Sony has warned UK eBay users to take care when bidding for Handycam camcorders - the devices on offer may not be what they purport to be.

The company believes a number of counterfeit Handycams, possibly sourced from China, are being offered for sale on eBay's UK site, a number of other retail web sites and by a "small number" of street traders in the Glasgow area, but possibly elsewhere too.

Indeed, the counterfeit camcorders have been doing the rounds for at least two months, as this blog posting reveals. There's a piccy of the offending kit, too.

The fake kit is described as a Handycam MX30-7000, which is not a Sony product code, the company told The Register. Nor are they camcorders - apparently they are simply camcorder-shaped digital still cameras, and pretty poor ones at that, by all accounts.

The machines are also marked PC350 on the base, which is "close" to the model number of a discontinued product, Sony said. They are stamped with the Sony logo, but don't have that Sony look about them

Sony said it was working with Trading Standards investigators to track down the street-market fakes, and said it was "making every effort" to pull known counterfeit kit from eBay.

However, some may slip through the net, to be bought by bargain-hungry buyers, and Sony warned there may be other fakes out there - this is the only one the company is aware of at the moment, it said.

Sony said buyers should always confirm they are purchasing a genuine Sony product by comparing what's on offer with the product details listed on the company's web site. ®

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