Counterfeit Goods

Counterfeit Goods -- $500 BILLION per year.

The Trademark Counterfeiting Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2320(a), provides that:
Whoever intentionally traffics or attempts to traffic in goods or services and knowingly uses a counterfeit mark on or in connection with such goods or services shall, if an individual, be fined not more than $2,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both, and, if a person other than an individual, be fined not more than $5,000,000.
Prada, Louie Vitton, Rolex, Channel.. at $10 to $40 on a Hollywood street corner. They look real and consumers grab them up. While there is no argument that companies suffer in an economic/financial sense, nobody usually dies as a result of carrying a fake Prada purse. Nor is it usually fatal when you learn that your bargain $650 air tickets to India are forgeries and won't even get you through the security gates. 

The majority of counterfeit goods arrive in the US from China, Hong Kong,  Mexico, South Korea and Malaysia. The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition estimates that $200 billion a year is lost in wages, taxes and sales. Fortune 500 companies spend $2 to $4 million EACH to fight counterfeiting. It's the things like counterfeit auto parts, counterfeit medications or counterfeit machinery parts that CAN KILL YOU. How about learning that your brake pads are made of wood chips? Or your medication is not what it is supposed to be?

Every dime of financial loss to companies, the tax collector, and anybody else in the chain between manufacture and distribution of products ... is passed on to the consumer.

That's YOU, Joe and Jane America.

What can you do?

Fight with your dollars. Do not buy brand name products from street vendors and stay away from Internet brand name bargains that look too good to be true. (They are.) Most of all, be a tattletale. If you see counterfeit products, report it!