out in seconds.
Either someone got hold of a bunch of factory rejects, or they stepped up the counterfeiting operation.
Without reading the article I bet 99% of them are disposables both legit and counterfeit that either have too much nicotine with their BS % rating instead of mg or ejuice over the allowed 2ml, go online and you’ll see 5000puff disposables saying they only have 2ml in them when 600puffs was found to have 3ml.
I hope disposables are banned, Elfbar are known to market to teens and young adults through social media. Teen vaping grew from 3.6% to around 7% in 2022 when it had fallen in 2021 due to them. And with Elfbar putting 32mg of nicotine in their 2%s it’s no wonder they’re so popular since kids love buzz they give. And unlike normal vapes they don’t need to buy a device for £20+ plus ejuice and coils just to start vaping, it’s harder to purchase from a vape shop than a corner shop and they might get confiscated.
Not surprising, we have almost zero import controls happening at the moment.
People need to stop comparing fags to vapes.
Don’t buy vape stuff from newsagents, get it from the well established sites online or a proper vape shop.
The fruity flavour/kids marketing argument is balls. Adults have tastebuds too.
Vaping enabled me to kick a 30 a day habit years ago, i have no reason to quit Vaping and the stuff i buy isn’t made by “big tobacco”.
Rabid anti-smokers are just upset there is a better, virtually harmless alternative available that they have no grounds to object to.
Okay, but isn’t that literally your job, Trading Standards?
Janitor: Man, this place is filthy.
Btw for those who think vaping is like smoking Yorkshire Cancer Trust make a video telling people how safe vaping is compared to smoking https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PT1TRo3b4M
Smoking is growing worldwide and a billion are expected to die from lung cancer this century. Vaping is truly one of the best inventions for saving lives if it wasn’t banned everywhere. Big Tobacco spends billions greasing palms to make vaping look bad
well, at least i feel slightly better about quitting a couple days ago lmao
I don’t support calls to ban them whatsoever. They were utterly invaluable of getting me off a 30 a day habit to 0 nicotine.
Why not just do what they do with alcohol and put huge fines and personal responsibility for retailers. Licences that can be pulled if they are found selling to kids. Maybe even record serial numbers and outlets so retailers can be flagged if people find them in children’s possession
What do expect from something you can buy in the £ shop?
Not being funny, but this nonsense about tank sizes is ridiculous. All it does is contribute to more e-waste. Disposables are even worse.
I’d much rather see larger tanks and better regulation. Wasn’t there a reason they stopped packs of ten tabs?
Just ban disposable vapes already. The rechargeable lithium batteries in them are not being recycled and just end up in landfill or on the street
Ban them. Kneejerk reaction but they suck, and worst of all they look fucking goofy. At least smoking could look cool (in your head, pretending you’re Tyler Durden etc).
enjoying my illegal vape from the weird cash only counter in the post office as we speak wahooo
We need serious legislation in place for vapes because they’re getting out of hand.
Specifically the fact that disposable vapes are so common place. Just think how fucked that is for the environment. All that thrown-away plastic, lithium batteries etc, just dumped in a landfill.
We need a ban or something for disposables.
If you’re an adult using these things you should be embarrassed.
When a new product is to be imported into the UK, doesn’t any government department or agency look to see if it meets some fucking basic standards? Like flammability or safety for consumption?
Shouldn’t Trading Standards have been on this about 3-4 years ago, rather than now, when there’s media furore about it?
Is anyone surprised? The bad actors all know trading standards has been cut to the bone by the Cons. So if they flood the market with crap then trading standards won’t have the resources to do anything about it. Its win win for the criminal enterprise right now.
20 comments
Most vapes have a little QR code that goes to the manufacturer to check it’s legit. I only noticed quite recently that sometimes it goes to a URL that is _very slightly_ different from the actual manufacturer name.
Once I manually went to the real manufacturer site, and entered the number in myself, it came up as a fake. I found a few old boxes I had from the same newsagent and they were _all_ fakes.
I think if your newsagent sells vapes suspiciously cheap, or have deals for like “3 for a fiver”, it’s worth double checking. I checked the newsagent that’s right next door to them, and they came up legit. The model, make and packaging all looks mostly identical, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at it.
