General Chat

I have never wanted designer goods so wouldn't want fake ones either, doesn't bother me in the slightest that my belongings are run of the mill, do the job and look ok items. My son was never brought up to think designer gear meant it was better than ordinary articles but due to peer pressure, I was persuaded to buy him the usual trendynamed trainers etc. I think he is a bit more inclined towards designer clothing etc now, but as he doesn't earn loads of money and has a flat to run, he can't afford much and will just buy when he can afford it from ebay, i.e. secondhand, or from stores with affordable named goods.
I think it is sad to want things that have certain names etc on them, has no one heard of originality?
Lizx

Having lived in southern Italy I know full well what they do and who it effects. I certainlly would not personally want to line their pockets.

Having said that I don't buy designer things anyway lol

WHy were you shocked? I would have been over the moon to be given the chance to buy fake goods at a cut down price - not that I would have, cos I dont give a damn about branding, but to have the choice would be nice :-)

I notice that in the scaremongering report below, all the links to terrorists etc are 'thought to be' or 'believed' to be. So the Madrid bombers pirated CD's? What does that mean? If they had sold drugs instead would that have made it OK?

The point is, there is a demand and they are feeding it. Remove the demand and they move onto something else. Make the penalties harsher and the people who make the stuff get paid less! Its simple economics.

Its a fact of life - we are never ever going to stop peoples greed for consumer products. End of.

I was shocked when coming home from Tunisia a couple of years back, to see not only the fake goods on sale, but where they were on sale ...........The airport shops!

If it wasn't for the sheer greed of people who want a designer or otherwise expensive item for a knock down price, these markets wouldn't exist.

Dont blame the suppliers - all they are doing is feeding a hunger. So what if they are criminal gangs? What would they be doing if they weren't counterfeiting or faking? They wouldn't be working in supermarkets or banks, thats for sure! They certailny arent going to go straight and legit just because there is a clamp down on fake goods.

But do blame rampant consumerism.

:-)

DD you are right there!!

Apparently in Bangkok you can tell by whether they have the LOGO in the window or not!! If they have then they are legitimate.

In the bigger shops here maybe but you can't guarantee that in shops abroad.

I think if its sold on eBay then you can almost guarantee its a FAKE and no matter what people say genuine new articles are only ever sold in shops!

When it comes to 2nd hand goods.... you pay your money and take your chance!!

But there is usually a reason why something is a bargain and that reason is its FAKE!!

Through a labyrinth of offshore accounts, internet transactions and cash payments made through middlemen who subscribe to the criminal code of silence, the counterfeiters have managed to expand their global business at an astonishing rate.

With the penalties for smuggling counterfeit goods far lower than for importing drugs, many crime gangs are using their sophisticated network of supply routes and middlemen to flood the market with fakes.

Various methods are used to smuggle the finished products on to the streets of Britain and America. In one case, authorities intercepted a fishing boat towing millions of dollars-worth of fake goods in a concrete casket submerged below the waves.

Many are simply shipped across continents by giant container ships. Only one in ten will ever be searched.

'These are enterprising individuals,' said Mr Kessler. 'Say, for example, they are making fake perfume. They need a place that makes bottles, a factory with pumps to fill the bottles, a printer to make the labels and a box manufacturer to fake the packaging. Then they need a sophisticated distribution network, as well as all the cash to set everything up. It takes a powerful organisation to do that.'

Small wonder, then, that investigators fear that terrorist organisations are now behind some of the counterfeit gangs, using the profits to fund their training camps and purchase weapons.

U.S. sources say that the profits from counterfeit goods, including fake Viagra, have been traced to Hezbollah, the militant group in Lebanon.

Closer to home, former IRA and UDA paramilitaries in Northern Ireland are now thought to control 80 per cent of their local trade in fakes. There are even fears that Al-Qaeda may be in on the action.

When associates of the men who flew the planes into New York's twin towers were picked up after fleeing into Canada, they were found to have documents linking them to the manufacture of counterfeit goods.

