It is essential to avoid buying counterfeit items from the internet as it poses several risks. There are financial risks, risks of security bridges as well as a risk to your health if the goods you are buying are intended to be consumed. It can be a bit difficult to determine what a real product is and what is a fake product and therefore, one can adhere to the following tips to avoid buying counterfeit products and aid in the anti-counterfeiting war against such products.
Verify the identity of the vendor
It is important to verify the details of the online seller to determine if they even exist in the first place. Some of the things you need to verify are the company’s name, its physical address, the given phone number, and also the email address. If you are buying items from established sites such as Amazon it is important to determine if whatever you are buying is being sold by a third party.
Substantiate reviews by other customers
One gives away a sign of a fake product is that it will be given a favorable review that it is fake. Many positive reviews could be an indication that something is not right. Also, you can check to see if it is the same individual who tends to review the same product but on several different websites. If a review seems to be very vague, that could be an indicator of a fake product. Another option is to use online tools such as Fakespot which helps to check if a review is genuine.
Scrutinize the photos of the product
In this day and age, it is easy for someone to edit the photo of a product to make it look like the original. To counteract this, one can download the image of the product and then use google to do a reverse search of the image. This will help in determining if that image had been taken on another site. Another option would be to contact the vendor who is selling the item and ask them if they can provide you with additional images of the product they are selling. Of course, if they can’t provide them to you, this would be a clear indication that something is not right.
Look out for unrealistic prices
Fake items are usually sold at a price that is much lower than the one that would be quoted by official retailers on their website. It is imperative to compare prices of the same product by checking on its price on several different sites. This should be helpful by determining if there is a big discrepancy and therefore, would be an indicator that the good on offer is suspicious. The rule is if the price is too good to be real then it probably is.
Analyze the arrangement of the website
A lot of fake products are sold on websites that have not been done professionally. A sure indicator is that they will have a lot of spelling mistakes as well as errors in grammar. They can also tend to use a lot of similar words and certain phrases repetitively.
