Counterfeit and fake disposable vapes pose a serious concern for both consumers, resellers and the legitimate manufacturers. These knock-offs infringe on intellectual property rights and dilute the hard earned trust of top-quality brands. When fake disposable vapes provide a subpar user experience, everyone loses.

Wholesalers, retailers, convenience stores, and distributors are undercut by counterfeit models. 

Fake vapes hamper the industry's reputation, growth and ability to innovate, while punishing the small business owners who sell popular disposable vapes to adult customers. Only disreputable counterfeiters benefit from their cheap and shoddily made devices.

Elf Bar and Elf Bar customers were previously targeted unscrupulous practices, and now the market is being hit with fake Flum Pebbles. 

How to Tell if a Flum is Fake

We have provided many useful images below but here is quick overview to help you spot a fake Flum Pebble. 

• Verify your Flum Pebble is real with the QR Code. 
• Verify your Flum Pebble is real at Flumgio.com. Any other website is fake!
• Note the differences in packages between a real Flum Pebble and fake one. The plastic wrap of bulk orders is cheaper, the product wrap is easily wrinkled, and the watermark paper inside the box is only one layer thick. (See Images Below).
• Note the visual differences between devices. Fake Flum Pebbles are lighter in color, lack proper sealing at the mouthpiece, and lack aircraft marking. Even the stopper is of visually worse quality. (See Images Below). 
• There should be an "airplane" graphic next to airflow hole on the base of a Flum Pebble. This hole is located next to the USB-C charging port. 
• There are also differences beneath the skin, a counterfeit Flum Pebble uses smaller, cheap and used batteries. The fakes also lack short-circuit protection. 

How to Verify Your Flum

If you already have Flum inventory on hand, the easiest way to verify its authenticity is to visit https://flumgio.com/verify/ or click here to visit the verify website. You can also use the QR code. 

This may seem simple enough, except the counterfeit companies have created very similar verification websites with plausible Flum based names for their domain. FLUMGIO.com is the one and only correct Flum product verification website, FLUMGIOS and similar websites are being used to perpetrate a fraud on consumers. 

Fake Flum Packaging with Wholesale Orders

In the event you have already purchased Flum Pebbles that you are suspicious of, we have provided images that compare the packaging to authentic Flum Pebbles to the inferior counterfeits. These images will be especially useful to shop owners who buy in quantity. 

 The differences are subtle but the coloring and quality of the plastic is clearly different. 

How to Spot Fake Flum Pebble Packaging

The substandard wrap on bulk orders and slightly off colors are easier to spot head-to-head with an authentic product. Once the box is opened, the lack of quality and attention to detail makes it a bit easier to tell the difference. Multiple layer watermark paper is used on real Flum Pebbles, the similarity of the watermark in a fake Flum Pebble is only skin deep. It is a one-layer print. 

Once the box is opened, a fake Flum Pebble is in cheap and easily wrinkled plastic packaging paper. 

Spotting a Fake Flum Pebble

The biggest differences between a fake Flum Pebble and real one are within the device itself. We will discuss more about the dangers and performance issues of counterfeits below, but there is an overlap when it comes to spotting an actual fake Flum. 

Before cracking open a suspect Flum Pebble to get the answer you seek, look at the airflow hole on the bottom of your Flum. It is located next to the USB-C charging dock. If there is no logo of an airplane, you are dealing with a fake. 

If you crack open a fake Flum Pebble, something we do not recommend under normal circumstances, you will discover that it does not contain a basic safety chip. This chip is visible below the e-liquid reservoir.

This is an important feature for safety and performance. The absence of a safety chip allows counterfeits to be sold for less than the original. Fake Flum Pebbles also use a cheaper and smaller battery, in many cases a used or recycled one at that, and add a metal ball for ballast to keep the weight the same as a real Flum Pebble. 

Fake Flum versus Real Flum Performance

A skeptic may wonder how much it matters if their Flum Pebble is real or fake, provided it delivers the advertised nicotine and a flavor that is roughly equivalent.

But there are several major issues with fake Flum Pebbles apart from basic appearance. The makers of counterfeit Flum Pebbles have not cracked some secret code that allows them to make high quality disposable vape devices at a lower price point. They cut corners and have an inferior product designed to look like a real name-brand Flum. 

• Fake Flum Pebbles use low-quality, smaller, and reused batteries. This means they do not have the same power to support typical vape usage as a regular battery. 

• Low quality batteries are also more likely to fail, making the entire exercise a waste of money and possibly a fire hazard. 
• Fake Flum Pebbles have no safety chip. The safety chip is installed to avoid overcharging, prevent short circuits.
• The lack of a chip impacts performance, as these control the output of the battery. And unregulated battery will not provide consistent output from start to finish, meaning the performance will spike and rapidly fall off as the charge runs down. 
• E-Liquid is not made to the same quality standard. If you were to break open a counterfeit Flum Pebble and compare the contents a real one, you would find a darker e-liquid with lower quality ingredients. The e-liquids are simply not the proprietary Flum formulas. They do not taste the same and without quality assurance standards there is no accounting for the nicotine strength or origin either. 

Best Way to Avoid Fake Flums

The solution to avoiding fake vapes is simple. Only purchase products from reputable distributors. If a fly-by-night operation offers pricing too good to be true, it probably is. Mi-Pod Wholesale is a master distributor for many of the top brands in vaping. This means we have access to the newest inventory, freshest flavors, and products arriving directly from the manufacturing. 

More on Fake Vapes

If you are looking for more product specific information about counterfeit vapes please reference our previous blog posts. 

• How to Spot a Fake Elf Bar 
• Counterfeit Vapes: How to Spot a Fake