CI "Fake" Cigars?

[Skeat5353]

Actually if Cigars International threatened to sue Byran Glynn and he backed down, then that makes both parties look terrible.

First off, CI has the shadiest marketing and advertising practices I've ever seen on the internet, with perhaps the exception of some eBay merchants from Hong Kong. For example, calling cigars "90 Rated Masterpieces!!" when in reality the cigar merely uses the same band as a cigar that was rated 90 a decade ago, strikes me as outrageous (and likely illegal). Implying that the Greycliff cigars you see on Cbid are rolled in the Bahamas. Etc etc etc. I could go on and on.

If I were Glynn, and CI threatened to sue me, I'd gladly let them, and then use the discovery process to gather information about their marketing practices and ship it all to the feds. Then I'd hit 'em with an anti-SLAPP countersuit and collect legal fees. Might even turn it into a class-action and then retire. But then I'm an attorney, not a lot of people have the stomach for that.

Anyway, the point is that Glynn was either wrong or he's a pansy. And Cigars International was either unfairly accused or it's a morally degenerate bully. I'd like to know which, and the fact that nobody will talk about it makes me believe they're all corrupt.

Amen!!! I'm like you. It's not that I like lawsuits over the tiniest infractions, but I love justice with all my heart and soul, just because there is so much injustice in the world. So if CI is a scam that practices fraudulent marketing strategies, and Glynn has a half decent attorney, he should go after them. It's worth a try. Just because CI is some big online retailer with deep pockets, they can bully some little dope on Youtube who opened up a cigar they sold to him, shut him down, humiliate him, shame him and, for all intents and purposes, utterly undermine his credibility; that doesn't seem right at all.

I'm not a big fan of petty litigation. If some dipshit rearends me at 35 MPH and my neck and back are a little sore, I'll shake it off. I literally love-tapped a guy in a parking lot once. No damage to either car. Gave him my information. A week later I get a call from an attorney, telling me I'm liable for injuries. The guy all of a sudden developed a herniated disk (yeah right) and I needed to pay for it.

But I think in this case, Ropey, you are correct. I'm so tired of the big guy bullying the little guy in this country. America, at one time, was all about the success of the little guy. Now these big corporations with their Ivy-league legal teams are pushing everyone into the same corner. Where's Uncle Joe who owned Uncle Joe's Hardware store on Main St.? He's working for $8 an hour at Home Depot because he didn't have the power to fight back. And before you know it, Uncle Joe's gonna be eating spicy Won Ton soup in Beijing because he can't find work in his own country at a decent, livable wage.

Okay, done extrapolating here. Bryan Glynn, if you have half a brain and half a pair, go after these scum and take them down. Expose them for what they are: a fraudulent organization that peddles garbage for the same price as gold. But I really like the class-action idea. Brilliant. I've ordered from them. Where can I sign?

[Cardinal]

Actually if Cigars International threatened to sue Byran Glynn and he backed down, then that makes both parties look terrible.
<snip>
Anyway, the point is that Glynn was either wrong or he's a pansy. And Cigars International was either unfairly accused or it's a morally degenerate bully. I'd like to know which, and the fact that nobody will talk about it makes me believe they're all corrupt.

I don't see how CI looks terrible here. If they're unfairly accused, then they're not a morally degenerate bully. If they're fairly accused, maybe Glynn would stand up to them. Either way, at best CI looks fine, and at worst we don't know anything more than we knew last week.

As far as everyone wanting to sue the retailer, what? Did CI manufacture the product? I doubt they dissect anything, let alone samples of everything they sell. If Glynn had gotten that infamous stem-filled Padron from CI, should CI be sued for that too? I don't see how anyone is so damaged by this episode that anyone needs to go to court for a few years and a couple hundred thousand bucks. I know everyone wants to take shots at the big guy and win the lottery (thus, in this case, driving up cigar prices for the rest of us by the way), but come on. We're talking about a $1.50 cigar, not an exploding vehicle gas tank.

[Skeat5353]

I don't see how CI looks terrible here. If they're unfairly accused, then they're not a morally degenerate bully. If they're fairly accused, maybe Glynn would stand up to them. Either way, at best CI looks fine, and at worst we don't know anything more than we knew last week.

