friend sells counterfeit goods on ebay

pigletpooh

Hi,

my problem is that one of my friends is selling fake designer jewellery, handbags and other clothing on ebay. Basically she buys it under one account for a pound from the Far East then goes on to sell it for £50-200 as the real deal on her selling ID.

I'm just really really worried she's going to get caught, she's already told me she's had quite a few paypal disputes with folk wanting their money back, I think she's made over £2k so far. I know that this is against the law; the Trade Descriptions Act (hope this is the right name) and the fact she is doing it so often is making me REALLY worried, esp if some of her customers club together and get the police involved. I read something last month in a magazine about a girl who sold a fake Louis Vuitton handbag and got in heaps of sh*t about a year later with the police.

She doesn't seem to comprehend that what she's doing is against the law, she said as far as she knows when she buys it its real so she sells it on the same basis it was sold to her.:rolleyes:

frivolous_fay

So are you concerned that she is getting in trouble... or that people are being ripped off?

Moglex

frivolous_fay wrote: »

So are you concerned that she is getting in trouble... or that people are being ripped off?

Does that make a difference?

She clearly wants her to stop which is the important thing.

Moglex

pigletpooh wrote: »

She doesn't seem to comprehend that what she's doing is against the law, she said as far as she knows when she buys it its real so she sells it on the same basis it was sold to her.:rolleyes:

Wait until this thread is nice and long and everyone has expressed an opinion as to how stupid (and nasty) what she's doing is and then send her a link!

What she is doing is stupid and she is very likely to get into serious trouble if she keeps it up.

It's also a very unpleasant thing to do - ripping people of by deception.

pigletpooh

frivolous_fay wrote: »

So are you concerned that she is getting in trouble... or that people are being ripped off?

both to be honest, she works in a hospital, which you can't do with a criminal record and she has a family, I'd feel terrible for her kids if anything happened to her. Also, I feel bad for the people she's ripping off; paying over a hundred quid for a piece of tat.

Obviously some people have been refusing to accept the item(s) and starting paypal disputes, I think she refunds them to save the hassle but what if a disgruntled customer looked at her feedback and contacted other folk who've bought from her and told them the situ?

Hintza

Man jailed for selling fake fashions on eBay

Friday, March 9, 2007


A man who made £170,000 a year selling fake fashion goods on eBay has been jailed for 12 months.

Simon Waugh, from Tolworth, was found guilty of importing thousands of counterfeit items.

Waugh bought most of his fabricated goods, which included names such as Nike, Henri Lloyd, Calvin Klein, Diesel, Burberry, Hugo Boss, Prada, Armani, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, from a company in India called Rohit Fashions.

He paid around £3 for each imitation Ralph Lauren polo shirt and offered them for sale as genuine at £25.99 — a mark up of almost 770 per cent. He also bought goods from a man in Birmingham and another over the internet.
Kingston council followed up a complaint which led to a test purchase. Officers then raided Waugh's flat and seized about 600 garments and two computers.

Kingston's chief trading standards officer Ted Forsyth said: “We hope that this acts as a deterrent to those who believe that trading on internet websites offers a layer of protection.”

A spokesman for eBay said: “eBay welcomes the verdict and is grateful to Kingston trading standards department.

“We strive to maintain a secure marketplace and strongly believe in working closely with law enforcement to keep our users safe.

Hintza

Published: 10th April 2007
eBay cheat must repay £100,000

A NORDEN man who made £103,470 from selling counterfeit goods has been ordered to pay the money back.

Last October Matthew Zac Bunnell, of Doldrum Farm, Wood Lane, was given a nine-month suspended prison sentence for two offences of selling goods or packaging which bore a sign identical to or likely to have been mistaken for registered trade marks without the consent of the trademark owner.

He was also ordered to do 180 hours’ unpaid community service work for five further offences under the Trade Marks Act 1984 and ordered to pay court costs of £4,421. The court also ordered the destruction of the seized counterfeit items.

Following his conviction, Rochdale Council trading standards service asked the court to confiscate the money he had made from his crimes.
A judge at Bolton Crown Court has now ruled that Bunnell had gained £65,494.88 indirectly and £37,975.60 directly from his criminal conduct.
Judge Melton made a confiscation order that means Bunnell must pay all his available assets of £15,279 within the next six months or face nine months in jail.

Bunnell will also have to pay back the rest of the £103,470 from any assets he has in the future.

In August 2004, trading standards and the police raided Bunnell’s then home in War Office Road, Bamford, with a warrant and seized 127 items, including counterfeit Ray-Ban and Gucci designer sunglasses and Burberry and Armani designer watches.

In total, Bunnell sold over 1,000 counterfeit items on eBay, the internet auction website, netting him more than £30,000.
Andy Glover, Rochdale’s chief trading standards officer, said: "Working with the police, trading standards will use every sanction possible against criminals who try to use counterfeit goods to defraud the public and legitimate traders.

"Anyone involved in counterfeiting risks losing not just their liberty but also large amounts of money."


First published by the Rochdale Observer

Moglex

Nice ones, Hintza.

I think if the OP's friend has a look at those two posts it should give her pause for thought!

rizla01

How can she justify her actions? People payiong good money for these items have a right to expect what they are paying for.

I really hope she gets caught soon and made to repay all of her ill-gotten gains.

She is a common THIEF!!

aqueoushumour01

this is why ebay is both wonderful and dangerous at the same time. On one hand it's possible to get a fantastic product at a bargain price. On the other hand however, in certain types of goods it's very risky to spend your money on ebay because you don't know exactly what you're going to get. At the moment I want to get a 4GB MP3 player but I can't take the risk of buying it from ebay because it's highly likely that I'd get a low storage capacity player that's been hacked to make it look as though it has more memory. It's a shame for genuine sellers as they, and consumers, lose out.

Trying to pass off counterfeit clothing for the real thing really is a disgrace. The fact that people are being conned should be enough of a reason to stop let alone the risk of prison.

Blacksheep1979

If people know and choose to buy fake goods thats one thing, to not know and have someone sell you something that it isn't is theft - I hope she gets caught and severely punished

Moglex wrote: »

Does that make a difference?

She clearly wants her to stop which is the important thing.

of course it makes a difference, if she is just concerned about her friend then that is plain wrong it means she condones the fact people are getting ripped off. If she is concerned about people getting ripped off or about people getting ripped off and her friend getting caught that is ok as it shows they are concerned about the wrongdoing.