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E-commerce site promises to help consumers avoid buying fakes online

Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - 13:30 by Graham Miller

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A new website called Brand Information Limited has been created in order to help people avoid online fraudsters who attempt to shift illegitimate copies of products from big name brands.

At the moment there are thousands of websites which claim to be offering official branded goods but are in fact passing on phoney knock-offs to the consumer without alerting them.

Everything from alcohol and washing powder to watches and clothes worth hundreds of pounds are passed off as genuine, but the new Brand Information directory is hoping to change all of this by only identifying e-commerce sites which offer safe shopping online and sell 100 per cent real brands.

The Trading Standards Institute (TSI) estimates that the market for fake goods costs UK consumers billions in a given year and so it is welcoming the initiation of a service which will help to prevent average people being duped.

The TSI's Andy Foster said that search engines regularly churn out endless results which lead to fraudulent sites and explained that using the Brand Information service would ensure safe shopping online could be achieved without having to trawl through this harmful clutter.

The service will not be a simple directory of sites which do not deal in fakes but it will also provide consumers with the advice they will need to help spot the sellers who are operating with malice, before they have unwittingly committed any cash to their cause.

The final function of the Brand Information service will be to allow users of the site to report any vendors or online outlets which they have found to be dealing in fake goods. This will help create a collective bank of safe and unsafe sites to benefit future visitors who want to use e-commerce safely.