As far as everyone wanting to sue the retailer, what? Did CI manufacture the product? I doubt they dissect anything, let alone samples of everything they sell. If Glynn had gotten that infamous stem-filled Padron from CI, should CI be sued for that too? I don't see how anyone is so damaged by this episode that anyone needs to go to court for a few years and a couple hundred thousand bucks. I know everyone wants to take shots at the big guy and win the lottery (thus, in this case, driving up cigar prices for the rest of us by the way), but come on. We're talking about a $1.50 cigar, not an exploding vehicle gas tank.

I guess you are right. A prolonged legal battle over $1.20 cigar is silly. However, I think that CI forcing him to remove the video with legal repercussions is wrong. I try always to support the small guy. I buy local, I buy from smaller online retailers. I like to support small businesses. Sure you pay a little more, but to me that's just an investment in a healthy local economic climate.

I like to still believe this is a free country. If a 'self-obsessed' dope like Bryan Glynn (nod to Emperor Zurg! LOL) wants to show his viewers a cigar that was marketed as 'premium' but turned out to be scraps from the rolling room floor, he should have that right. If I'm paying $2 for a cigar, when really it should cost 50 cents and when it's being marketed as 'premium' (which implies a cigar of $8-10 value), so that I am fooled into believing I'm getting an $8 cigar for $2 and I should really only be paying 50 cents for it, well then I have been deceived by the company selling it. Period.

If I want to then make a Youtube video exposing the marketing scam, I should have the right to do so, so long as my claims are not libelous or false. If CI did indeed sell a $2 cigar under the guise that it was 'premium' (thus implying a higher value than what it's currently retailing for) and if it was indeed not 'premium', then I should have the right to expose the marketing scam to people. It follows along the same lines as "THE LEMON LAWS" now in place in most states to protect suckers like me from getting swindled and fleeced by sleezy carsalesmen.

But I remember when I first started out. I opened up all the catalogs in the mail and read about this brand and that brand. In an attempt to save money and at the same time pursue a cigar hobby, I just figured a 'premium' was a 'premium.' Why spend $8 for a 'premium' cigar, when I could just as easily spend $2 and get the same product. A good friend of mine likes to say, "You don't know a good cigar until you've had a bad one." So here I am buying awful cigars that taste like crap and thinking all along they're 'premium.' Then, finally, I splurge on a 15-dollar cigar and BOOM. You know what the first thing I said to myself was? How can that website pass off that crap as 'premium.' It's fine to sell crappy cigars for $2. But to market them as if they are the same quality as an 8-dollar cigar is, in my humble opinion, wrong.

So here's Bryan Glynn. A dope with a cigar show. Great. Wonderful. He wants to show his more inexperienced viewers that CI is selling subpar product under the title 'premium.' It's no different than a used-car salesman selling you a lemon. He told me the transmission had been replaced recently, but it crapped out after 1000 miles. Well, CI is selling me a 2-dollar 'premium' cigar that isn't 'premium' at all. In fact, it's probably only worth 50 cents. But because I don't know any better, I think I'm getting a deal. Some of those cheap cigars are so harsh and awful, it surprises me they even sell for more than 10 frickin' cents.

Anyway, Bryan Glynn--dope that he is--still has a right to say whatever he wants, so long as he is not providing false and libelous information. Was the cigar marketed as 'premium'? Yes. Was it 'premium'? No. That's where it begins and ends for CI or any other cigar retailer trying to pass off crap as 'premium.' Like Ropey alluded to, these cigar retailers fall into an unregulated grey area and, until the FDA creates standards for the industry, any and all cigars could be considered 'premium.' All the FDA would have to do is create a standard like in the meat industry: Premium has this type of tobacco, Non-premiums has that kind of tobacco, etc., etc., etc. Until that day comes, cigars smokers will be buying shite and thinking it's 'premium.'

[Sticky B]

Expose them for what they are: a fraudulent organization that peddles garbage for the same price as gold.

I'm not sure where you buy gold for $1.50, but I want IN.

[Tman]

The problem I have is that we're arguing over a $1.50 stick. Sure, CI makes outrageous description, but who in here takes that claim seriously? I think the bigger problem is the slandering of cigars that didn't need slandering. I think "unsmokable", "total crap", "floor sweeping", and top it off with "fake cigar" mentioned in the video is a bit much. Is there any merit to his mention? It's unprofessional and quite frankly upsetting when he knows he has quite a respectable cigar smoking audience in hand that takes reviews seriously. Let's not forget, having the attitude of getting something for nothing is what gets this economy in trouble in the first place. What is to be gained by doing that video? It could have been done with much more class.

