Counterfeiting

• What products are affected
• Why you should avoid buying counterfeit or fake products
• What we are doing about it
• What you can do about it
• Reporting trade in counterfeit goods

Counterfeiting is the illegal copying of someone’s products. It is the theft from someone, an individual person, small company or a multi-national business, who has worked to put their ideas together whether they are computer games, clothes, movies or toys.

We are increasingly finding inferior, illegally copied and often unsafe goods on sale to the public. The production or importation of these goods is by unscrupulous businesses or individuals capitalising on well-known company names and brands or the original work of others.

The practice of counterfeiting has serious adverse effects on traders selling genuine goods and is prejudicial to companies and individuals who legally apply their name to goods or who own the brands or the legal right to reproduce original works. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 jobs per year are lost in the UK and European Union because of counterfeiting.

And the result is that consumers often end up with poor quality or at worst unsafe products.

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What products are affected

There is an ever increasing range of counterfeit products in the market place including:

• ‘designer’ clothing, sportswear and equipment;
• watches, perfume and cosmetics, belts and bags, pens;
• chart topping film and music on video, audio tapes and CD's, blank video and audio tapes;
• artistic works such as pictures, photographs and posters, china figures and models; and
• computer software such as games, business programmes and material for decoding satellite television broadcasts.

Other areas of illegal copying include:

• patent drugs
• vehicle components
• books
• food products
• proprietary medicines.
  
  

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Why you should avoid buying counterfeit or fake products

There are lots of reasons why you should not buy fakes.

• The goods may be dangerous - from cosmetics that can cause skin rashes to fake car parts that may cause accidents.
• A lot of fake goods fund drug dealers and other organised crime - even terrorism.
• You may end up paying higher taxes because people who deal in fakes don't - consumers like you end up making up the difference.
• You may be putting local people out of jobs because genuine manufacturers can't compete with the criminals making and selling fakes.
• If you buy fake goods and they don't live up to your expectations, you won't get any after sales service or guarantees.
• Fake goods deprive the copyright owner of money that they may use to fund new development.

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What we are doing about it

The production, distribution and sale of counterfeit products is viewed seriously by Trading Standards services. We work closely with, and receive information from, our colleagues and many organisations representing legitimate trade interests. This results in, across the Country, the seizure of many thousands of pounds worth of counterfeit goods annually.

Locally we monitor all the usual outlets for counterfeit products and when possible take action against the sellers.

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What you can do about it

Don’t buy fakes!

Top tips to avoid buying fakes are listed below.

• Be suspicious about bargains. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
• Don't buy goods if they are too cheap for famous named products; be wary if you are told they are 'seconds' or 'rejects'.
• Wherever you buy, always get an itemised and dated receipt. Don't risk it if the seller will not give you one bearing his name and address.
• Find out if you have any guarantees or after-sales service.
• Examine the quality of the goods.
• Check labels and packaging for misspellings and poor logos.
• Take extra care at street markets, car boot sales, pubs and computer fairs, or in other situations where it may be more difficult to get in touch with the trader after the purchase.
• Don't buy from a man in the pub, or car park, whose full name you don't know, whom you have never met before and who you are unable to contact again.
• You should also guard against buying fakes on the Internet.

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Reporting trade in counterfeit goods

You can use the anonymous reporting form link below to report direct to Trading Standards any suspicious trading activity in relation to:

• counterfeit goods (such as hair straighteners, boots, clothing, mobile phone accessories and so on; or
• unauthorised copying of genuine products (such as software, games or DVD's).

Please provide a brief description of the trading activity being reported and then complete as much detail as you can about the trader in the online form.

You can also anonymously report all other types of rogue trader activity, including illegal money lending by using the "Rip-Off-Tip-Off" website.

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