Buyer beware of counterfeit goods

Windsor Police warn items are ‘too good to be true’

by Rob Benneian

What if someone made you an offer you couldn’t refuse?

If the offer came from someone selling electronics out of the bed of their pickup truck, you would be wise to pass up such an opportunity.

Windsor Police warn that in recent weeks, victims have unknowingly purchased counterfeit goods from scammers looking to make a quick buck. Items such as Apple iPhones, Dr. Dre Beats headphones, perfume, golf clubs and power tools are among the counterfeit goods turned over to Windsor Police by ripped-off customers.

One such victim recently turned over six counterfeit iPhones purchased for $1,500 which detective Glenn Gervais says “are great mp3 players…but they can’t be connected to any phone system.”

Gervais, a 30 year veteran of the Windsor Police force who is now in his fifth year with the financial crimes unit, warns there are some obvious, telltale signs that an item might be phony.

“The quality of them is poor, they basically weigh about half of the weight of a real iPhone,” Gervais said. “The actual appearance of the phone doesn’t look as clean or neat as an actual iPhone. The boxes are all matte finish, they’re not gloss finish. This (indicating the box the counterfeit phones came in) is just laser copy on top. All they’ve done is just copied all the stuff you get inside an iPhone (box), but if you look at this one here (indicating the user’s manual), it’s not even cut straight. The cut marks are off, someone’s just doing that with scissors, whereas the real one is all glossy and everything. If you look at that one it’s just (crappy) plastic. It’s just crap.”

Gervais demonstrated how poor quality the counterfeits are by showing he could pull apart the iPhone with his bare hands. Some of the pieces of the counterfeit iPhones that would be made of glass on a legitimate phone were made from cheap plastic.

“The reality is if it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” Gervais said.

He said the counterfeiters are generally from out of town. Gervais said they come down to Windsor for a day, sell as many counterfeit items as they can for cash and get out of town. Their victims are left without a quality product, and there is very little the police can do for them.

“It’s ‘buyer beware’,” Gervais said. “The beauty of it is they deal in cash, so a lot of people who get duped might be too embarrassed to report it anyway.”

He warned even getting the license plate number of the car a counterfeiter is operating out of often doesn’t help, as they frequently rent cars using phoney identification.

Gervais said residents should be leery of gimmicks used by counterfeiters, such as  “I came down to Windsor to deliver these items and they put extra on my truck my boss (or company) won’t know, so I am offering the items deeply discounted.”

Counterfeit items such as the Apple iPhone are a trademark infringement offense under the Criminal Code of Canada.