As part of London's recently launched "Wake up—don't fake up!" campaign, aimed at raising the public awareness of counterfeit beauty products sold online, the city's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has just arrested two people for running a website that sells fake perfume and flatirons.
Here's what's surprising about the goods they seized: Turns out, you can't tell a fake product by its price tag—many the 250 confiscated items were surprisingly pricey. The flatirons were selling for 70 to 185 pounds ($110 to $290), and the perfumes cost between 32 and 125 pounds ($50 to $200). The packaging isn't shoddy or suspicious-looking, either—further proof that it can be extremely hard to tell whether something is a fake.
Here's a look at the counterfeit straighteners:
As we reported earlier, not only is this practice illegal but there are serious health and safety concerns about using counterfeit products.
And just because these arrests happened in England does not mean Americans shouldn't be concerned. Alice Skeats, the communications officer at PIPCU, told me that people all over the world are buying products from these websites. "This website was based in the U.K., however it was happy to [mail products] worldwide," says Skeats. "Fake beauty products being sold on the Internet is a global problem, as the websites are often happy to ship anywhere to make as much money as possible."
We suggest reading PIPCU's informative tips on how to spot counterfeit goods online. And if you suspect that something you're seeing is a counterfeit product, don't hesitate to alert the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, the U.S. government's clearinghouse for investigations into counterfeiting and piracy. You can submit a tip here.
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