Don’t fall foul of fakes

My favourite….
I was looking for a camera battery.
Looking at an auction on ebay titled “Genuine Nikon Ion Battery”, I checked the picture and ION was spelt IOM on the battery !!!!!!!

Went to a local camera store and ordered one instead.

Of the two problems highlighted here – [1] people are being diddled, and [2] there is a risk to health, or safety, or both – I feel the second is by far the more important and should attract more attention from trading standards/consumer protection. As we know from other Which? Conversations, perfectly legitimate traders with impressive and powerful websites are selling non-compliant electrical connectors, both directly and indirectly [through other traders under their umbrella], and not doing much to stop it. A lot of people knowingly buy fake products, probably because they cannot afford the real thing. After all if a handbag looks like a Mulberry, functions like a Mulberry, and gives a few months’ service like any other handbag, that might be good enough; the fact that it hasn’t cost as much as a Mulberry is a bonus [even though the selling price is still a rip-off because the quality of material and manufacture is shoddy]. Same with a fake Rolex watch. I know someone who bought one on holiday in Greece; it looked more-or-less like a Rolex and told the time for a few months but no reputable jeweller would repair it or fit a new battery. None of that mattered – it looked smart enough to impress and nobody else would have been rude enough to question its provenance. In terms of product quality, buying on-line carries the same risks as the old-fashioned mail order. If you can’t examine the goods before purchase you know you are taking a risk. The added complication these days is the almost complete lack of protection when things go wrong. For mail order, suppliers needed to advertise through magazines and newspapers; once the publishers started receiving complaints about particular traders or products the advertising was terminated. The on-line open market place is a free-for-all on a global scale where any dodgy dealer can set up their stall and con the gullible. Other than much better consumer education, it’s difficult to see what can effectively be done to control it.

I agree – I think this is a pretty big problem, especially with electricals. I would be very wary of buying these on sites like eBay or Amazon as it can be difficult to tell the real thing from a fake.

My mum has fallen victim to this unwittingly several times. She bought Disney DVDs (from eBay and Amazon) as presents thinking they were genuine, and it was only when we saw them / tried them out that we spotted a couple of signs they weren’t the real deal. She couldn’t tell at all (they were pretty convincing copies). This is not as worrying as unsafe electricals obviously, but it was distressing for her, disappointing for the intended recipients, and impossible to get a refund.

I think the difference is that in ‘the old days’ people were usually more aware they were buying a fake. On the internet it is much bigger scale and much harder to tell genuine from fake. As John Ward says, when it is a reputable online brand (e.g. Amazon or eBay) people tend to assume they can trust any traders on the marketplace as legitimate, but this isn’t the case.

I tend to avoid online marketplaces offered by amazon, play, ebay etc unless its a trader with a normal retail presence. Otherwise I’m just not prepared to take the risk.