Similarly, the men currently inprisoned for their role in the Madrid train bombings - that killed 191 people in 2004 - had used proceeds from the sale of pirated CDs and Hollywood films to fund their activities.

So could Osama Bin Laden himself be profiting from the counterfeit trade? Intelligence sources are taking the possibility very seriously.

'Nobody's saying that Osama's sitting in his cave somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan, stitching together Louis Vuitton bags,' one intelligence source told the Mail.

'But we're buying all this fake stuff and, for sure, some of the money's finding its way back to groups linked to him. Al-Qaeda is not missing out on this massive bounty. It's just too big.'

A separate Western intelligence source concurred, saying: 'It would be more shocking if Al Qaeda wasn't involved in counterfeiting. The sums involved are staggering - it would be inconceivable if money were not being raised for their terrorist activities.'

That's certainly a sobering thought for the thousands of Britons who buy fake goods in the belief that it does no real harm. As Lavinia Carey, chairman of the Alliance Against Property Theft, which acts for 200 top manufacturers of clothes, accessories, computer games, videos and music, says: 'Shoppers must be prepared to accept the wider moral implications of what they are doing.

'When they buy counterfeit goods, they are just thinking about themselves and what they want - they are not thinking about the cost in terms of violence, criminality and loss to others'.

Stung by the assault on their profits, designers such as Burberry and Adidas have now set up special units to fight back. As well as trawling internet sites for fake copies of their designs, some have also hired teams of forensic accountants to try to trace the money back to the leaders of the operation.

I work for the Government!

when I was in Cyprus last year there was a chain of shops all selling handbags which were copies of all the top designer brands. This was done openly in large trendy shops - why then don't the likes of Chanel and Gucci take them to the cleaners?

Where did you get that report from, Belair, if you dont mind me asking?

Del Boy's appearances in Only Fools And Horses may have made under-thecounter goods appear a harmless activity, but police and Western intelligence agencies say that brutal organised crime syndicates now monopolise the trade.

In other words, anyone who buys a fake Prada bag or knock- off Gucci sunglasses is the final link in a chain that includes criminals involved in extortion, prostitution, people-smuggling, murder and even terrorism.

Yet despite the endeavours of the the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, who have made investigations into counterfeiting a top priority, it would seem that business is booming for the crime gangs.

The market in counterfeit goods has now become the biggest illicit sector in the world, eclipsing the drugs trade.

Fake clothes, handbags, watches, perfumes, videos, CDs and computer programmes - you name it, criminals will copy it. And these goods now represent an astonishing one-tenth of all global trade.

In Britain, the bulk of counterfeiting is controlled by British crime bosses, often with overseas connections to Chinese Triads, Italian Mafia, Serbian gangsters and Far Eastern crime syndicates.

Remember the 21 Chinese cockle-pickers, who drowned after being cut off by the tide at Morecambe Bay three years ago? They had been smuggled into the country by members of the infamous Snakehead gang, whose favourite method of 'enforcement' is smashing body joints with a claw hammer.

Then the illegal immigrants were forced to work in the sea by day and to make counterfeit goods at night - in order to pay for their fake documents and passage to Britain.

At all levels of the counterfeiting business, extreme violence and cruelty are commonplace. There have been pitched battles between rival gangs - armed with knives, axes and baseball bats - at markets from London to Glasgow.

Brian Lewin, a Trading Standards officer from Northampton, will no longer go out without police back-up when called to investigate the sale of counterfeit goods.

'These people are involved in gang warfare,' he said. 'They carry all sorts of weapons and are prepared to use them against anyone who gets in their way. This is serious organised crime.'

Three-quarters of counterfeit items seized here last year came from factories in China, 'staffed' by children paid as little as £10 a week and working up to 18 hours a day. Since their fingers are small, they are better at the intricate stitching that makes fake designer items look so convincing.

Children have also reportedly been locked up in Far East factories - for days on end, without food or water - to hit deadlines for getting the latest fashions to London and New York.

