And they have quite a sales pitch:
The six tone-holes on this flute correspond to the six holes on a tin whistle: if you already play whistle, you will not need to change your fingering to play the same music on a flute.
I’ll admit that that one looks pretty darned good, but I have personal experience with the typical run of low-cost Pakistani factory-made flutes, so I would have to try it in the flesh before I gave it my thumbs-up (and much less would I shell out almost 700 clams just to do so). I’ve been burned enough not to associate how pretty it is with how much care was put into how it plays. I’d far rather pay much more for a flute from a known maker with steady good repute and a fan base.
If it’s truly a good one, I applaud Hakam Din & Co, and implore them to abandon their usual business model and instead make more like it. I have asked this for years.
I would point out that the “boxed oval” embouchure is, as I understand it, a relatively modern innovation - so the degree to which this flute may be called a reproduction is up for debate. I don’t have a personal problem with it in and of itself - it’s not what I’d choose, but to each their own - yet in contradiction to what the info says, the flute consequently doesn’t really comply with what goes into historically informed performances, as I understand the concept. I’d be happier if they said “Based on a d’Almaine example” (indeed, d’Almaine & Co didn’t produce flutes; they were a retailer that sold a variety of musical instruments made by outside artists, and while d’Almaine put their commercial stamp on them, the actual maker may or may not be known). So no matter how good the flute may be, there’s still some fast-and-loosery going on, and I have no choice but to think that, once again, it targets the uninformed.
I will welcome the day when we can embrace Hakam Din as part of the fold, but to this date they haven’t shown me they have any incentive to rise above the practices they’re usually known for.
Hmmm, their Ebay site reports a 100% satisfaction rate. From what we all know as the diabolical shortcomings of their products, this seems extremely unlikely.
It might be useful for potential customers if maker’s gave, in an obvious place on their websites, details of any authorised sellers or a statement that there were none. That way anyone researching what was on offer could quickly find out that other sources may be selling fakes.
At times I have bought low-cost things from Amazon where it wasn’t worth further effort trying to work out if they were cheap Chinese copies. Once it was and I got the money back. Another time it was but I kept it as it seemed to work (and wasn’t something that might burst into flame). I wonder what happens to returned fakes from China. Maybe the UK return address is an industrial unit with a waste disposal skip.
Of course it does, but here’s something interesting: I even saw one offering where they flat-out demanded that people keep less-than-glowing reports to themselves! Imagine that.
Now there is a practice that has a lot of potential, and all one needs is the temerity to make what would normally be considered a totally ridiculous request! “Hey, don’t spoil my vendor rating–that’s not cool! So if you are unsatisfied, just suck it up.” I wonder if it works?
It gets an A for audacity.
Unfortunately, I’ve already heard from a player who acquired one of my “Essential Flutes” from this bogus vendor. He shared a photo of the table leg—uh…flute—that actually arrived in the mail. I’ve included one of the photos below (there were also a couple of nice shots of the interior of the bore, showing plenty of splinters from the hastily drilled finger holes–something that takes about ten seconds to remove if they wanted to bother).
His description of the flute: “…a perforated piece of wood from Pakistan that was reeking of kerosene and cheap lacquer and thoroughly unplayable.”
The only potential bright spot (such as it is) is that he paid them via PayPal, to whom he has submitted a fraud report. PayPal might actually be able to snatch those funds back–they generally are pretty good about that sort of thing in my experience. In fact, that might represent a legitimate way to put pressure on this group. I don’t know if PayPal would go as far as shutting down their account, or how effective a measure that might be, but it would be something.
I know that Casey was submitting a complaint to their domain name host, hoping to take a poke at them that way. Who knows if enough “inconvenience” can be brought to bear upon them to make them rethink this approach. I can’t honestly fathom this type of amoral behavior so I don’t have a sense of where the weak spots might be.
No need to hide your shame Geoffrey, everyone has to start somewhere.
Sorry to hear that Geoffrey. It’s pretty infuriating t have someone trafficking on your good name
It is a trifle annoying, to be sure 
. However, I’m mostly sorry for the buyers. I don’t really worry that my professional reputation is going to be materially damaged by this stunt, since I believe that most players who receive one of these pieces of junk in the mail are going to immediately recognize that it’s a scam. The gentleman who sent me that photo certainly did–he didn’t believe that he had gotten an actual flute of mine that was just of sub-par quality. So he’s not likely going to hop on social media and talk about how rotten my Essential Flutes are, which would be very damaging. And I sincerely hope that anyone else who ends up falling for this reaches the same conclusion that he did. So while I’m disgusted by the perpetrators of the scam, my sympathies are with the buyers who stand to trade good money for a crappy flute, and are likely never to recoup it.
I think anyone who bought from them would realise soon enough that they had been scammed, so I don’t think that would affect Geoffrey’s reputation as such. Possibly some customers might not buy his flutes though because they heard somewhere there was a scam going on, so that might affect how people approach his enterprise.
Even Hakam Din places videos of other flutes being played by their maker on same page as their version being sold…it is a very thin line.
@ Geoffrey
Glad you took it in jest 
… wasn’t sure. Actually the above I was writing in reply to PB+J before reading your reply, so that concurs for whatever that is worth.
I would say emulation is the sincerest form of flattery… but not in this case, I’m just surprised their page hasn’t been taken down yet it is so obviously a fraud. It is a fully registered business after all, not some vendor on EBay.
Sure, sure, that’s an Ellis, alright. (◄ sarcasm)
Something worth considering is that when a legitimate maker’s work is commercially presented at a considerable discount, by definition the seller would be taking a huge loss. So why would anyone seriously do that? Rather, it’s got to be a bait-and-switch, and a pretty obvious one when you think about it. They’re doing exactly the opposite and raking in mucho profit in bad faith. I mean, just look at that thing.
Case looks nice tho…
[Just checked, it’s not on the UIE forum—yet.]
Best wishes,
Steve
I dare to think it’s worth more than the unstrument it holds.
Stranger and stranger
So checking on the auditor mentioned, as I find no reference online but ads. to the owner
But same person ? Checking via listed address at the registry above
https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/58014142?e=true
The host server of Ayaan products
Via NameCheap in UK
What I cannot figure out is this. Why would a company that wanted to stay in business place clearly fraudulent advertising to possibly sell a few flutes ? It has a range of other cheap products it does business with, so why add a dimension that could have the company in court, fined or closed. It isn’t “that” easy to start up new registered businesses as some might think. I suppose maybe they didn’t sell as many kilts as planned so just went on to use the company to scam as far as possible . Either that or they are mafia without the slightest knowledge of business and came up with a product format that they thought would be presentable enough to use for some kind of false accounting. Also, often a business/employment front is needed for visas and so on, where the pretend turnover is paid for by the persons migrating.