MOKOKCHUNG, AUGUST 23 (MExN): The Mokokchung Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) today issued a public advisory to warn against fraudulent sales agents carrying out door-to-door sales in Mokokchung district.
A press note from the MCCI informed that some individuals of dubious identity are selling counterfeit electronic and home appliances. News about unassuming customers being hoodwinked into purchasing fake branded LED television sets, solar lamps and domestic LPG gas stoves have been doing the rounds in public domain in recent times.
It said that two such customers who purchased fake branded Samsung LED television sets appeared before the MCCI along with the sellers from whom they purchased the counterfeit products seeking intervention to settle their business deal.
According to the MCCI, the sellers admitted to the accusations leveled against them by the two customers. “Upon close observation done in the presence of representatives from the electronic dealer’s community, it was found that the ‘branded’ television sets were indeed fake. The matter was amicably settled between them with the customers returning the products and the sellers refunding them,” it added.
The MCCI explained that the modus operandi of the fraudsters is that they go about door to door impersonating as military personnel going home on leave selling military CSD canteen products at half the price. The impostor sellers engage in aggressive sales demeanor literally forcing the unassuming customers to buy their products.
“They occupy apartments on rent where they stock their products and operate their business from. It appears to us that they are part of a huge network of highly organized counterfeit electronic products business operating across the region, if not the whole country. They do not produce any warranty receipts but somehow manage to convince the customers with their conniving yet shrewd sales antics,” the MCCI said.
It asked the public to be alert to such fraudulent sellers of fake branded products. Informing that the MCCI will not entertain such cases from now on, it asked the public to be vigilant of what products they are purchasing, and from whom, and buy from genuine registered sellers only.
