My Fake Reverse Gusty

[Taffeta]

I am still very sceptical of R_Gusties that don't have the exhaustive record trail that the "original" one has.

...In fact I did not believe in RG for most of the time from when the scam was going on till more recently. I am still a little bit quizzical about what happened in the factory, but the way the original one was discovered and the paper trail that people have kept to track her movements makes me think she probably is the real deal. There may be one or two others. I'm sceptical by nature but I won't rule it out.

Not to beat a dead subject to the bone but scams like this one, that put people out of pocket, is why I am so absolutely obsessive about information online being RIGHT. Not every collector has the same access to knowledge or memory of all these things, and we have to share the information we have and the stories we have to protect everyone going forward. We've lost a lot of information because people have stopped paying attention to accuracy in favour of speed.

...Another scam running back in the day was the idea that white haired Posey was a UK exclusive. There were a bunch of people dropped $50 or so on a faded ratty Posey before we finally managed to crush it as a rumour. Another one is White Windy. Again, people out of pocket due to the spread of misinformation and people either being fooled or trying to capitalise on it as a scam.

 The Rusty one is the ultimate though. It was a big deal, a lot of people lost money, the person was indeed blacklisted. We had a small community back then but also very vigilant people tracking the actions/name changes/etc of scammers in order to protect each other. And the lab tests on this fake Rusty were a big deal as well. But this person didn't go away after one scam attempt. They were quite persistent. I believe at one point there was even an attempt to pass off a baby rg, but I may be wrong about that.

There is a genuine reason why it's important ID sites should be accurate and why misinformation hurts people. This is the best example I can think of why that is, and why we need to stamp it out. A lot of scamming went on in the old days because people didn't know as much as they do now, but we're in real danger of losing that knowledge completely.

And FTR, I'm pretty sure there are some 'prototypes' in our community now that wouldn't pass the RGusty science test. Not to mention if you think this kind of scam is a thing of the past, let's not forget issues with undisclosed rehairs, apparent 'variations' that later prove to be rehairs, and repro products that could be confused with real...

[BabyKittenCandy]

Older thread I know but I havent be about for a bit. I was once comissioned to make a RG for someone here on the arena. I never tried to pass it off as anything but a custom and certainly never did anything weird with the hair to make it look professional. Im not sure if the person I made the custom for is still about or not as im not overly active these days, something I hope to rectify at some point!