blog：Britain’s favourite fakes
That’s the traditional image of fakes, the way it used to be, the spiv with his coat lined with counterfeits.
But things have changed. These days there is nothing that’s not being faked; films, fashion, spare parts, drugs, tea bags, cigarettes, even toothpaste. You name it, someone somewhere will be knocking it off.
In the past the problem was less obvious.
Most people went through life oblivious to counterfeit goods; but not now.
“You had to know someone, you had to be connected, you had to be a bit dodgy,” says writer and journalist Tim Phillips.
“Now this just isn’t the case, you just have to walk outside your own front door.”
Counterfeiting cost Britain around ￡11bn last year.
Tim Phillips has investigated the global trade in fakes and says it’s having a huge impact on companies’ profits.
“If you look back 20 years the counterfeiting business was 1% of the size it is today,” he says.
“This is an incredibly serious problem for businesses. If businesses had a line in their annual report [detailing] sales we’ve lost due to counterfeits, then a lot would have been done about it by now.”
