Scam Alert: Those Viral "Rammstein Lamps" Are an AI Fraud

You've probably seen them by now. A bald guy in a Rammstein hoodie stands in his workshop, polishing an epoxy resin lamp with a tiny Till figure and flamethrower wings, while the caption asks: "Should I really stop making these lamps? 🥲" In another clip his wife tells him to quit and get a real job. Heartbreaking stuff. And completely made up.

Watch the clips properly and it falls apart fast. The hoodie never actually says "RAMMSTEIN". One clip reads "RIMM MS..N", another "REMMS+HN", another is pure letter soup – different every single time. AI video generators still can't render text on clothing, and it's one of the most reliable ways to catch them. The man isn't the same person twice either: slimmer here, stockier there, different head shape, different ears. And the resin physics are nonsense. A figure stands in the middle of liquid resin without displacing a drop while perfect colour swirls appear out of nowhere. Anyone who has ever poured real epoxy knows it doesn't work remotely like that.

The scheme itself is an old trick in a new costume. In May, ABC News exposed dozens of shops running near-identical AI clips – always the struggling craftsman, always the family pushing him to give up, only the product changes. Sometimes it's Mario lamps, sometimes hand-sewn flat caps. Now it's Rammstein's turn.

The Shop: Anonymous, Brand New, Unlicensed

Every one of those videos leads to the same place: rammsteinkunst.com, where the lamp sells for €94.95, "reduced" from €149.95, naturally. It's a Shopify store thrown together in July – and it's missing everything a legitimate retailer needs. No legal imprint. No terms and conditions. No cancellation policy. No address, no name, no email. Just an anonymous contact form. For a shop deliberately targeting German customers, that's flat-out illegal, and consumer watchdogs have been saying the same thing for years: no imprint, walk away.

The rest fits the pattern. A banner screams "DISCOUNT ENDS TODAY 🎸" on a loop, the "reviews" sit unverifiable right on the product page, and delivery is a "pre-order" of 40 to 60 working days. That's exactly the window in which shops like this either ship nothing at all or some cheap knock-off from overseas that has nothing to do with the video.

And to be clear: none of this has anything to do with the band. Rammstein's name and logo have been registered trademarks since 1995, and official merch only exists through the official Rammstein shop and authorised retailers like EMP. You won't find a resin lamp with a Till figure there – for good reason.

Already Ordered? Move Fast

If you've paid, don't sit on it. On PayPal, open a buyer protection case right away – but careful: if you paid via "send money to friends", you're out of luck, and fake shops love pre-selecting exactly that option. Credit card payers can request a chargeback from their bank, and you have up to 120 days to do it. Direct debits can be reversed for eight weeks. With a regular bank transfer, your only shot is calling your bank immediately – a recall usually only works within the first few hours. Whatever you do, save screenshots and receipts, file a police report, and report the ad to TikTok or Meta so it doesn't catch more fans.

For next time: garbled text in the video, faces that keep changing, no imprint on the shop, countdown pressure and weeks-long "pre-orders" – those are the alarm bells. When in doubt, run the shop through a fake-shop checker. Or keep it simple: buy merch where the band actually sells it.

Whether rammsteinkunst.com ships nothing or just junk is impossible to say for a shop this young. Everything else – the AI videos, the missing imprint, the missing licence – is on the record.