I bought two of these cases from caseswill.com and have owned 3 real Element Cases in the past. I got the Black Ops and the Spectra FE gray from Caseswill.
The real thing is nice, no doubt about it, but now that I have these there is just no way I would ever pay EC's price again. The rashguards made the fit too tight so I had to leave those off, but other than that it very hard to discern a difference. And they do not seem to be painted - something more like powder coating is my guess. I went with a real 3M privacy screen instead of the one (I don't think it's really 3M) provided by Caseswill.
The Black Ops backplate looks exactly like one on EC's site. And by getting both of them, I can mix and match the screws (black vs gunmetal) and the power button (black vs silver).
And...unlike Element Case, these guys sent regular status updates and delivery was made from Hong Kong to my house in the US in a little over a week. With EC, I would still be waiting without an update.
Seriously, these things may be knock offs, and that's too bad, but the real thing is the real rip off once you see this on your phone for about 30 bucks.