Beware The Fakes
One has been plagued with the dangers of counterfeit material and products all of our lives. There are some memorable classics in counterfeit stuff that are almost laughable. For as long as a product has been successful there has been someone somewhere who thought to themselves that they could make something that looked almost the same, cost a fraction of the price and break within 5 minutes of use. Of course the flooding o the market with cheap gadgets and everyday objects from China and Taiwan and such countries has not helped getting rid of this problem. Before online purchases became famous the counterfeit material marketers set their sights on stuff sold on the home shopping channel and the likes of that. I remember that mere days after a new hair product or a kitchen robot machine of sorts got announced on the TV Shopping Channel a similarly named and shaped item would pop up in the less reliable stores.
But nowadays, with so much money changing hands online, the problem with fake products has grown exponentially. And so have the dangers related with the purchase of said products. Let’s take a popular product like ghd straighteners. Being sold online as well as in stores makes it a prime target for scammers. And a bad counterfeit product harms the original brand as much as it harms the person using it, be it physically or just in their wallet.
The fight against these people needs to be fought by the authorities, naturally, but also by the companies themselves and by you, the consumer. The company should provide ways to verify if their products are the real deal or not. Plus, if you buy online from a dodgy website there are more dangers than just buying a bad product, your credit card and your privacy might be at risk also.
Keeping with the example of ghd, the company has taken steps to help in the fight against counterfeit products. If you go to the website website-checker.ghdhair.com you’ll get a lot of good advice on how to protect yourself against products like this. Not just that, they also have a list of dangerous websites and a simple and easy to use checker where you can insert the website where you’re planning to buy the product and they’ll tell you if it’s official or not.
But remember there are also steps you can take. Just remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.