Yes this all sounds familiar to me. I have a friend in Kansas who bought a WEL cable on ebay from Canada. After some time he wanted it re-terminated, sent it to AQ who said it was a fake and destroyed it. Being a private sale he was out of pocket.
A question strikes me. Has anyone sent a cable to AQ and had it returned or are they all fakes?
Well according to some individuals here (and on other audio sites) all premium cables are fake. 
ouch
But funny 
That’s good. But in fairness, I haven’t heard anyone here say all primo cables are fake. Elsewhere, no doubt.
I have Transparent Audio Reference cables everywhere in my system but power cables from Audioquest…I like it, I wouldn’t change it for 100€ cables…So you found at least one on this forum who enjoys premium cables…However, some may argue that the cables I use are not premium, it is true that they are in the middle of the range in the Transparent catalog…
I expect there are plenty of us here who pay “more than necessary” for their cables. What constitutes “premium” may be subject to debate, but anyone who evaluates, or accepts the recommendation of someone, and purchases a more expensive cable than the job minimally requires—even if it’s only for the build or attractiveness of the cable—has by some definition bought a premium cable. My guess is that includes a bunch of us.
Of course I know that most of the individuals on this site believe that cables make a difference, I surely do.
My comment was a bit tongue in cheek response to Pete’s “are they all fake?” post. knowing that there are some who question anything relating to cables, power cords, servers, switches, etc.
Uhm … it’s not just “believing”. The fact is that when you have ears you notice it.
Of course, not when you test well known ScamCables produced in China or other stuff that can easily be spotted on the Web.
But of course there are many other contraptions that are supposed to improve music and are not met with the same enthusiasm by all audiophiles.
Btw, a good friend of mine, who made around 80K per week 20 years ago, taught me that “premium” is a relative concept. I am very happy that there are people who can afford a 40K passive power distributor (seen last week with my own eyes) and 70K speaker cables. They make money flow in the industry, they fund R&D, and eventually some technology advancements reach “ordinary” price tiers and I can benefit from them.
A.
Thanks Jim but I think I better clarify my thought behind my comment.
I wasn’t thinking of any issue relating to what one hears from changing cables but rather that all that I have heard about returning cables to AQ is that they are found to be fakes and are kept and destroyed. I had the rather mischievous thought that the result of this is that the customer has to buy a new cable and it may then be one of theirs albeit from an accredited dealer.
No doubt AQ suffers from piracy but I’d just like to hear of returns made to them with another result if anyone can post an example.
Absolutely, otherwise they can still change the name of the service …
I have a lot of sympathy with AQ over the issue of counterfeit cables. Their existence is bad for customers too.
That said, blocking people from selling a genuine cable (bought from an authorised dealer) doesn’t really resolve the counterfeit issue - it just makes it difficult for customers to upgrade.
Counterfeit cables will find their way on to the market one way or another, I suspect a better way to make it more difficult is to use complex serial numbers that can be authenticated.
The lesson seems clear here: if you want pharmaceutical grade, er, premium stuff, better stick to reputable sources with return privileges. 
I did.
My dealer handled AQ since there was an official distributor in my country he already had done business with before.
And the AQ people from Holland have regular personal contact and also visit his shop.
I’d probably accept an original receipt from an authorised dealer and then call them to confirm it was valid 
Not foolproof, but better than nothing… I’d still like a complex serial number, though!
I haven’t returned a cable to them, but did have to return a Niagara 1000 (again, purchased from an authorised dealer).
They didn’t question its authenticity (I included the receipt and the dealer had contacted them first) and they replied to say that it was a terminal case of magic smoke escaping (which I already knew as we could smell it two floors up!).
I did get a replacement, once they managed to get some workers back into the office (this was during the height of covid season), so no question of them claiming it was counterfeit.
Exactly this has happened to my AQ Niagara 1200 during Covid, and it was replaced within a week.
It seems they must be susceptible to covid!
Yes, they got nervous, and started smoking 