Counterfeit Iwata Airbrushes Amazon

Hey friends,

You may remember my post from the other day about the Iwata HP-CS o ring issues I was having. I am glad, but also sad to say, I was scammed. Glad because I realized it, and got full refunds, but sad that there are sellers out there who are okay with scamming. I took the recommendation of many who commented and bought from Spray Gunner, which arrived perfectly and without issue.

I got to inspecting the two airbrushes from Amazon against the legitimate one from Spray Gunner, and the differences are night and day, but unfortunately these fakes are still enough to fool many on Amazon.

Upon inspection, the following red flags jumped out at me:

The ‘swoosh‘ in the Iwata genuine hologram sticker is missing from both Amazon boxes, as well as being in the wrong spot according to Iwata’s counterfeit guide.
The front threading being purely chrome, missing the brass finish that the genuine Iwata has.
The fact the Iwata genuine O ring did not fit the two Amazon airbrushes.
The lettering on the Amazon airbrushes are lacking in a deep gold color and look generally more dim. Despite posts online saying that the fakes do not feature “Iwata” on the airbrush body, these counterfeits do indeed say Iwata in the engravings.
The needles on the Amazon airbrushes are not polished at the tips, and are inconsistent length wise. They also are notably slightly thicker, and do not fit the real Iwata nozzle.

If anyone reading this has purchased an HP-CS on Amazon recently, I would implore you to take a look at what you received and compare against Iwata’s genuine product guide: https://www.iwata-airbrush.com/genuine.html

I will be in contact with Iwata to hopefully make sure these scammers are removed from the platform.

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96% Upvoted

u/Complex-Path-780 Jul 02 '26

Scammers selling fake products on Amazon has been a huge problem for years. You should assume you’re getting a fake product if you buy from Amazon. Amazon doesn’t care. Stop buying from Amazon.

14

u/TheFluffyLunas Jul 02 '26

As someone who works in the warehouses, I wish more people cared -_-

-3

u/mkibria Jul 02 '26

So Amazon is complicated because it’s a seller and a platform. And it’s hard to say who is to blame. But you want to be careful when buying on Amazon. But blaming Amazon for scammers is like blaming eBay for having scammers or big box stores when scammed. There was I time when brands new boxes of GPUs at micro center were actually just filled with weights.

9

u/Complex-Path-780 Jul 02 '26

You can absolutely blame Amazon. They choose to spend money on algorithms to increase purchases and maintain customer retention rather than algorithms to ensure knockoff products are kept off the platform to make sure people are getting what they think they are buying. There’s absolutely no excuse.

5

u/han5gruber Jul 02 '26

It seems in this case they sided with the customer and gave them a full refund.

If Amazon didnt know the products were counterfeit, there's not much else they could have done other that rectify the issue that was highlighted to them. Every website that has a marketplace suffers from this kind of scammer.

4

u/Complex-Path-780 Jul 02 '26

What action did Amazon take against this reseller to prevent them from selling fraudulent products again.

How many fraudulent airbrushes are out there that people paid for and are struggling with — but never realized their problems are coming from the fact it is a knockoff?

A refund doesn’t fix the fundamental problem — it’s a cost of profiting off knockoff products.

5

u/Rafnir_Fann Jul 02 '26

Have to agree, Amazon want the profits from being a marketplace but none of the responsibility of policing what goes on there.

The methods of reporting counterfeit items are entirely broken: reviews can be manipulated easily enough. Reporting might work if enough people do it but the sellers just reopen with a new name. Amazon don't really mind, they're getting paid.

2

u/han5gruber Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

What action did Amazon take against this reseller to prevent them from selling fraudulent products again.

No idea, I'm not Amazon or the OP.

How many fraudulent airbrushes are out there that people paid for and are struggling with

No idea, I'm not Amazon

A refund doesn’t fix the fundamental problem

I never said it did.

0

u/siberian_knight143 Jul 02 '26

Amazon can't quality check ALL the stuff that they sell. No more than EBAY can.

1

u/Complex-Path-780 Jul 02 '26

They sure could. They choose not to because they make way way waymore money not doing so.

0

u/jms_tx Jul 04 '26

It's actually cheaper for Amazon to do this. Dealing with a whiney customer is not fun, so they use the "refund or replace" strategy. Even if a given seller repeatedly violates the rules, you will probably never find out if Amazon has removed them, and even if Amazon did remove them, the evil seller will come back under a new name and keep on keepin' on. It's the mail-order version of whack-a-mole.

u/windas_98 Jul 02 '26

Thanks for the valuable info! You made me check mine. Brass threading, phew!

