I was hoping someone could help me out with the most recent arrival to my home. I have purchased a set of Halloween Smurfs from ebay (to be sent from Hong Kong), after paying for them I noticed a warning on an Australian Smurf store website that there are an awful lot of fakes coming from Hong Kong. The Smurfs I purchased have arrived and I am afraid that I have indeed been rather foolish, they are inconsistant in feel (here too hard, there too soft), the paint work is poorly applied, and one can see a mark on the tip of the nose where the material was put into the mold, even the Jacko'lantern one has a gahstly hole in the side of the head!. The best part, I think, is that where the maker, year and place of manufacture are marked, it says "Made in Chian" on all eight of them.

I didn't pay very much for them so I suppose I should have expected this, though I am still not certain wether these are fakes or not. I am hoping that if anyone has one of the Halloween Smurfs they could help me out, are they made in "Chian" as mine were, and does your Smurfette look as though she is getting high on whatever is in that cauldron of hers?

I am deeply unimpressed, but I do need some sort of confirmation of my suspicions before reporting this to ebay, so please help me if you can!

Dont have my real halloween ones in front of me right now but as for your suspicion youre probably right. I have seen many of thhe more recent models of Smurfs being made into fakes from that country. Whether or not Schleich allowed this I have no idea about that or their laws... I think I even recently noticed fake McDs sport one too ?? And another group I cant remember right now. Not sure why it continues. Why would we want cheap fakes.

Yes the Halloween and Indian smurf sets on eBay form Hong Kong are FAKE!!

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"There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters, who never did, who won't anymore, and who always will. So don't worry about people from your past, there's a reason why they didn't make it to your future!"

Yes, unfortunately, the Halloween smurfs you bought are fake. I almost bought a set on eBay, too. If you haven't done so already, you should probably alert eBay that the seller is selling counterfeit items. Especially if the fake smurfs have phony "Schleich" tags attached.

There is a great article on the Blue Imps web site on the fake Halloween and Indian smurf sets being sold primarily from Hong Kong. The article has detailed photos - I think it will answer all your questions.
Fake Halloween Smurfs: http://www.blueimps.com/smurfs_news27.html
Fake Indian Smurfs: http://www.blueimps.com/smurfs_news28.html

I have also recently seen what I presume is a set of fake sport smurfs. The molds match the McDonalds sport smurfs set, but the colours are incorrect. You can see an example eBay listing here.

Sorry to hear about your purchase, but I hope this helps spread the word!

Oh yes! I have started a claim through Paypal, and will follow through to the end, regardless of wether I will get my money back or not.

They do have all the labels, but I won't be trusting even the non-toxic indication on them, so they will have to be binned after I am through with the claim.

The seller, babysellers, informed me that they knew of the problems, their excuse was "you know china people english" and the poor quality was why they were sold cheaply. How language difficulties can excuse counterfeit smurfs I have no idea.

Counterfeit Smurfs... the idea is almost laughable!

Oh, and Clumsy? Thanks for those links, they are very helpful!