FURminator® brand offers a variety of high quality pet care solutions to provide you with grooming confidence. With superior products at your fingertips, you can achieve professional grooming results from the comfort of your own home. While genuine FURminator products are available at most pet specialty retailers, some resellers attempt to sell counterfeit products as the real thing. Don’t be fooled. Counterfeit deShedding tools have also been found for sale on internet auction sites, on internet forum sites, and on internet marketplace sites. On the surface, these products may resemble genuine FURminator deShedding tools, but they are in fact poorly made imitations. These counterfeit items often do not work properly, and are known to break easily, creating the potential to seriously injure both pets and people.
Think you have a counterfeit? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
The FURminator® brand has been at the forefront of innovative pet grooming solutions since its inception in 2002. While genuine FURminator products are available at most pet specialty retailers, some resellers attempt to sell counterfeit products as the real thing. Don’t be fooled by these fraudsters. Counterfeit deShedding tools have been found for sale on internet auction sites (such as eBay), on internet forum sites (such as Craigslist), and on internet marketplace sites (such as Amazon). On the surface, these products may resemble genuine FURminator deShedding tools, but they are in fact poorly made imitations. These counterfeit items often do not work properly, and are known to break easily, creating the potential to seriously injure both pets and people. Think you have a counterfeit? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
“Counterfeit” simply means “fake.” These are products that companies sell that may appear to be genuine FURminator products, but are not. Many of the most valuable U.S. brands are threatened by groups that wish to defraud consumers using the goodwill generated by those brands. The FURminator brand is proud to be at the forefront of efforts to stamp out this practice. Would you like to know more? Think you have a counterfeit? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
Remember, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Counterfeiters will often “bait and switch” the unwary consumer by showing pictures of a genuine FURminator deShedding tool, only to ship fake, inferior items. Genuine FURminator products are available at most pet specialty retailers. If you are buying a FURminator product at a well-established pet specialty store that you can visit in person, your risk of buying a counterfeit product is generally lower than purchasing from online retailers. Before you make a purchase from another re-seller, ask yourself these questions: 1. Is the re-seller selling a lot of products that are not intended for pets? FURminator products are primarily sold to retailers that service customers who purchase products for their pets. Be wary of retailers who primarily sell non-pet products but have a limited inventory of deShedding products or retailers that you don’t often purchase from (such as pawn shops and one-off sellers on eBay). 2. Is the re-seller only selling deShedding tools? Counterfeiters often purchase fake goods in large quantities and then attempt to quickly sell through their inventory before moving on to the next product. Look at the seller history to see what products have been sold. 3. Who is actually selling the product? There are many internet sales sites which operate as “marketplaces” allowing multiple re-sellers to list products for sale. These sellers are independent sellers and normally are not affiliated with the host retailer (for example, Amazon.com hosts such “marketplace” re-sellers). Be sure you know who is actually selling you the product; this is not always the same entity that is shipping you the product. You can usually determine which company does what by looking for the terms “SOLD BY” and “SHIPPED BY” (or similar terms). Amazon may SHIP you a product, but Don’s Cat Palace might be the company that actually SELLS you the product. Remember, an educated consumer is a smart consumer. Unknown sellers are often counterfeit sellers or sellers of goods not purchased through legitimate channels. 4. Is the re-seller advertising “Discount FURminators” or “Cheap FURminators?” FURminator products are not commodity products and are typically not marketed in this manner. 5. Is the re-seller using a website with a name that misspells FURminator (for example, ferminater.com or furmminator.com) or uses the word FURminator as part of the main part of the website name (for example, furminatorforyourcat.com)? We do not permit retailers to do this; our U.S. website is www.furminator.com; please see here for a list of our non-U.S. FURminator websites. While a legitimate on-line retailer may sometimes use the word FURminator to direct the consumer to that portion of its on-line store that sells FURminator products (for example,www.amazon.com/furminator), they do not engage in the foregoing activities. Concerned about a re-seller? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
The best way you can help is to always buy from a recognized FURminator retailer. Remember, if the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you believe you see someone offering counterfeit FURminator products for sale, please help us by reporting what you see. To do so, please complete our Catch the Crooks online form.
While most counterfeiters are lazy, some are quite clever. FURminator deShedding Tools are designed with certain “tells” that we revise from time to time. If you are concerned that you may have a counterfeit product, please stop using the product and contact us. We will typically ask you to provide information as to when and where you purchased it, and may ask to examine either photographs of the products/packaging. In some cases, we may ask you to provide the actual product. Want to be sure you have a genuine FURminator product? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
Generally, the first thing you should do is review the re-seller’s refund policy. If we determine that your product is counterfeit, we will provide you with a written evaluation stating this. While we cannot intercede with re-sellers on your behalf, we generally are able to direct you to the host of larger online re-sellers from which you can request a refund. For more information, please see this section. Please note that we are unable to refund your purchase price for counterfeit products, as we did not sell those products. Need more information? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.
Our primary concern is always the well-being of our customers and their pets. We take counterfeiting very seriously. We have a dedicated Brand Protection Team that continuously monitors the internet and auction sites for counterfeit product. These efforts result in the removal of hundreds of fraudulent listings each month. We work with U.S. Customs authorities and law enforcement agencies to seize shipments and inventories of counterfeit products, and to criminally prosecute those persons and entities that engage in this sort of illicit activity. While as a matter of company practice, we cannot comment on pending litigation, we also sue counterfeiters as a matter of course. Questions? Contact us on our Catch The Crooks page.