How sure are you that the items you buy online are the real deal?

Chances are you’ve been tricked at some point. Almost 7 out of 10 people have been tricked into buying counterfeit products online at least once in the past year, according to a 2023 study from Michigan State University.

That’s why consumers need to take extra precautions when shopping online, he says Kari Kammeldirector at Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection Center at MSU. “One of the most important things you can do is know where you shop.”

Counterfeit goods can be dangerous. Many of these products may not meet the safety standards set by the government, Kammel says. “So you don’t really know what they’re made of.”

Be especially careful when buying products “that you can put in or on your body,” she says. “There is a potentially high risk of serious injury.” This includes medicines, skin creams and vitamins; and items designed to keep you or a pet safe, such as brake pads, life jackets and dog leashes.

Even clothes and shoes — the most common counterfeit items according to the MSU study — pose a health risk. They may contain harmful chemicals such as lead.

Here are six red flags to help you determine if an online purchase is counterfeit.

Red flag no. 1: Buy cheap drugs without a prescription from an online pharmacy.

Avoid online pharmacies that claim to sell prescription drugs at deeply discounted prices without requiring a prescription, conformable Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are a potential health risk and are illegal.

Partnership for Safe Medicines he found that many of these drugs have little or no active ingredients and may contain contaminants such as floor wax, mercury, concrete, chalk, road tar, paint, and other deadly poisons. And the products sold by these sellers were found to contain the dangerous drug fentanyl, the CDC says.

Safety Tips: Get medicine only from a licensed pharmacy. The Food and Drug Administration website has links to pharmacy licensing databases for US states and territories. Click on your status and see if there is an online pharmacy. If not, the FDA says don’t use that pharmacy.

And if you’re taking an over-the-counter pill or supplement, don’t get it from a random third-party seller online or on social media, Kammel says. It’s too risky.

Red flag no. 2: You don’t recognize the name of the seller you are buying from.

E-commerce sites such as Amazon (Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s financial supporters and pays to distribute some of our content) and Walmart.com allow third-party or independent sellers to use their platforms to sell the goods.

Not all third-party sellers are bad actors, Kammel says. But “counterfeiters have found this to be a loophole to get in front of consumers.”

It’s a big global problem. In a 2023 reportAmazon said it stopped more than 700,000 bad actors from creating new sales accounts; and has identified, seized and disposed of more than 7 million counterfeit products worldwide.

Safety Tips: According to the MSU study, fake products were most frequently purchased on e-commerce platforms (39%) and social networks (39%). So be careful when shopping on these platforms.

• Whenever possible, buy directly from the brand or manufacturer. “Most brands will have a website where you can buy their product. It’s the safest place to shop,” says Kammel.
• Check the distributor of the product. If you decide to use an e-commerce platform like Amazon, make sure you buy from the real brand. Look for the words “sold by” on the product page and you should see the brand or manufacturer name there. Sometimes you’ll see “sold by Amazon.com” or “sold by Walmart.com” instead. In this case, do not buy directly from the brand. Buy from Amazon or Walmart, who purchased the products and is responsible for making sure they are legitimate. This is a little riskier than buying directly from a brand because it’s a step removed, but it’s not as risky as the other option, which is buying from a third-party seller.
• If you decide to buy from a third-party seller, do some research. Who do you actually buy from? Does the seller list an address? What is the name of the company? If you don’t find anything when you search the internet for that name, your antennae should go up. After doing your research, decide if buying the product from that supplier is worth the risk.

Red flag no. 3: Product and company reviews are very bad (or have no bad reviews at all)

Reviews can help you gauge a company’s reputation. Now, “they may not be 100 percent accurate or real, but sometimes they can be great indicators,” Kammel says.

Fake reviews are big business. In 2023, Amazon blocked more than 250 million reviews suspected of fraud from its stores around the world. The site has also filed lawsuits against illegal companies that inflate product ratings by using the “report” button to remove negative reviews — or hide negative reviews by using the “helpful” and “downvote” features.

Safety tip: Take a moment to rate the reviews section of a product page. If a lot of people are complaining about a product or customer service, that should give you pause. The same is true if the review section is seemingly free of negative feedback.

Red flag no. 4: The product does not look right.

If you end up buying an item from a seller you’re unsure about, take a moment to carefully examine the packaging and contents. “If it’s something we call ‘obvious counterfeiting,’ you might see something glaringly wrong,” says Kammel. “Maybe the logo looks wrong or the coloring looks wrong.”

Safety tip: If you suspect the product is counterfeit, stop using it — and report it (more on that below).

Unfortunately, as technology gets better, so do the counterfeits, Kammel says. “There is no way to know for sure if the item from a third-party seller is a genuine product. The only one who can do that is the brand or the manufacturer.”

“What we can do as consumers is at least try to go to the safest place where we can buy our products,” she says.

Think you bought a counterfeit product? Report!

If you believe you have purchased a counterfeit or unsafe product online, stop using it and report it to the e-commerce platform where you made the purchase. The platform should refund you, start an investigation and consider taking the product offline.

You may want to report the counterfeit to the legitimate brand as well. They may be able to look up the product’s serial number or examine the product itself (if you mail it to them) and tell you if it really is a fake.

Finally, report the seller to a US government agency. Consumer Product Safety Commission has a list of who to contact by product type.

This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglis. The digital story was written by Malaka Gharib. It was edited by Marielle Segarra and Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan.

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