You bought a counterfeit: what actually works

Most guides on counterfeits talk about consumer rights against the seller and stop there. In the United Kingdom that misses the single most effective remedy, which sits in credit law rather than consumer law.

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 creates joint and several liability between the seller and the credit provider. If the seller has misrepresented the goods or breached the contract, you have a claim against your card issuer on exactly the same terms. Section 75(3)(b) sets the limits: the cash price of the item must exceed 100 pounds and must not exceed 30 000 pounds.

Why this matters more here than anywhere else in Europe: it works when the seller cannot be reached. An untraceable overseas trader, a company that has dissolved, a marketplace listing that has vanished, none of that defeats a Section 75 claim, because you are claiming from your own bank.

If the bank refuses, the Financial Ombudsman Service will consider the complaint free of charge, and its decision binds the bank if you accept it. Its award limit rose to 455 000 pounds on 1 April 2026.

Note the distinction from chargeback, which is often confused with this. Chargeback is a card scheme rule, not a legal right, and there is no statutory obligation on the bank to pursue it. Section 75 is a statutory right.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives a short term right to reject goods that do not conform to the contract, set out in sections 20 and 22. You get a full refund without having to accept a repair or replacement first.

A counterfeit is not of satisfactory quality and does not match its description, so it falls squarely within the Act. The right to reject applies for thirty days from when you acquire the goods.

One point that almost every guide omits: the clock stops if you ask for a repair or replacement. Section 22(6) suspends the period while the trader deals with your request, and you get the remainder back afterwards, with a minimum of seven days. So raising the issue with the seller does not automatically burn your thirty days.

After the thirty days you keep the right to a repair or replacement, and then to a price reduction or a final right to reject. For a counterfeit, repair and replacement are usually meaningless, which strengthens the case for rejection.

This is where recently published guides go wrong, in both directions. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 were replaced on 6 April 2025 by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, so far as unfair commercial practices are concerned.

However, the sections of the 2024 Act that would have created a new private right of redress, sections 232, 234 and 235, have not been brought into force. The consequence is that Part 4A of the 2008 Regulations survives for that purpose.

That leaves a route worth knowing. Where you have been the victim of a misleading action, Part 4A gives a right to unwind the contract within ninety days, and to damages for alarm, distress or inconvenience. Selling a counterfeit as genuine is a misleading action about the main characteristics of the product.

A separate change took effect on 6 April 2026, when an accredited alternative dispute resolution regime came into force under Part 4 Chapter 4 of the 2024 Act. It does not make a trader participate: as everywhere else we looked, participation remains voluntary.

This is the most important warning on this page, and it is specific to the United Kingdom. The instinct after losing money is to recover some of it by selling the item on. Here that instinct is dangerous.

Section 92(1)(b) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 does not contain the requirement, found in most comparable offences, that you were acting in the course of a business. Selling or offering for sale a single counterfeit article can constitute the offence, which carries up to ten years imprisonment on indictment.

Buying a counterfeit for your own use is not itself an offence under United Kingdom law. Reselling it moves you from the position of a victim to that of an offender, and it does so in the country with the heaviest penalty of the five we examined.

Pursuing a refund carries no such risk. A claim under the Consumer Rights Act or Section 75 is a civil claim about a defective contract. It also documents the date you discovered the problem and your good faith.

We check the documentary traceability of a purchase. We formally ask the seller for the supply documents covering the item you bought, and we report what they answer, including when nothing comes back. A retailer with orderly sourcing has those documents and produces them without difficulty.

We are not a testing laboratory, a law firm, or a payment intermediary. We do not judge whether an object is genuine from photographs, and we do not recover your money for you.

This guide sets out the law of England and Wales as at the date shown, with Scottish differences noted where they arise. It is not legal advice and does not replace the view of a solicitor on your situation.