COUNTERFEIT Black Diamond Rope being sold by Dick's Sporting Goods

Several weeks ago I ordered this rope off of the Dicks Sporting Goods website. (link here.)

The rope arrived in Black Diamond packaging. Having bought many ropes over the years, I knew right away something was wrong.

Look at the rope ends:

^^^ To clarify, the rope was NOT sold coiled as seen in the picture. It was originally in a factory coil. The BD packaging below is a plasticky material (not cardboard) and I could not slide it out of it's ackaging. I had to cut the packaging away with scissors. Interestingly, both of the weird rope ends were completely hidden when it was in the BD packaging.

I immediately contacted Black Diamond and showed them pictures. BD verified that it was not a BD product and, of course, said NOT to climb on this rope.  BD said that Dick's Sporting Goods was responsible for packaging the rope incorrectly (???) (Why would Dick's be responsible for packaging BD ropes in BD packaging???) BD also verified that Dick's is an authorized dealer.

I would have thought that I could trust a rope from a well-known sporting goods store that BD recognizes as an authorized dealer. However, between receiving this rope and the subsequent lack of response from Dick's Sporting Goods I do need to post publicly. I would NOT trust any climbing ropes from Dicks right now. Dicks has not responded to me at all. I have no reason to believe they have fixed whatever issue led to them selling a counterfeit climbing rope. BD assured me they would be in touch with Dicks. I don't know what that entailed.. just sent BD an email asking for an update and am happy to update this when they answer (it's been weeks since they said they would be in touch with Dicks.)
   

Basically, I can't assume that my rope was the only "mistake" Dicks sold. What if a newer climber purchased the counterfeit rope and got seriously injured or died from the rope breaking?

Please share this post to anyone who recently bought a rope from Dicks, or is planning to buy a rope from Dicks. We need to prevent anyone from getting hurt. Hopefully Dick's / BD have a plan to make sure no other ropes like this are in circulation...

Well, this is odd.

Question for you, was the rope coiled like I see in that picture when you received it? Cause you know and I know that new ropes will never ever be coiled that way.

Those eyelets, make me think I’ve seen them somewhere but not sure where. Maybe it’s for tethering a boat anchor.

Pretty obvious to me they took a return and didn’t check what was in the package before reselling. Probably not counterfeit just the wrong item in the package.

Absolutely no guarantee that it’s dynamic or even a climbing strength rope. Looks strong but who really knows.

They owe you a rope, clearly labeled, and not that thing. Take it up with your credit card company as a fraudulent transaction if they refuse.

Edit to add, they have a few ropes on their website that are for water skiing and tubing and also for docking a boat. They look more similar to what you got. 

Having worked retail for many years, it's not all that surprising.  In stores and warehouses products get separated from their packaging all the time and often get put back into the wrong packaging by accident.  My guess is that whatever that blue rope is you received (I'm very curious what it is!?) was kicking around on a shelf without any packaging.  Someone found some random BD packaging for a rope and incorrectly assumed the two belonged together.   Or, a dirtbag climber intentionally switched the packaging so they could buy the BD rope at a lower cost using the packaging of whatever that rope is you got.  This happens all the time, usually with things like ski goggles or bike helmets. At least those are my best guesses, I could be way off.  Regardless, I think BD was correct that it was simply mis-packaged at the store.

Not Hobo Greg wrote:

Why are you buying climbing gear from Dick’s Sporting Goods?

This is really a tutorial for how to get a free rope from Dick's.

1. Buy a nice rope @ Dicks, use cash.
2. Slide rope out of cardboard packaging.
3. Slide in other oddy rope (you have lying around,) just make sure it looks clean.
4. Return to Dick's where golf-distance-runner dude accepts the rope and gives you cash.
5. Go enjoy your new rope and burn in hell... later. 

Man, the incredible skills one learns off the MP forums?

Well they're dicks, right? Its one of those places where its hard to believe a building could be stuffed with so many SKUs and yet have absolutely nothing I'm interested in buying.

But selling a returned rope as new?

Another tragic consumer experience, documented by MP - aka Home Shopping Network. Decent enough troll, too.

There are a ton of crappy Chinese "climbing ropes" like this on Amazon.  They show up at the local crag every now and then, kinda scary.  

Hopefully, you used a credit card.  Protest the charge and let them hassle Dick's.  You have a lot of power when you buy with a CC.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. 

1) To clarify, the rope was NOT sold coiled as seen in the picture. It was originally in a factory coil. The BD packaging is a plasticky material (not cardboard) and I could not slide it out of it's packaging. I had to cut the packaging away with scissors. Interestingly,  both of the weird rope ends were completely hidden when it was in the BD packaging. (I'll edit the original post to clarify as well.)

2) @ubu: YES, this looks EXACTLY like the rope I received! But obviously mine was purchased from Dicks Sporting Goods, not amazon... Also, the rope ends were tucked away so they were NOT visible at first. 

I doubt that it could be that Dicks is taking "returns" on climbing ropes from people who actually bought on amazon and want a free BD rope from Dicks. In this scenario Dicks would be taking counterfeit ropes provided by consumers and then sketchily repackaging them with official BD labelling. Not great, but could be solved by them not allowing returns on safety gear (like other authorized dealers do). I doubt this scenario is what happened, because Dick's return policy seems to require a "Valid Proof(s) of Purchase" such as the "order number, order confirmation email, original sales receipt, pack slip, or return barcode."

