Has this become very common lately? I know that dollar stores have always
sold Chinese crap and I have avoided that. But recently I ordered an extra
wall plug in for our Iphone 5's and it wasn't an Apple product. Ordered
from Ebay. Never again. The thing was a joke! The prongs on it looked
weird and wouldn't even go into the outlet.

Just now I needed to order a new GE stove burner. Seems that the same thing
is happening over at Amazon. I had seen on the news that there have been
complaints of knockoffs. Well, it seems that they are doing it with stove
burners. Show a picture of the genuine GE thing but that's not what people
are getting. At least that's what the reviews say.

I once had a burner go bad in an old apartment. Not sure how old the stove
was. Probably pretty old. I had walked into the other room when all of a
sudden I heard what sounded like one of those whistling fireworks.
Whistling Pete/Piccolo Pete. I looked towards the noise, saw blue sparks
hitting the ceiling, then heard a "bang". All went silent. No more sparks,
but I then hear water. It was water leaking out of my pan that I was
boiling pasta in. Somehow the very tip (outside of coil) became super
heated and literally blew right off, shooting sparks and shooting a hole in
my pan! Landlord fixed the stove for me.

But after witnessing that, there is no way I am taking a chance on a Chinese
knockoff. I ordered straight from GE where I know I am getting the right
thing.

Now that I think of it, it's not just electrical things. I ordered what I
thought were Tom's shoes from their outlet. What I got was a joke. Tiny
shoes that maybe appeared from a distance to be that brand but were very
poorly made.

This is frustrating, especially if I need something that I can't find in a
store and have to get online. Anyone else been burned by bogus parts? Or
other things?