please advice me FilterMeta about genuine-ness of water filters

January 18, 2019 8:34 PM

I need a new water filter for my Frigidaire fridge after 3 months. They're selling about $40-48 online from reputable retailers. Does anyone actually know if the ones on Ebay are genuine or not? They say genuine, and have the markings of a genuine filter, but are $12 or $13, way cheaper than from Amazon or Walmart.

Here's examples of the filter on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-PACK-Genuine-Frigidaire-Ultra-ULTRAWF-PureSource-241791601-Water-Filter-USA/173710132437

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Pack-Frigidaire-ULTRAWF-Refrigerator-Water-Filter-Ultra-241791601-242017801-US/143087426049

Highly rated sellers, NSF logo, box that looks like the original box, etc. What's the deal with these?

posted by seattlejeff to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

In my experience, they're almost all decent fakes if they're "new" and from a seller like that. The photos don't matter. They can just get the stock photos from someplace else. This has been true for me with two TV remotes (like they're decent fakes, maybe even used the original plastic mold, but clearly not original Samsung when we got it) and a couple other types of items. My vague guess is just that there's a market for factories to make very good knock offs of consumables like this. They may even be from the same source company.
posted by skynxnex at 9:30 PM on January 18, 2019

I'm wondering if you really need a new filter after 3 months. When the change filter light on my Whirlpool came on I just reset and waited for the next light to actually change. Never had a problem with that fridge in the 8 plus years we had it.
posted by COD at 5:42 AM on January 19, 2019

If I had to guess, if those are legit factory filters, they are probably expired stock or seconds. I understand your trepidation, though. FWIW, when I recently replaced the filter in my Whirlpool fridge (same type of filter), I opted for a third-party brand, available from Amazon as well as any of a number of online filter retailers. It was a lot cheaper than the factory filter, as well.

I kind of agree with COD, though. Three months is a significantly short time for a filter.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:13 AM on January 19, 2019

Most of the newer fridges (especially ones with a "change filter" light) are counting how many seconds of time the water valve is energized. A given number of seconds means a certain number of gallons have passed through the filter, which is compared to the known lifetime of the filter in gallons (not time).

Do you have an ice maker? Because that also counts against the internal filter meter.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:32 AM on January 19, 2019

http://filteritout.org/see-the-proof
posted by at at 7:59 AM on January 19, 2019

I attached a commercial grade filter to the back of the fridge at the water intake point. that way I don't need to use the fridge proprietary filters with their excessive costs.
posted by willnot at 6:54 PM on January 19, 2019

A few months ago I got a call from the head counsel for one of the major European appliance manufacturers. This person was trying to confirm if a person who was selling counterfeit water filters was a tenant of ours. (We have quite a few reshippers as tenants so plenty of mail is sent to and from these properties. We don't as a rule rent to scammers and counterfeiters!)

The appliance guy explained that these water filters can actually be pretty dangerous as they aren't filled with the regular carbon material but coal dust! Maybe they just don't want folks undercutting their business, but this person seemed pretty upset at the possible health hazard, especially babies drinking formula.
posted by vespabelle at 8:37 PM on January 19, 2019