Thousands of fake products sold on Dutch webstore platform

Thousands of counterfeit products are traded over Dutch website Bol.com, watchdog React said to AD on Wednesday. This includes things like cellphones, earphones, batteries and chargers.

React was previously known as Foundation Counterfeit Products and it hunts down counterfeit products for hundreds of brands worldwide. It currently has 20 cases against parties who sold counterfeit products via Bol.com. Exactly how many counterfeit products are being sold through the site is unclear. "To be safe I'd say thousands, but it could be more, Bjorn Grootswagers of React said to the newspaper.

Bol.com has a good reputation for getting rid of counterfeiters. Grootswagers was therefore shocked by the number of counterfeit goods still sold through the site. "There are a lot of rotten apples", he said. According to React, counterfeit goods can be dangerous. "Branded products are tested extensively. Countefeit products come from may small factories that just cobble them together."

Bol.com is by far the market leader among online stores in the Netherlands. The site itself says that it only knows about a few cases of counterfeit products. "We work with 14,000 sale partners that sell millions of items via our site. Daily it involves tens of thousands of products. The majority goes well", Marjolein Verkerk said on behalf of the site.

Consumers' association Consumentenbond told AD that it received over 200 reports about bol.comlast year. Most of the complaints were about a valid product. A few indicated that it was a replica."