As demand from Western customers has boomed, sweat shops have sprung up throughout China - particularly in Guangdong, an industrial centre near Hong Kong - to cope with the massive demand for popular brands, such as Fendi, Prada and Gucci.

By day, some factories even produce genuine designer goods destined for sale in the top boutiques of London, Paris, New York and Rome. By night, some corrupt factory bosses bring in a 'night shift' to make fakes.

According to reports by aid workers, Chinese officials regularly accept bribes from factory bosses to turn a blind eye to child exploitation. Raids are seldom carried out.

Nor is the racket confined to the world of high fashion; cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, cigarettes - all have been the target of counterfeiters. 'Nothing is off limits,' said Michael Kessler, chief of Kessler International, a U.S. firm of corporate investigators. 'It's not just luxury goods - these people will sell whatever will make a buck. They are totally unscrupulous, highly-organised and dangerous.'

Mr Kessler added: 'It's no good taking out the street vendors selling the gear - that's just like taking out drug dealers and not going to the heart of the matter. We need to take out the people who are making this stuff.'

That may prove difficult. Through a labyrinth of offshore accounts, internet transactions and cash payments made through middlemen who subscribe to the criminal code of silence, the counterfeiters have managed to expand their global business at an astonishing rate.

With the penalties for smuggling counterfeit goods far lower than for importing drugs, many crime gangs are using their sophisticated network of supply routes and middlemen to flood the market with fakes.

Surely its up to peoples own common sense to tell them that if they buy stuff in an auction, they have no grounds to complain that it was later found to be fake, regardless of what they paid? If they want to be sure its genuine, use a retailer against whom you have some comeback would be my advice.

You can't legislate against daftness. Let the buyer beware. Its a simple principle and one that stands in good stead. What about the people who sell quack remedies - magnets and homeopathic rubbish....should there be laws to stop them....?

No, not at all. Let the buyer decide.

Blair
I personally think that fake goods should not be sold as originals but if they are marked as fake or renamed as guccy, Ralph Lawren etc we'd all know where we stand

"Where is the connection between terrorism and counterfeit (or copied) goods? "

If you are referring to my comment re the mafia then the answer is that very often what is being sold on the streets and some shops in Naples is not always copies just stolen then sold on and also copies of originals.

I agree that designer labels are often made in poorer countries but there is a very real connection with criminal organisations and counterfeit goods.

But what do you think of these items being sold on places like Ebay and being passed off as the genuine items ie Lacoste,Ralph Lauren, Christian Louboutin, Jimmy Choo ect,ect, fake shoes being auctioned at the same price as genuine items. The sellars don't pass on the fact that these are not genuine items, if you bought a bag from a stall or street sellar you would know that these are not real.

I don't knowingly own fake items..... I only buy from stores and I am adament about the statement "If I can't afford the real thing, fake won't do!"

But I have Gucci items that were presents and I although I am 95% certain they are real there is a ? over them!

Devils advocate here - what happend to let the buyer beware?

As far as I can see, the only thing that anyone is getting het up about is the craze for 'designer names' - to flaunt to other people as a sort of 'I'm better or richer than you cos I got a gucci this that or the other...'.

I certainly lose no sleep over the concept that some huge multi national is losing money over some plagiarised goods. The people that are buying them wouldn't, in all likelihood, be buying the grossly overpriced originals anyway.

Where is the connection between terrorism and counterfeit (or copied) goods? Are real Nike and Adidas goods all made in unionised state of the art factories in the USA where health and safety and a minimum wage are sacrosanct? I don't think so! This is all about trademarks and intellectual property - nothing more.

I agree with Daff, purchasers should be prosecuted if it is apparent they knew the goods were fake.

Abroad it is a bit different as unwary tourists could be under the impression that the goods are cheaper because they are tax free/ made in that country. except for the very well known makes of course.

The trouble is, in Lanzarote, Tenerife etc you can hardly buy anything that is not masquerading as something else. (Nike, Raebock etc)

Ann
Glos