Consumer Education is the Key to Counterfeit Prevention

 According to the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, Counterfeit products are defined as any product bearing an unauthorized representation of a manufacturer's trademark or trade name. Examples of products which have been counterfeited include prescription and over-the-counter drugs, clothing, credit cards, watches, pacemakers, and machine and automobile replacement parts. Because counterfeit products are often of sub-standard quality, there are potential safety risks which may cause personal injury as well as economic loss.

After understanding what they are, it is also important to know how counterfeit products enter the market. The most common is entrance in the supply chain prior to receipt by the point of sale, best described as shipping false products to the quality counterfeit money . This is usually done where shipments enter large import areas, and can easily be substituted by an insider working for an organized crime group. Another approach is "street selling", rule of thumb is that if someone is standing on the street selling high value products, it is either stolen or counterfeit. This type of counterfeit is usually supported by organized crime as well. There have also been instances of companies ordering directly from companies that represent the counterfeiters, though this is not intentionally done or known in advance, it is a problem. There are massive amounts of lawyers today that focus on this area, to help companies learn how to protect their good from such things happening. However, in my opinion there still is a need for a special way to protect consumers.

Let us picture a hypothetical situation. It is Christmas Eve, and you and the family just are about to go to bed. All of a sudden the smoke alarm goes off in your house. You rush to find what is causing this; you know you turned everything off, even the Christmas tree. What about the kids, what should you do now, can you stop the fire, did someone call the fire department, and did someone get the kids out. Now after all the confusion settles down, and you recover from the shock, the fire inspector walks up to you holding the extension cord you used for the Christmas tree. You start to wonder, why he would be interested in your extension cord. You know it was turned off. He then shows you that the cord was the cause of the fire, and you are amazed at this. The first thing that comes to mind is rage, how could this happen? I purchased it at a normal hardware store.