Public Attitudes to Counterfeiting
A recent MORI survey shows that perfume / fragrance (67%), watches (64%) and clothing / footwear (63%) are among the most widely known goods to be counterfeited.
Forty per cent said that they would knowingly purchase a counterfeit product if the price and quality of the goods was acceptable. Among these people, the most popular counterfeit goods to purchase were:
| Clothing / footwear |  76% | |
| Watches | 43% | |
| Perfume / fragrance | 38% | |
| Electrical goodse.g. video recorders, hi-fi etc | 22% | |
| Alcohol | 15% | |
| Car parts | 14% | |
| Children's toys | 12% | |
| Food | 11% | |
| Pharmaceutical productse.g. aspirin, paracetamol etc | 5% | |
| Pesticides | 4% | |
| None of the above | 1% | |
| Don't know | 2% |
Around a third said that they would contact the local trading standards office if they had unknowingly purchased a counterfeit product. However, twenty nine per cent said that they would not do anything, that they would put it down to experience.
Two thirds (65%) agreed that they were against any form of product counterfeiting and 69% said that the government should do more to tackle the problem of product counterfeiting.
The following chart shows the levels of awareness of the problems that counterfeiting causes:
| The government loses millions of pounds in VAT and other taxes because of counterfeiting |  61% |
| Counterfeiting can damage the economic well-being of businesses | 57% |
| Some fake or counterfeit products can put the purchaser at risk of personal injury or death | 56% |
| Counterfeiting is very often one of the most profitable (and virtually risk-free) illegal activities of organised criminals and terrorists and helps to fund drug dealing | 39% |
| None of the above | 7% |
| Don't know | 5% |
Technical details
The survey was conducted among a representative sample of 996 adults aged 15+ in Great Britain. Fieldwork took place face-to-face, between 26-29 September 1997. Data are weighted to the profile of Great Britain.
