what % of members have been scammed at some time in their cigar hobby.


Cigar Scammed   

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17 hours ago, Lotusguy said:

Yup. Got some fake “Grand Edmundos” from 1001cubancigars or whatever the dealer was - they were going to refund me but then the Chicago massacre hit and they went under.

1001 was legit. I have a TEB08 box of BRC from them. Cigars are legit. Also had TEB 08 RASS that were awesome. 

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Not sure why so many people think that 'No' voters are just burying their heads in the sand.  I have never been scammed.  How can I know that??  What makes me so sure??  I must me in denial!!! 1.

Only by the government/nanny state enablers ??

Scammed most nights into buying more cigars than I need... does that count?

Very early on I got dinged in a bait and switch where the private seller had stunning looking RyJ Churchills and sent what would be seconds on this site or worse instead. Quite frustrating but I have learned and moved on. 

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1001 was legit. I have a TEB08 box of BRC from them. Cigars are legit. Also had TEB 08 RASS that were awesome. 

 

I assure you these Grand Edmundos were not - I believe there is an old thread from me on this forum about it. Other stuff was probably legit, but this box was not. For example, the insert said “Grand Edmundo” instead of “Gran Edmundo”. Also, the box size was incorrect. I had several other Gran Edmundo boxes to compare with.

 

I think it’s ok to name this vendor, since they went out of business long ago.

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8 hours ago, ritter6788 said:

I’d be shocked if I ever found out I smoked a fake. If I did it was a really good one. I do own a box of glasstops from Belize I bought as a souvenir but no way I’d smoke one. 

I have smoked a fake but only out of courtesy of someone who gifted it on the golf course that worked for me. It was a bad Monte 2 fake.  90% of my cigars came from FOH and a lot of the rest from a fellow in Hong Kong Rob had lunch with recently and the rest from shops in London and Dublin.  I think I am likely clear but who really knows... Maybe I was scammed in the UK......

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Not that I know of. But I’ve only ordered boxes from three well known vendors, and by some dumb luck I found this site not long after getting into CC’s. That reminds me of a funny story though. I was traveling in Jaco, Costa Rica with some friends a few years back - maybe in 2012 or so. A couple of the guys were out in town and found a cigar shop. I guess there was a house roller in the shop. My friends asked whether the shop had any Cubans and the response was no, but they would have some later that day. So the good guys my friends are swung back there later on before heading back to the rental, and sure enough there was a “Cuban” cigar in stock by then that they picked up for me.

It had a Millenium Reserve band and was robusto shape. I have no idea what the cigar actually was but it smoked pretty decent that night with an Imperial lager if I remember. 

 

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On ‎3‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 9:39 PM, El Presidente said:

don't buy online out of  central and south america. 

Onlline? heck I wouldn't buy OFFline!

Was recently in Columbia / costa rica / panama....... PLENTY of fakes to go around! Most amusing was the guys in Columbia walking around is VERY humid 30C+ weather with boxes of "real Cubans". You know the cones, those cohibas in the fancy glass covered cases? LOLOL

I did buy in Cayman Islands though.....

 

(oh yeah - and I have been scammed early in my cigar hobby)

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I have been fortunate, I am a research freak and spent hours to find the vendors I can rely on, and have never been let down. Same with cigars, I will spend hour upon hour researching 1 single cigar, review after review, before purchasing them. I did vote no, but before I ever started smoking cigars I did buy a couple of fake Cohibas in Mexico, only as a souvenir or novelty item. Did not care at the time if they were fake cuz had no intent on smoking them. 

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It would be interesting to see this broken out by country. I suspect that folks in the US have fallen prey more often than those in countries with easy access to legitimate vendors.

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It would be interesting to see this broken out by country. I suspect that folks in the US have fallen prey more often than those in countries with easy access to legitimate vendors.

Great point!
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had a mule bring me back 2 fake boxes of fohiba robustos.

worst part was, he paid full price, as he bought from a cuban duty free airport.

they were so fake. really badly faked.

but he was a rookie and was taken advantage of. I had no idea if he even knew, so I paid him the money.....

 

still wonder if he bought from a beach and lied to me, taking photos of a box at the airport....but I don't think so.

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I bought some Cubans form a cigar shop in Cyprus back around 2005. It was a legit store. Only bought a couple of handfuls while on holiday to bring back. The few Cohiba I bought were fake.

I only suspected after I brought them home and was drooling over them. Finally took them into Mitch who confirmed they were fake. The others were kosher.

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2 hours ago, ha_banos said:

I bought some Cubans form a cigar shop in Cyprus back around 2005. It was a legit store. Only bought a couple of handfuls while on holiday to bring back. The few Cohiba I bought were fake.

I only suspected after I brought them home and was drooling over them. Finally took them into Mitch who confirmed they were fake. The others were kosher.
 

That's strange, Cyprus is a great little place for hard to find Habanos. Was it proper cigar store or more of the local bazaar type?

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I've been scammed early on at a couple of Mexican AI's.  I still have a couple of Cohiba's and RyJ's from that era as a reminder.  Back then, I hadn't discovered FOH or really knew what to look for. I did end up enjoying the "cigars" and didn't get sick from them. So that's a plus.  

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7 hours ago, CaptainQuintero said:

That's strange, Cyprus is a great little place for hard to find Habanos. Was it proper cigar store or more of the local bazaar type?

I checked the maps. It seems no longer there. This was not far from the police station in Larnaca back in 2004/5. It was a small but cigar shop/tobacconist.

I know the airport and stores now seem to get good feedback.

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Cuba - Santiago airport tax free RyJ Churhills in Tubos. Some of the cigars were switched out for fakes. 

FB - the scam where a ‘trusted’ member would mule cigars from a trip. he never went and scammed a lot of people. In the end I received a refund from him. 

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Yes, got scammed from a "farmer" on a tour in Vinales, Pinar del Rio, as recommended to us by our casa hostess. The whole town funnels people into their tours. The tour sell "coffee" which turned out to be ashes and "cigars" with a bait and switch to floor sweepings in them. 

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On 3/25/2019 at 11:02 PM, Islandboy said:

I find it a bit interesting that despite the results indicating a significantly higher scam rate than many expected, a few of those answering yes are questioning the integrity of those who responded with "no". Let me just say to those doubters, while it took a healthy sense of skepticism and a fair bit of research, getting scammed hasn't been very hard to avoid. 

I don't disagree that it would be easy to avoid if one were careful.  The issue is, who wants to be careful 100% of the time?  I made a glib post about being "scammed" by a roller on the beach in mexico.  Is it a scam if you know it's not real but give him 10 bucks anyway?  Does anyone care?  I wanted a cigar, and the one I had with me was plugged.  His was fine, and only cost 10 bucks.

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I bought a glass top box of Esplendidos, but that was back in the 90s before there was an internet cigar community to refer to.  That probably wasn’t the only time I got scammed back then, but there was nothing else that was quite so obvious.

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The secondary cigar market is full of profiteers and buffoons (and great people, too!).  I've unfortunately also seen people get scammed out of significant amounts of money.

The closest I came was from some fool that took my money, never sent me my rare cigars, never responded to messages and then started another for-sale thread.  "Credit card charge-back" were the magic words that turned that situation around.  I'm much more leery now.

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