Would it be possible that Dicks somehow received counterfeit ropes directly? 

Looks like an arborist rope. If it’s not a crappy fake, then that thing is much stronger than rock climbing rope, but it’s gonna be very static.

If done properly, those spliced eyes are like $20-25 each and are the strongest termination to a rope out of anything. That eyelet is stronger than a figure 8

Where does BD manufacture their ropes? Maybe those ropes are made in the same factory and there was some sort of packaging mix up? Just thinking about less nefarious reasons this might have happened considering your latest update on the condition of the packaging.

Interesting situation. Looking at Dick's website, the only life bearing rope they sell is the one you thought you were buying: https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/black-diamond-9-9-gym-rope-40-meters-18bdiu99rp40mxxxxcac/18bdiu99rp40mxxxxcac

Definitely not the rope you got. I'd disagree about it being an arborist rope, it's way too thin. Sure looks like somebody bought a shit rope on Amazon and pawned it off on Dick's. Shame on them endangering other's lives, glad you knew better than to climb on it. 

Dick's should know better than to accept returns on life bearing tools. I've literally never heard of a store doing so, and for good reason.

Erik Strand wrote:

Looks like an arborist rope. If it’s not a crappy fake, then that thing is much stronger than rock climbing rope, but it’s gonna be very static.

If done properly, those spliced eyes are like $20-25 each and are the strongest termination to a rope out of anything. That eyelet is stronger than a figure 8

Or, it could have come from the same factory line that makes those dog-leashes-that-look-like-climbing-ropes, and was part of some shift change mixup when sent to downstream tooling?  

Possibly probably not probable, but who knows.

Whatever.  Now off to the internet to buy some new underwear and seizure medication!  Extra emphasis on ... "Sort by Lowest Price" ... and "No Questions Return Policy".

ewetzel W wrote:

Several weeks ago I ordered this rope off of the Dicks Sporting Goods website. (link here.)

The rope arrived in Black Diamond packaging. Having bought many ropes over the years, I knew right away something was wrong.

Look at the rope ends:

^^^ To clarify, the rope was NOT sold coiled as seen in the picture. It was originally in a factory coil. The BD packaging below is a plasticky material (not cardboard) and I could not slide it out of it's ackaging. I had to cut the packaging away with scissors. Interestingly, both of the weird rope ends were completely hidden when it was in the BD packaging.

I immediately contacted Black Diamond and showed them pictures. BD verified that it was not a BD product and, of course, said NOT to climb on this rope.  BD said that Dick's Sporting Goods was responsible for packaging the rope incorrectly (???) (Why would Dick's be responsible for packaging BD ropes in BD packaging???) BD also verified that Dick's is an authorized dealer.

I would have thought that I could trust a rope from a well-known sporting goods store that BD recognizes as an authorized dealer. However, between receiving this rope and the subsequent lack of response from Dick's Sporting Goods I do need to post publicly. I would NOT trust any climbing ropes from Dicks right now. Dicks has not responded to me at all. I have no reason to believe they have fixed whatever issue led to them selling a counterfeit climbing rope. BD assured me they would be in touch with Dicks. I don't know what that entailed.. just sent BD an email asking for an update and am happy to update this when they answer (it's been weeks since they said they would be in touch with Dicks.)
   

Basically, I can't assume that my rope was the only "mistake" Dicks sold. What if a newer climber purchased the counterfeit rope and got seriously injured or died from the rope breaking?

Please share this post to anyone who recently bought a rope from Dicks, or is planning to buy a rope from Dicks. We need to prevent anyone from getting hurt. Hopefully Dick's / BD have a plan to make sure no other ropes like this are in circulation...

The lesson here is that you should support small independent gear shops.

It doesn’t look too thin to be arborist rope to me. Rope gets even thinner than this rope.

I don’t recognize the pattern though so I wouldn’t use it for anything serious unless I could get a definite answer of what brand it is. Professional splices don’t typically come with thimbles unless requested.

The package says 35m Gym.  Who wants to surf BD's website for their gym-specific ropes?

Aww, quit wringing your hands about it and just climb on it already…how bad could it be?  

If you’re buying BD ropes from Dick’s, you’re not very discerning anyway, lol.  

WHOA!! That's pretty wild.

From what I've seen, BD ropes have been quite consistent in color.  They aren't tweaking the tow colors they feed the braiding machines like some manufacturers do.  Just simple colors.  So that pattern you have there looks very suspicious.  

Dicks is one of the last places where I'd shop for climbing gear.  I don't have very many nice things to say about Dicks.  I used to shop there a lot, but they've purged the store of anything worth buying.  It wouldn't surprise me if they went bankrupt in the next few years, like so many similar stores have.  

A lot of online storefronts (even from some well known companies) work just like Amazon now, where your order could be fulfilled by any number of potentially sketchy 3rd parties. I’m sure Dicks doesn’t sell enough climbing gear to stock it in a warehouse or store themselves, but with this model they can still make money selling gear online.

pretty wild that a major retailer would expose themselves to such risk by selling questionable life safety equipment though. Interested to see what they do with it