Counterfeit Goods -- $500 BILLION per year.
The Trademark Counterfeiting Act, 18 U.S.C. ยง 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!