They really just need to ban these things. They’re clearly marketed at teens, and it works. How governments come down hard on cigarettes but give what is essentially addictive pic ‘n’ mix a free pass is beyond me
Edit: To clarify because I wasn’t clear, my issue is with vapes that look and taste like sweets. If vaping’s helped you quit cigarettes, good for you
All well and good moaning about this stuff but God, I’d sooner kids be vaping than smoking, yeah it’s new and there isn’t much long term research but you ask anyone who has smoked for 10+ years and has managed to quit with vapes just how much better they feel. Yeah it not healthy but being in a multi story car park isn’t healthy, food vacuum packed in plastic isn’t healthy, but god it’s 95% better than smoking
The latest counterfeit?
They use legit boxes, and replace the contents.
Aspire PockeX Atomisers, all over Amazon, every pack I’ve bought has been counterfeit.
The box is legit, the QR code is legit, but there were signs you could pick up on, like the atomiser not fitting, or burning out in seconds.
Either someone got hold of a bunch of factory rejects, or they stepped up the counterfeiting operation.
Without reading the article I bet 99% of them are disposables both legit and counterfeit that either have too much nicotine with their BS % rating instead of mg or ejuice over the allowed 2ml, go online and you’ll see 5000puff disposables saying they only have 2ml in them when 600puffs was found to have 3ml.
I hope disposables are banned, Elfbar are known to market to teens and young adults through social media. Teen vaping grew from 3.6% to around 7% in 2022 when it had fallen in 2021 due to them. And with Elfbar putting 32mg of nicotine in their 2%s it’s no wonder they’re so popular since kids love buzz they give. And unlike normal vapes they don’t need to buy a device for £20+ plus ejuice and coils just to start vaping, it’s harder to purchase from a vape shop than a corner shop and they might get confiscated.
Also this is counterfeit Elfbar QA https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4VQL9e6saCg
Not surprising, we have almost zero import controls happening at the moment.
People need to stop comparing fags to vapes.
Don’t buy vape stuff from newsagents, get it from the well established sites online or a proper vape shop.
The fruity flavour/kids marketing argument is balls. Adults have tastebuds too.
Vaping enabled me to kick a 30 a day habit years ago, i have no reason to quit Vaping and the stuff i buy isn’t made by “big tobacco”.
Rabid anti-smokers are just upset there is a better, virtually harmless alternative available that they have no grounds to object to.
Okay, but isn’t that literally your job, Trading Standards?
Janitor: Man, this place is filthy.
Btw for those who think vaping is like smoking Yorkshire Cancer Trust make a video telling people how safe vaping is compared to smoking https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PT1TRo3b4M
Smoking is growing worldwide and a billion are expected to die from lung cancer this century. Vaping is truly one of the best inventions for saving lives if it wasn’t banned everywhere. Big Tobacco spends billions greasing palms to make vaping look bad
well, at least i feel slightly better about quitting a couple days ago lmao
I don’t support calls to ban them whatsoever. They were utterly invaluable of getting me off a 30 a day habit to 0 nicotine.
Why not just do what they do with alcohol and put huge fines and personal responsibility for retailers. Licences that can be pulled if they are found selling to kids. Maybe even record serial numbers and outlets so retailers can be flagged if people find them in children’s possession
What do expect from something you can buy in the £ shop?
Not being funny, but this nonsense about tank sizes is ridiculous. All it does is contribute to more e-waste. Disposables are even worse.
I’d much rather see larger tanks and better regulation. Wasn’t there a reason they stopped packs of ten tabs?
Just ban disposable vapes already. The rechargeable lithium batteries in them are not being recycled and just end up in landfill or on the street
Ban them. Kneejerk reaction but they suck, and worst of all they look fucking goofy. At least smoking could look cool (in your head, pretending you’re Tyler Durden etc).
enjoying my illegal vape from the weird cash only counter in the post office as we speak wahooo
We need serious legislation in place for vapes because they’re getting out of hand.
Specifically the fact that disposable vapes are so common place. Just think how fucked that is for the environment. All that thrown-away plastic, lithium batteries etc, just dumped in a landfill.
We need a ban or something for disposables.
If you’re an adult using these things you should be embarrassed.
When a new product is to be imported into the UK, doesn’t any government department or agency look to see if it meets some fucking basic standards? Like flammability or safety for consumption?
Shouldn’t Trading Standards have been on this about 3-4 years ago, rather than now, when there’s media furore about it?
Is anyone surprised? The bad actors all know trading standards has been cut to the bone by the Cons. So if they flood the market with crap then trading standards won’t have the resources to do anything about it. Its win win for the criminal enterprise right now.