[Skeat5353]

I think "unsmokable", "total crap", "floor sweeping", and top it off with "fake cigar" mentioned in the video is a bit much. Is there any merit to his mention? It's unprofessional and quite frankly upsetting when he knows he has quite a respectable cigar smoking audience in hand that takes reviews seriously.

I agree. Bryan Glynn has a wide audience. So what he says on his webcast has some influence on consumers. If he did call the cigar 'fake' because it contained short filler, then he is technically wrong on his part. Whether it is false or libelous is another question entirely. But again, Glynn is dealing in a gray area. What defines 'premium'? Has anyone ever seen cigars, cheap or otherwise, marketed as 'non-premium'? There's no such category. For Glynn to say that a cigar is 'fake' exposes him as someone who is uninformed in the tactics of marketing. CI has done nothing wrong other than sell a 'non-premium' cigar advertised as 'premium.' Fake, I don't think so. Misleading, perhaps.

Marketing a cigar as 'premium' places it in the same group of real, high-end cigars, like Davidoff, My Father, Padron, Fuente, etc. That's where the deception lies. When CI tells you a cigar made with short filler is 'premium,' it doesn't mean that cigar is 'fake' as Glynn claims. It's just 'non-premium.' I think what we're talking about here is false advertising. When I watch a Carl's Jr. commercial and there's a super-model in a bikini with huge tits eating a massive 1/4 pound hamburger loaded with fat, I don't believe it. That's just common sense kicking in. But if I go buy that product and consume it, that's on me--not on Carls Jr. The same idea applies to Budweiser commercials. There's a bunch of hot chicks sucking down bottles of beer and everyone's having a great time. But when I go to my local bar, there's only sad, fat alcoholics sucking down Budweisers.

Until the Federal Government passes laws on the way cigars are marketed, CI is well within its legal bounds to market 'non-premium' garbage in the same market with genuine 'premium' cigars. Really it's up to us, the consumer, to discriminate. Nevertheless, Bryan Glynn has every right to make a video showing people what's in a cheap cigar marketed as 'premium.' That just protects the consumers of his audience. By the same token, until laws say otherwise, CI is well within its rights to market a 'non-premium' cigar as a 'premium' one.

Like the great P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

[Tman]

I agree. We're all better by being more well informed and we can all smoke a quality cigar together!

[jp1979]

CI never sold it as a "premium cigar" its description said it was made with "premium tobacco". If you bought this cigar expecting Davidoff quality and premiumness for $1.60, you need your head examined.

[wabashcr]

I think there's a little bit of a difference between overhyping a crap cigar and buying a brand with a decent reputation, then selling crap cigars under that brand. That's what it appears, at least to me, CI is doing. We know they do that with Gurkha, and it seems like that's what happened here with at least the Los Blancos. I guess it's a fact of the industry, and they're probably not the only ones doing it. Just seems like a bait and switch, which to me is more sinister than simply referring to a shit cigar as "premium."

[jp1979]

I think there's a little bit of a difference between overhyping a crap cigar and buying a brand with a decent reputation, then selling crap cigars under that brand. That's what it appears, at least to me, CI is doing. We know they do that with Gurkha, and it seems like that's what happened here with at least the Los Blancos. I guess it's a fact of the industry, and they're probably not the only ones doing it. Just seems like a bait and switch, which to me is more sinister than simply referring to a shit cigar as "premium."

tons of things you buy are made by one company and rebranded as something else, and the descriptions for each is completely different, some touting that there product is better than the others, but in reality they are made by the same place and just have a different label on it. BIG one that comes to mind in the whole Porsche/VW/Audi thing, take some of the trim panels off of a Porsche Cheyenne (sp)and they have VW markings on the back, same parts that are made for the Toureg... Anybody going to sue Porsche because its not made with all Porsche parts? I don't think so.

Even if they bought the rights to the Los Blancos brand, I believe they were 5-6 buck sticks before CI bought them, now the are sub 2 dollars.... I would think that that would raise an eyebrow before you put it in your cart. BG doesnt like CI, now CI doesnt like BG.... is what it is.