More than 3,000 fake Gibson electric guitars have been seized through the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex as part of a multiagency law enforcement investigation, making it the largest counterfeit musical instrument seizure on record, authorities announced Tuesday.

Africa Bell, port director for the Los Angeles-Long Beach Seaport, provided no details about suspects or details of the case because it remained active but said that the products — worth more than $18 million if they were legitimate — were probably destined for e-commerce.

Several red, black and orange electric guitars sat on stands and rested on tables as U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced the seizure during a morning news conference in Carson.

“These guitars you see on display around me and behind me may look real to you, but trust and believe they are not,” Bell said. “They are fraudulent, and they are part of a massive attempt to con the American consumer.”

Bell said while most shipments comply with U.S. importation laws, many do not.

“Finding contraband illicit goods and revenue owed to the United States government in this massive amount of cargo arriving here every day is like trying to find the smallest of needles and the largest of haystacks,” she said. “It’s a significant undertaking. This past fiscal year we prevented the entry of over $2 billion worth of counterfeit products into the United States. This is the highest recorded value to date.”

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan had a simple plan after graduating from college: Write some software that could assist their dads with all the paperwork that comes with being a contractor.

Two decades later, that idea has morphed into a Glendale company called ServiceTitan, which last year served some 8,000 plumbing, HVAC, janitorial and other firms with a soup-to-nuts software suite — and now plans to go public on Nasdaq under the ticker “TTAN.”

The tech company, which has raised about $1.4 billion in funding since its 2007 founding, did not disclose in the Nov. 18 filing how many shares it plans to sell or how much capital it wants to raise. A spokesperson declined to comment.

The initial public offering of stock marks a significant step for the company, which had filed confidential paperwork for an $18-billion offering in 2022, according to Business Insider, but didn’t move forward after the Federal Reserve sharply raised interest rates to combat inflation, freezing up the IPO market.

ServiceTitan — which makes most of its money charging a subscription for its services — reported revenue of $614 million in the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, up nearly a third from a year earlier; and a loss of $195 million, 28% less than in fiscal 2023. It had about $147 million in cash and equivalents on hand as of Jan. 31, 2024, and was carrying $175 million in long-term net debt.

The company, which serves contractors nationwide, says it wants to expand the number of trades and markets it serves. It employed 2,870 workers as of July 31 at its Glendale headquarters and t offices elsewhere in the U.S. and internationally.

ServiceTitan has developed a web-based software that can manage all aspects of a contractor’s business, including booking appointments, generating estimates, processing invoices as well as payroll and dispatching workers. Clients range in size from family-owned contractors to large national franchises.

It estimates it receives about 1% of what its clients charge their own customers, which totaled $62 billion in the 12 months that ended July 31. Competitors include BuildOps, Housecall Pro, Jobber and other companies that charge subscriptions for their web-based business management software.

The founders immigrated to the United States in the 1980s as children: Mahdessian, 39, from Iran and Kuzoyan, 41, from Armenia. Mahdessian’s father started a contracting business, and Kuzoyan’s, plumbing. Mahdessian went off to Stanford and Kuzoyan got into USC, with the pair meeting at an Armenian students event.

After graduation, they started in 2007 building a simple program to track customer calls and marketing budgets, but their venture soon attracted other contractors. The duo scored a seed round of funding from Mucker Capital in 2014.

ServiceTitan also has gone on to make acquisitions and raise more than $1 billion from Iconiq Growth, Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and others. Iconiq is the largest institutional shareholder of ServiceTitan, holding 24% of Class A shares.

The company’s share structure will ensure that control remains with the founders — Mahdessian is chief executive and Kuzoyan president — who will retain all Class B shares, which are entitled to 10 votes each.

Meritech Capital, in an analysis of the offering, said ServiceTitan appears to be eager to go public due to an unusual provision of its $365-million funding round in November 2022 when money was harder to come by. A so-called “IPO ratchet” protected participants by guaranteeing them more shares should the company’s IPO price decline below its funding-round valuation.

PitchBook valued the company at $7.6 billion at the time, meaning the IPO needs to trade above a “base” of $84.57 per share or ServiceTitan will have to issue more shares, Meritech said. The base per share price also compounds after a certain time, making it more difficult for the IPO price to exceed it.

“ServiceTitan is incentivized to get public ASAP,” Meritech stated in its report.

Lead underwriters on the IPO are Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. The offering is expected to be watched closely for signs that the IPO market is making a comeback.

Good news for bargain hunters: Gone are the days of having to stand in line at dawn and then elbow your way through a store to get your hands on coveted Black Friday deals, as many retailers have already launched their Black Friday sales in stores and online.

Target, Amazon and JCPenny were among the large retailers that released their promotions a week ahead of Thanksgiving, while Walmart and others dropped their deals on Monday.

Some experts say this is a broader shift toward spreading out discounts and sales throughout the month of November instead of just on Black Friday and its online counterpart, Cyber Monday.

