For fellow stringers, I've personally noticed many replicas and counterfeit rackets in my community. I've made this mistake in my early years where a guy handed me a fake racket and got mad when it broke (He denied it was fake but it was extremely obvious. Paint job was messy and logos looked weird). From this day on I check every racket I get before I mount it to the machine. I was lucky enough to have a lot of people happy with my services and continued to recommend me, but that 1 can ruin your reputation. Recently I did have a guy contact me complaining about a local racket store in my city of being racist and breaking their racket but not compensating it. About 20 minutes into chatting with me he told me it was a replica Yonex racket. He had requested warranties from me on stringing, but I denied it. Anyone ever come to you with replicas/fakes and try to pass it off as the real thing?
I flat out reject fake rackets, or anyone who makes unreasonable requests or accusations regarding string jobs. I don't do it for a living, the pay is less than flipping burgers anyway, so I have the luxury of being a bit selective and avoid possibility of any issues.
I inspect the racket before stringing. If it is a fake, I will tell it the customer before stringing it and do not take any warranty if the racket breaks during stringing. ~40% know that it is a fake. The rest is surprised, sometimes disappointed or annoyed.
Yea I personally have no problem with people knowing the risk of using a fake racket. I had one guy that did his Fake NS9900 a few times with me and it finally broke when he was playing after a few months. He came back and we had a good laugh about it.
I usually don't reject the racket, I just inform the customer that it is fake, if they know it or not, and advise them accordingly. Either way there is always someone that would complain or say such and such place will string it higher. Example: (Sportchek: local big box sporting goods store) Customer brings fake racket. Advise them its fake and might not take the asked tension, 28lbs. Customer states, Sportchek strung it for me at that tension. Advised customer, I can string it at the asked tension but if anything goes wrong with it, its no my responsibly as they consented. Strung the racket and gave to the customer. Day later, customer says I bent his racket and I do a **** job. Advised him things like that could happen. Customer says, I'll go back to Sportchek, they are trained and certified to string racket compared to you. I laugh as I knew no one there was train and there is no certification for this and told him to go back there then.
LMAO. Funny I used to work at a Sportchek. 99% of the tech guys that work there wont know how to string. And the ones that do don't give a crap and will do it half assed most of the time.
