Jun 13, 2025 · 769 recorded views
Have you been ripped off by counterfeit / copycat sellers on eBay or other online platforms?
We have been shocked at Sussex Installations by the multiple seller listings popping up on eBay of van security. Many of these listings from other sellers are using pictures that we have taken at Sussex Installations of our own produced van security shields that we have fitted for our happy customers.
Unfortunately for some of the people who unknowingly buy the counterfeit products, the likeness to Sussex Installations quality products stops at the pictures, as the actual metal part that arrives is pure junk that you really don't want to have on your van!
We spend a great level of time and money to develop the best quality van security products at Sussex Installations, to make them effective, stylish and easy for you to fit. We then spend considerably more time producing market-leading fitting instructions to make the fitting of our shields as painless and easy as possible. Our products are protected by intellectual property design rights, and we now have to spend considerable time and resources policing the unscrupulous sellers who illegally copy our products, instructions and infringe upon our intellectual property and copyrights.
We appreciate all the support of our loyal customers who support us, and we recommend you buy van security with confidence directly from Sussex Installations, our website https://www.sussexinstallations.co.uk, or our eBay or Amazon store, to avoid buying poor junk like this and wasting your money!
Historical context: This video records the advice, products and attack methods relevant when it was published. Current recommendations may have changed as vehicles, products and criminal methods evolved.
Jeff Scott found multiple eBay listings from other sellers using photographs Sussex Installations had taken of its own van security shields, fitted for its own customers, to sell a completely different, inferior product under the impression it was genuine Sussex Installations quality.
The copied shield's metal was visibly bowed and warped, with edges that looked cut with tin snips rather than machined cleanly, a shocking-quality gasket, studs poorly attached to the metal, and no fitting instructions at all, despite copying the genuine shield's shape and stud positions.
Studs are welded to the shield using purpose-built machinery Sussex Installations designed and manufactures in-house, the shield is cut from high-grade brushed stainless steel, and the gasket is cut to the shield's exact shape on a CNC machine rather than trimmed by hand with scissors.
Yes. Sussex Installations produces step-by-step fitting instructions with clear colour photographs for its products, something the counterfeit listings in this video did not include at all.
Since counterfeit sellers copy Sussex Installations' own product photography, the pictures on a listing can look identical to the genuine product even when the item being shipped is not. The only reliable way to get the real product is to buy directly from Sussex Installations, through its own website, eBay store or Amazon store, rather than from a listing that merely looks similar.
Its shields are protected by registered design rights, and it invests significant time and money developing the products and their instructions. Beyond the intellectual-property infringement, poor-quality counterfeits risk misleading customers into fitting substandard security to their vans while believing they've bought a genuine, tested product.
Transcript source: the YouTube auto-generated transcript supplied for this project, re-grouped into sentences with minor corrections (e.g. a misheard word). Automated transcripts can contain recognition errors and should be checked against the original video.