Even so, Black Friday remains a popular day to shop for holiday gifts. Based on survey results, the National Retail Federation projected that 132 million people will go shopping that day, and almost two-thirds of them will do so in stores.

The preference for in-person shopping on Black Friday is a shift from last year, when the National Retail Federation estimated that 76.2 million people shopped in person and 90.6 million made purchases online.

Consumers who prefer to ditch the hustle and bustle in stores by looking for promotions and discounts online should be aware of retailer tricks meant to pressure shoppers into making a purchase, online scams, and porch thieves who are hoping to steal packages from your front door. Here are some tips from experts to help you make your way through the season’s first big shopping weekend.

Pressure to make impulse purchases

It’s already overwhelming to make your gift list and check it twice to ensure that you’re not missing anyone, whether it be your aunt in Boca Raton or your mailman down the street. It’s even more overwhelming to find one of those gifts on sale at an online retailer, only to see a tag in bold lettering that says “High Demand,” “Low stock” or “In 10 people’s carts,” because your next thought tends to be, “This could sell out, I need to get it now.”

These are often just mind games retailers and advertisers play that are “designed to spur us to make hasty spending decisions,” said R.S. Cross, campaign director for Public Interest Research Group.

The organization found that on top of urgent messaging, some sellers on the online marketplace Etsy are using fake countdown timers on deals that don’t expire.

PIRG tracked 20 bestselling or Etsy-curated products with countdown timers on deals and discovered that 16 timers reset for another 24 hours when the timer hit zero. The other four items further dropped in price when the timer ran out.

Other common tactics include displaying how much an item will cost by making monthly installments that “both make low-cost products’ prices seem cheaper and make expensive impulse purchases more doable,” according to the organization.

To help resist this manipulation, Consumer Reports suggests that consumers create a budget and stick to it. It’s easier said than done, especially when Black Friday deals are presented as limited-ime offers.

Consumer Reports also recommends starting shopping early. If you purchase an item now and see a price that has dropped later, you can contact customer service and they’ll usually refund the difference.

As you search for deals this week, Cross said, compare items across various online retailers “and don’t get distracted by offers you haven’t had the time to think through,” said Cross.

You can use online tools including Google Shopping, Price Grabber and Shopzilla to compare the price of products on various retailer outlets.

Avoid online scams

When you peruse the internet for sales from specific brands and retailers, make sure you’re clicking on and making purchases from their official websites.

Online security group McAfee identified a surge in counterfeit sites and phishing scams that use the names of popular luxury brands and tech products to lure consumers into purchasing products for what the consumer believes are unbelievably low prices. Instead, they’re giving away personal information (including credit card, address and account information) to cyber crooks.

McAfee researchers found these sorts of scams targeting footwear and handbag brands, including Adidas and Louis Vuitton. Scammers also tricked consumers by using the Apple brand on fake websites linked to stores selling counterfeit Apple items alongside unrelated brands.

Experts say the best way to counter these scams is to be skeptical of a product when the discount seems too good to be true. Carefully check the URL of a website to ensure that it’s legitimate — even minor variations in spelling or style are a telltale sign of a scam.

Porch pirates

Online purchases are easy because once you click the “complete order” button, all you have to do is wait for the package to arrive at your front door. But porch pirates may also be prowling for packages to arrive so they can swipe them.

These thieves steal packages primarily from residences whose front doors are easily visible and within 25 feet of the street, according to the Better Business Bureau.

In the past year, porch pirates have stolen approximately $12 billion worth of packages, according to Security.org. The security system analysts found that apartment renters experience package theft at double the rate of those who live in single-family homes.

To avoid becoming a package-theft victim, experts recommend that you schedule their delivery on a day you’ll be home. You can sign up for tracking notifications from a retailer, UPS, FedEx and USPS to remind you of the date and time of an expected delivery.

If you can block the visibility of your front door by parking your car in the driveway, that might help keep porch pirates at bay, Officer Drake Madison of the Los Angeles Police Department said.

If you know you won’t be home when a package arrives, LAPD recommends that you ask a trusted neighbor or friend to look out for the package and pick it up for you. Some delivery companies also offer the ability to change when and where a package will be dropped off.

You don’t have to have your package delivered to your home. Many retailers offer the option to have an item shipped to one of their brick-and-mortar stores, and they usually offer pick-ups at a customer service counter or a designated parking space in their lot.

Amazon has pick-up counters or self-service lockers at retailers, grocery stores and pharmacies. FedEx can hold your packages for up to seven days at one of its retail partners, including FedEx Office, Walgreens, Office Depot and Dollar General stores.

If you stick with having your packages delivered and you won’t be home to receive them, there are an assortment of lockboxes and secure, oversized mail slots available, although they can be costly. Alternatively, you can install a security camera or doorbell with a built in webcam, but that won’t necessarily stop the theft. Instead, it can gather the evidence needed to obtain a refund from the shipper and share with local law enforcement.

“If a specific area is being targeted and everyone makes a report, it shows police where porch thief issues are occurring and will allow them to deploy resources accordingly,” Madison said.