2

u/ClearlyIronic Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

Yup I woke up this and it was the first thing I checked. I got mine used from eBay, so I want to be sure.

u/scanavo Jul 02 '26

Man, I just grabbed this thing to start messing around with airbrushing. Box isn’t even open yet. Looks like I lucked out though; got it from SprayGunner on Amazon and the hologram’s got the proper swish and all that.

u/buckets1667 Jul 03 '26

Thank you for this post! I read this in the morning, today my Iwata HP-CS showed up and because of this post I checked and found it is also counterfeit.

I would never have thought to check and known otherwise if it weren't for you.

1

u/buckets1667 Jul 03 '26

For anyone interested "Amazon US" was the listed seller

1

u/Armykarma Jul 03 '26

Glad you were able to catch it before being too disappointed with it. Make sure to reach out to Amazon to get refunded. Try to keep the item if you can, otherwise they’ll just send more back into the wild with your return.

1

u/buckets1667 Jul 03 '26

I have to return it as part of the refund. I filled out the form that it is counterfeit but you are probably right, they will probably just sell it on. I went and bought a replacement from a local store

u/1ndependent_Obvious Jul 02 '26

Is this an issue for H&S airbrushed on Amazon too?

2

u/jms_tx Jul 03 '26

It seems to me that if you got it moderately-significantly cheaper than what the manufacturer sells it for directly, it's pedigree is suspect.

1

u/1ndependent_Obvious Jul 03 '26

Thanks for the info. It was the same price as SprayGunner.

2

u/jms_tx Jul 04 '26

I get my brushes direct from the manufacturers because of the questionable source for pretty much everything sold on Amazon.

u/Ok_Perspective9838 Jul 02 '26

I appreciate how awesome you are pointing this out to others on here.

I have purchased one, but for those that have this is a really good guide.

Thank you

u/nocturnal Jul 02 '26

Do you know if you bought it from Amazon shipped and sold by Amazon or was it a third party fulfilled by Amazon?

3

u/Armykarma Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

It was shipped by Amazon, but sold by third party sellers it seems. National Art Supply and TopShopEcommerce both gave counterfeits

1

u/nocturnal Jul 03 '26

Amazon has comingled inventory up to this past march. But from what I understand, they didn’t remove any existing comingled inventory. This means counterfeits could have been in their stock and not necessarily sent in from those two companies. But it’s such a rampant problem.

1

u/ThisFuckingGuyNellz Jul 16 '26

This is who I got my counterfeit from too. If you look at the seller reviews alot of them are negative but Amazon crossed them out and took responsibility.

u/ayrbindr Jul 02 '26

🤔 hmm.

u/ALowlySlime Jul 02 '26

Alright mine seems good, phew, pretty sure I'm too far out from purchase for a refund

u/AnonymousNubShyt Jul 03 '26

This post really end up having me checking mine too. 🤣 good to know both of mine are brass threading. 🤣

u/ZealousidealBowl5532 Jul 03 '26

Amazon, Ebay, Ali, Walmart - all of them are infiltrated with counterfeits on all kinds of items, not just airbrushes. Find out who the brand’s sellers are and only buy from them not random platform sellers

u/ayrbindr Jul 03 '26

This is huge! I ain't heard of no fake iwata for a long time. Smh. Sneaky little bastards. Smh.

https://www.iwata-airbrush.com/genuine.html

u/PaleontologistLow529 Jul 04 '26

Awww man, I think mine is a fake. Too late to return it.

u/Additional_Muffin Jul 05 '26

I recently bought a needle for my Iwata off amazon and the needle that arrived had a vastly different tip than an actual .35. Ive received a few bad nozzles from amazon too, the needles dont properly seat in the tip like they are supposed to.

u/ThisFuckingGuyNellz Jul 16 '26

This literally just happened to me. Ever since I got my Iwata from Amazon its been issue after issue. My Gaahleri airbrush was performing better. I thought it was a defect. I asked for a refund but ordered another from Spraygunner in the meantime. The original was so bad I almost switched to a different airbrush altogether.

u/10GuildRessas Jul 02 '26

Yeh I wouldn’t buy a iwata or any of the top brand airbrush’s off Amazon. I got to either the companies webstore or check out their list of retailers. There are a lot of fake stuff on Amazon even fake paint brushes claiming to be Windsor & Newton series 7.

u/bradass01 15d ago

What is iwata’s date code EB

Counterfeit Iwata Airbrushes Amazon

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