Bought this on ebay. had a cheesy graphic on it that i peeled off, now its glue/paper beneath. So the stuff that the glue paper is attached to is plastic. The front face doesnt have the six screws that im used to seein on HRAPs.
The back has two visible screws. If theyre removed, then middle of the metal plate can be slightly bent outward on the cord side, but is still attached at the corners (under the feet maybe?) Is this maybe an older version? The buttons feel kinda whack too, all make a different sound. It play responsively enough? (never played on a decent stick) Could use advice on if its legit, and how to take it apart/clean it up. Or at least what to google.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70220025@N05/7657324872/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70220025@N05/7657324244/

Sorry to break it to you but you don’t have a HRAP3 or anything resembling a HRAP. If this was advertised as a HRAP3, I would open a dispute with eBay/PayPal.
You have a Chinese joystick with generic Chinese parts, IIRC. There have been a couple of threads here about modding it with Sanwa parts but I think you can essentially follow the Mayflash modding guides, as they are similar sticks.
That looks to me like a Honcam stick.
E.g.:
Ah! thats the art that was on it. It was bubbling and peeling when i got it. contacted e-bay seller. we’ll see what happens. Id much rather put the 40ish bucks i paid (with shipping, thinking i was getting a deal) toward a real stick) 
It’s a knock-off joystick…
Standard Hori HRAP’s (the old style cab) had 6 carriage bolts on top of the faceplate to secure it. This joystick does NOT have that nor the standard “carbon fiber” sticker art found on the generic HRAP’s.
The bottom plate finishes the fraud… No disputing this is NOT a Hori product.
That style of cab – IF it’s a legitimate Hori joystick – has 8 VISIBLE screws on the bottom. I see only 2 visible screws there. Unless it’s shabbily built, the rest of the rest of the screws are probably covered by the anti-skid pads.
You got hosed, bud.
You have to do your homework and be careful about what you buy online – especially from e-Bay. Some sellers don’t know what they have, others are just plain crooked. (Same applies to buyers, too, but you hear more about sellers.) Even here, people still get screwed on deals that are too good to be true or not consumated by the seller.
Thanks for the replies, btw!
It seemd a little fishy, but i decided to go with it, figuring it may have been an older model (hard to find a page/thread of the history of the stick over all.)
I had to rip off the art, as shown, to check some things, figuring maybe someone just nastily threw the art over the screws etc, so theres that issue, but between paypal and ebay, I can’t see how i won’t be refunded, given that it wasnt listed as a stick that i falsely assumed to be a HRAP, but rather one LISTED as a Hori in the first place.
You’re not the first person who got scammed… It’s happened once or twice to me as a buyer – goods bought were NOT in NEW OR EXCELLENT shape as advertised – and as a seller I had a guy recently try to gouge money out of me over an alleged “not delivered product.”
(I checked and postal website said that the item I sold was delivered to the address this fellow gave me… Had he waited another week or two INSTEAD of blasting away at me and accusing me of being a thief to both PayPal and Bonanza, I probably would have refunded his money. I’ve waited on items FAR LONGER than one week – the buyer gave me less than a week before he filed a report – and gave sellers the benefit of the doubt until after a month. This fellow just wouldn’t honor the rules and shot his gun off right away! Both PayPal and Bonanza ruled in my favor, btw.)
I always do minimum of delivery confirmation so that NEITHER the Post Office or buyers can scam me that way.
P.S. – The biggest scammers I find are comic shops buying old issues from collectors and Used Videogame Stores… On average, you can expect AT BEST 25% of market value on a hot comic… You generally get pennies on the dollar for most books, however. Right now, most comic shops aren’t even buying back issues of most things sold after 1986. The surer comics for them are from the 1960s and 1970s as Marvel releases more films based primarily on stories from those eras. Golden Age comics are harder to sell to all but high-rollers and comics published after 1986 generally have little story/historical value. The late 1980s is generally when the comic market started to dive quality-wise. The financial collapse of the US comic book market actually happened 1993-1994 after speculators gave up on the market.
Game stores are even worse on used games. First month, you’ll get 50% value of a newly released game. Unless a game becomes rare and in-demand, they’ll end up less than $5 paid back to you most times after a few months… This is why I’m VERY picky about the games I buy! (Plus I can’t afford to buy everything like most anyone else…)
I hear you on all those sentiments. The seller says it was his “nephews” which is a legitimate excuse, but we’ll see how its all handled.
Get your money back. A seller should not advertise an item as such if they are not 100% sure