Buying Car Products Seen on Instagram Can Sometimes Result in Positive Surprises

Just like with any other product in the world, not all of the stuff that you can buy on social media works as expected. Some do, while others do not, and the problem is that returning stuff from various Instagram vendors is not as easy as it would be with a store owned by a large corporation, like the one named after the world's largest river by water discharge volume, for example.

Mind you, since many websites allow people to sell stuff online without having a physical store or a warehouse, some car products may come straight from China to your door, without any prior quality control, and the vendors may not be available for refunds.

This practice is not entirely uncommon, nor is it extremely frequent, but it does happen, especially with products that claim to do amazing things. I have seen items that plug into a 12V socket and claim to lower your fuel consumption, and this is just an example. The latter does not work, mind you, nor do those magnets that can be put on your fuel line.

In other words, be careful what you buy online and who you buy it from. If the brand just sounds similar to an existing one or is something that is made up from scratch and did not exist last month, you should think twice before placing an order. The same applies if the product is branded with a legitimate company's logo and name, but is different from what the brand offers in its merchandising line-up.

Usually, the problem with these brands is that they are made by various individuals who are just rebranding low-cost products from China, acquired at wholesale and are now attempting to cash in by selling them to you at retail with a generous commission on their side.

It does not matter if you pay $25 for a plastic item branded as "Nissano" instead of Nissan, it is still a $2.50 item that has nothing to do with the marque that has its copyright violated by that product.

The counterfeit car part market is a billion-dollar industry, and customs officers in various countries seize stuff like this all the time. Despite the frequent raids, many products that bear the name of a known and reputable company are still made by factories in China and rebranded as such at the request of unscrupulous individuals looking to make a quick buck from people on Instagram.

The folks over at Donut went ahead and bought every product that they saw an advertisement for, and their results can be seen in the video below. Most of the products that they chose did not pose an immediate safety risk, but some knock-off parts or cheap generic items, like a T-shirt with some writing on it, may have been made with materials that are bad for you.

For example, someone has recently gifted me a T-shirt that has writing on it, and it is made by a retailer known for cheap articles. I did not care at first, because I liked the message on the shirt, and it did not pretend to be made by a famous brand.

However, there is just one problem with that shirt: whenever it touches my skin, I feel that there is something wrong with the fabric as if it had some sort of chemicals on it. I cannot wear said shirt, and returning it is out of the question, but the people who made it and sold it got their money out of the deal, while I have a new overpriced rag on my hands, but I can only use it with gloves.

Be wary of extremely positive reviews for products that have just hit the market, as there are businesses out there focused on making fake positive reviews for products on Amazon, among others. If a brand does not sell the product in its showrooms or online and you cannot find any evidence that it did, it is probably not a genuine article.