Counterfeit Hunter Or Informer?

I already know that a lot of fashion goods like clothes, shoes, caps, perfume and similar products are being counterfeited and sold in many e-commerce websites. But being a non-buyer of fashion items, I was hardly concerned.

My attitude was ”Buyer Beware” and besides, counterfeit fashion items are just about anywhere. It is lamentable that many people even those well-to-do do not care if fashion companies lose money to these counterfeiters.

Such is the attitude in many of society today that counterfeiting is a victimless crime and fashion companies deserve to be victims of counterfeiters because to them, fashion companies already make too much money selling their high priced products.

In hindsight, to many people who buy counterfeit fashion items, the fashion companies are the enemy and the counterfeiters are the hero. This is the sad reality but it is the reality in many parts of the world.

A couple of years ago while doing some online shopping, I came across an online ad in a popular e-commerce website. It was for a laptop. I grew interested because I was meaning to buy a newer laptop than the one I currently owned.

The specifications of the advertised laptop was greater than my old laptop and what’s more, it was a less than a third of the price of my old laptop. I told to myself that this was a real bargain for a top of the line laptop.

To cut the long story short, I bought the laptop and when I opened the package it was indeed brand new. It was clean, shiny and definitely unused. However, upon running the laptop I soon found out that it was definitely a lot slower than my old laptop.

I didn’t know what to do. I checked the specifications on the packages as well as any documents I can find in the package which all stated that it was the top of the line laptop and should be much faster than my old laptop.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew I’ve been had. What I got was not from the actual manufacturer of the laptop but a counterfeit one. I just lamented on just how many buyers are victimized by counterfeiters.

After the incident I became interested in how companies deal with counterfeiters. And I grew shocked at the criminal extent of counterfeiting. According to the website Market Watch, the counterfeit industry market size is worth about $107.26 billion in 2022 alone.

This figure means that the counterfeit industry is worth more than some industries. It saddens me to say that: “Crime Does Pay.” This is because society has for the most part treated counterfeiting as a victimless crime.

Of course, companies who are victims of counterfeiting are trying to do something about the situation. Some companies have full time employees who go after counterfeiters, some employ professional counterfeit hunters.

Just who are counterfeit hunters? They’re like bounty hunters who get a reward whenever they track down or apprehend a criminal, the latter being the majority of the job. These people literally raid shops and factories to apprehend counterfeiters.

At this point you might just be getting interested in being one. Images of “Dog the Bounty Hunter” must be in your mind when you read the word bounty hunter. You might also be thinking of some of the exciting bounty hunter movies you watched before.

But contrary to their image as pistol packing bounty hunters, counterfeit hunters are a more subdued bunch. They usually go to malls and other buy and sell locations like flea sales and look for counterfeit items.

But one thing they have in common with bounty hunters is that their lives are always in danger. Counterfeiters are usually professional criminal gangs who would use intimidation and even physical danger to deter both bounty hunters and counterfeit hunters.

To many hardened and even amateur counterfeiters, what they are doing is “just business” even though they know that what they are doing is illegal and even downright criminal. This is just the nature of some people in this world who are prepared to do anything for money.

Should you decide to become a counterfeit hunter or even a bounty hunter who goes after criminals, this is the sort of people/criminal you are likely to meet. Many even have connections to criminal gangs.

I’ve come across some articles online regarding the life of a counterfeit hunter. Comparing the two below articles, you would easily come to the conclusion that being a counterfeit hunter is both an exciting or an out of the normal job but carries an element of danger to it:

1. Though Awash in Fakes, China Rethinks Counterfeit Hunters: As the title suggests the setting of the story is in China where a counterfeit hunter discusses his normal routine and how he is threatened by criminal gangs.

The counterfeit hunter also states that a lot of his earnings goes into court fees. This is because the counterfeiters and even the stores he has encountered usually legally fight back. This is something you should consider.

2. The First Family of Counterfeit Hunting: This article discusses the life of a family of counterfeit hunters. Once again, the story is about people leading existing or uncommon professions that has an element of danger to it.

One thing to note in the story is the extreme criminal methods counterfeiting syndicates would use against counterfeit hunters. In this family’s case, via hacking a counterfeit hunter’s credit card.

In case you’re wondering, a great deal of the counterfeit hunter’s activities are now done online. They check websites especially e-commerce sites on a regular basis looking for counterfeit items.

