We Asked an Expert How to Spot the Most Popular Counterfeit Items in the UK

Following fashion isn't cheap, especially when your definition of "fashion" is "major designer brands that you definitely cannot afford". So turning to eBay for £20 off might not seem like such a bad idea. But according to the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, it is, because you may well be buying a counterfeit version of what you wanted.

In 2013, the counterfeit industry was worth around £290 billion worldwide, and the internet makes it much easier for makers of fakes to thrive. If you don't really know what you're getting until it arrives, and items are sold at the same price as their authentic versions, then how are you meant to differentiate between real and rip-off?

Ahead of the VICELAND UK premiere of Black Market tonight, airing at 9PM on Sky channel 153 and hosted by Michael K Williams, we spoke to Alison Statham, Director of Operations at The Anti-Counterfeiting Group, to find out how popular counterfeits are in the UK, what Brexit means for the counterfeiting trade and what consumers can do to make sure they don't unknowingly buy fakes on the internet.

VICE: Which items to you see the most fake versions of?
Alison Statham: There's a wide variety of items in the market at the moment. The ones that are most obvious to the consumer are shoes and clothing – trainers, boots, sports gear, that sort of thing. They're the items that you see being sold on market stalls. However, more worrying products that we're seeing on a regular basis are things like pharmaceuticals, car parts – brakes, for example – airbags and electrical items, which can explode when you plug them in. Also, even worse, baby food and baby milk.

What are the dangers involved in purchasing counterfeit items?
A lot of the ones I mentioned speak for themselves in terms of the danger. But for example, the pharmaceutical products, which are found online, will have no active ingredients. So you might be taking something you believe to be for a heart problem or diabetes, but when you're consuming a counterfeit item, the best you could hope to be taking is chalk, and the worst is something that could do you more harm than good.

Are most counterfeit products found in the UK made locally or imported?
Most of it is imported. There are a very small amount of products sold in the UK that are made locally. Quite often what we're seeing are products being imported in parts, so, for example, if it's an item of clothing, we'll find the items coming through, with the labels coming separately from the buckles and other parts, which makes it a very difficult job for our Border Force officers to locate. Once the parts are inside the UK they're then made up to become the finished article. This assembly could happen in any part of the UK and go on to be distributed to any part of the UK.

What are the hotspots of counterfeit activity in the UK?
Manchester could be considered a hotspot, but to be honest with you, everywhere is a hotspot at the moment. Using the internet as our indicator, counterfeit items can be found in all corners of the country, so really, we have to be more vigilant about where we buy our products from and make sure we are using reputable distributors and retailers.

How did the counterfeit market change with the advent of the internet?
As you can imagine, that has opened up the world of counterfeit products to each and every one of us. In the good old days, you had your Del Boys and market sellers distributing their counterfeit products from the markets – very easy to spot, and, unless you went to the markets, you wouldn't really come across them that often. But of course now, with the rise of internet activity, counterfeit items can be found on social media, apps, auction sites – they literally are on every platform that you can imagine, from the likes of eBay and Amazon to Facebook and Twitter.

Can the internet help to stop counterfeit activity?
We work with Facebook and Amazon, and will be continuing to do so, to make sure that we put in place ways in which the consumer can be more protected. It's very difficult for platforms like eBay and Amazon to police every single sale, but our people are working very hard with them to help understand how we can work together to remove the sale of fakes from these sites. This action is vitally important – I don't think the consumer is completely aware of how prolific fakes are on the internet at the moment.

A common idea is that counterfeit items have to be cheaper than the real deal – are there things being sold online that might fool people through their pricing?
Good question. We're finding more and more extremely convincing items, which increases the risk of the public being duped into buying them. The items can be advertised as second-hand or slightly damaged – or even have nothing of the sort mentioned – and are being sold very close to the actual retail price. That fools the consumer into purchasing the item. Most likely, the first time they'll realise it's fake is when the item breaks or causes damage to their electrical supply system. Very often, the counterfeit sellers online use the actual official promotional photos of the items to sell fakes, so it's impossible for the consumer to identify a fake from a photo on the internet.

Are there any ways to tell?
There are. For example, if you're on Google and are looking to buy a Rolex watch, I'd be wary of the ads that appear at the top of that search. I'd look at the official website and see how they process their goods – a lot of brands list their official distributors on their site and will only sell on official, known retailers – the likes of John Lewis, Debenhams. If you're looking to buy luxury items, you should investigate where they are, in fact, sold, because they're very unlikely to be on the markets or on the internet.

Are there any recent trends in the counterfeiting world?
The trends tend to shift according to what's happening in the market place in general and what people are wanting to buy. Tobacco is actually the most popular product that is being investigated by our local Trading Standards offices currently. I've seen tobacco and cigarettes with little chunks of plastic inside them, that we can only assume are floor sweepings, dust and rat droppings. Really, people should not be consuming those at all. When plastic is burnt it can become extremely toxic. Of course, we have clothing and footwear – that's always been the case, and we're seeing very high quality products coming into the UK, but then, worryingly, we have items like alcohol that we're finding more often, and also pharmaceuticals and electrical items, auto parts.

We've seen brakes coming to the market place – I've seen them myself – that have actually been packed with grass. If you're in a high speed crash and you slammed your brakes on, you can imagine what grass brake pads are going to do to you. Likewise, the airbags that we've been seeing coming through are extremely explosive, so if you're in a crash when equipped with those, you'd be more likely to die from the explosion of the airbag than from crashing into another vehicle. The safety of our consumers is absolutely paramount, and this is why we're constantly searching for ways in which the consumer can purchase their goods safely.

The trailer for 'Black Market', which you can watch on VICELAND, Sky channel 153

How much money moves around in the counterfeit market?
There was a report in April this year – the OECD and EU IPO report – and it showed an enormous increase in the transport of counterfeit items into the EU. It was only looking at imported goods, but in 2008 there were around 1.9 percent of global imports which were counterfeit. In 2013, unfortunately, this number had risen to 2.5 percent – that's an incredible amount [worth about £290 billion]. In fact, around 5 percent of all goods imported into the EU are now counterfeit [worth about £73 billion]. So we have to be very vigilant about what we buy and where we buy it from.

Talking of the EU, how does Brexit affect the counterfeit industry?
We don't know the answer to that question yet, but we will find out soon. We're still in the EU for now, so the consensus is business as usual. We're not making any changes at the moment. I think it's a question of "watch this space" – nothing's happened yet, but we're keeping a very watchful eye on what might happen.

Thanks, Alison.

@bijubelinky

The first two episodes of Black Market, hosted by Michael K Williams, air on VICELAND – Sky channel 153 – tonight at 9PM and 9:30PM.