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A data research company has warned shoppers to be careful as they begin bargain-hunting ahead of ‘Black Friday’ and has revealed the top five most counterfeited brands online.
Black Friday, which kicks off the US’s holiday shopping season, is traditionally a busy day for buying as retailers slash prices.
“Online shoppers need to be careful when finding a great deal. The amount of web shops selling counterfeit products or running scams is on the rise—and those who aren’t careful can easily be fooled,” said Dataprovider.com as part of its report.
Nike, Apple, Adidas, Puma and Converse make up the top five most counterfeited brands found online, according to the report.
Dataprovider.com also set out a variety of tips to distinguish between a fake store and the real deal. These include looking for a clear refund policy, monitoring for URLs which don’t match the products sold, and being careful when products are offered at a 70% discount or more.
“The company [Dataprovider.com] has combined several indicators of fraudulent online stores and used this information to create a filter that looks for websites that sell counterfeit products in 50 countries worldwide,” the report said.
Christian Branbergen, CTO at Dataprovider.com, highlighted some of the other dangers of counterfeit websites.
“We have found a distinction between web shops that accept the payment but don’t deliver the product, those that are after people’s payment details and criminals who hope to receive login credentials to access other accounts by that person,” he explained.
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Report, black Friday, counterfeit, Dataprovider.com, anti-counterfeiting, Nike, Apple, Adidas, Puma, Converse