In fact, almost everyone with access to a stable and fast internet connection can do the same thing. It just involves a lot of time not actually shopping online but checking if the online items being offered online are legit or not.

One sample of how you can check is to research how much the manufacturer charges for their item on a retail basis. Knowing this, you can check for items listed online that are below the retail price of an item.

This is especially true if the item being sold is way below the retail item price of the manufacturer. This happens a lot with branded goods. For example, sports fashion giant Nike decided to pull out of Amazon because of rampant counterfeiting of their brand.

And counterfeiters are relentless. Once one of their online stores is closed, they immediately replace it with another online store using fake profiles. This is how pervasive is counterfeiting in e-commerce sites.

If being a counterfeit hunter is too risky for your taste, why don’t you become a counterfeit informer? This way, you can still do a part of a counterfeit hunter’s job without much of the danger associated with it.

But what is a counterfeit informer? As the name implies, you just inform the victims of the counterfeiting everytime you see their product being counterfeited. You can do this when you see a counterfeit while physically shopping or while online shopping.

All you need to do is to check e-commerce sites on a regular basis and check which are counterfeit items. You then report it to the company who owns the item in exchange for a fee. If you think that this is a simple job, think again.

Counterfeiters are now sophisticated and can almost pass off their counterfeit goods as originals. You need to do your homework on how to detect counterfeit items. Merely basing your assumptions on the glossy image of a product online is not enough.

The image might have been stolen from the original manufacturer’s website, so be wary. Study, look for clues. For example, look at the comments section, is there a comment which states that the item is a fake? The commenter might let the seller go, but this could be a find for you.

You could contact several of the companies whose products are being counterfeited and offer your services to each one of them. If ever these companies already have an anti-counterfeiting department or division, don’t be deterred. Counterfeiters are so many they can’t find them all.

Imagine what your job would be. Everyday, you scan the internet especially e-commerce sites for counterfeit products on behalf of your clients. You can charge a retainer fee or a finder’s fee depending on your arrangement with the company.

Since you are checking for several companies at once at every given moment, you are more productive than the actual companies themselves who only check for counterfeits of their own products.

As a result, you can charge a lower fee that their own in-house anti-counterfeiting department because you are doing the checking of counterfeits in bulk. You might even work for counterfeit hunters by doing the online counterfeit search for them.

Of course you have to be mindful of your safety. You decided to be a counterfeit informer and not a counterfeit hunter remember? You’re doing a less active job in exchange for safety. This should never leave your mind.

You can request anonymity contracts from your clients. Anyway, all you do is search online for counterfeits and do not leave any digital identity such that the counterfeiters can track you. So don’t log in using your real identity if you ever have to.

All you have to do is gather the proofs and submit it to your client companies and they can do the riskier job of going after the counterfeiters. You might also want to keep your job a secret from your friends, relatives and any other acquaintances.

This is because you might be endangering not only your own life but your family and close acquaintances as well. Counterfeiters might not be killers or gang members but they can still be vengeful.

But don’t let my warnings scare you. As the previous 2 articles I have linked about counterfeit hunters, it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. You might get threatened at the most if ever you’ve come into contact with a counterfeiter.

I tried to see how easy it was to spot a counterfeit online. I wondered if I can do it in minutes and whether being a counterfeit informant was a worthwhile career. I tried to see if I can find counterfeit “Ferrari caps online.

So I went into Google and type the search words: “Ferrari caps”. To my amazement, Google displayed at the very top of the search result several images of Ferrari caps together with their accompanying price.

Several of the Ferrari caps being sold where expensive while the others are just a quarter of the price and even less. This was my first clue. I also noticed that the expensive Ferrari caps where being sold on a non e-commerce website.

The cheaper ones which were just about the quarter of the price and even lower were being sold on a famous e-commerce site. And to my surprise, they were from an overseas seller from either China or Korea.

I’m no expert at counterfeits, but I do know that many fashion item counterfeits do come from those countries. Imagine a supposedly similar item being much, much more cheaper than the local counterpart.

Being a counterfeit hunter is a good job considering the growing market for counterfeit items. It is such a profitable job for some that many are even aspiring to become counterfeit hunters for the exciting and uncommon job lifestyle it provides, but it can be dangerous job.

Being a counterfeit informant is much less risky than being a counterfeit hunter and could even be a work from home job. But you need to study counterfeits and must have a deductive mind able to spot irregularities in an online product being offered.

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