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Most of the trade in these fakes takes place from white vans outside retail outlets and at car boot markets. Savvy purchasers of power tools will recognise them straight away. However it is known for some victims of the con men to be from the construction industry trades.

The trade in counterfeit products damages the brand reputation of the genuine manufacturers. The manufacturers lose sales and so do their distributors. The rogue traders encourage the belief that a bargain is on offer by comparing prices between the cheap fakes and genuine products. As Andrew Bowden, technical manager of Makita says: "The buyer ends up paying well over the value of the tool, which only last minutes rather than years."

Industry help at hand
Last year a trader was successfully prosecuted for selling fake, unsafe power tools labelled as Makita and Black & Decker brands. Further prosecutions in various parts of the country are in the pipeline. These traders are being pursued as a result of the action by the UK Power Tool Alliance Against Counterfeits (UKPTAAC), a group set up last year consisting of Black & Decker, Bosch, DeWalt, Hilti, Makita and Metabo.

The Alliance co-ordinates intelligence about the activities of illegal traders gathered by its members, the police, special investigators, trading standards officers and the Inland Revenue. The Alliance has also issued publicity to warn prospective purchasers of the dangers of buying tools from unmarked vans.

The Far East has been identified as the source of many fake tools. The import routes have been located and wholesalers involved identified.

Investigators have also tracked mobile sales vans that have been seen set up in the car parks of genuine retail distributors. Cases have been reported of customers being hustled on their way to the store, sometimes with threats. Often the vans have false number plates.

Trading Standards officers are actively warning the public. Suffolk County Council Trading Standards department, for instance, has issued a press release warning of potentially dangerous fake power tools being sold.

Counterfeit DeWalt-branded tools are on sale at car boots across the region. These fakes appear to be cheap drills with 'DeWalt' labels stuck on them and are sold without operating instructions.

To help purchasers identify fake power tools, the Alliance has prepared images showing the differences in the size of components in genuine and fake tools (see previous page). These have been widely distributed in a variety of publications, including health and safety titles, the posters and leaflets in the BeSafe campaign for students and the trading standards web site.

  The fakes have a plastics gearbox and a tiny motor with a large airspace behind it to keep the motor cool. The motor in the fake tools is noticeably smaller than in a genuine version, while the fake's primary drive gear is so puny as to ensure that it will fail.

Fake tools can also be identified by their serial numbers. As pointed out by Michael White of Bosch, genuine tools have individual manufacturing numbers on every single tool made. Many fakes carry the same serial number.

A case of counterfeit
In last year's successful prosecution against an illegal trader selling unsafe counterfeit tools, the defendant, Gareth Owen, was charged with three offences under the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994 and two of trademark infringements under the Trade Marks Act 1994. Ironically he had been arrested by South Wales Police on suspicion that the 22 drills found in his van had been stolen. He had been trying to sell them in Clydach Vale, Rhondda.

Rhondda Cynon trading standards officers received confirmation from the trademark holders Makita and Black & Decker that the tools were counterfeit.

An independent test house carried out a safety assessment and found that the tools failed to meet the Electrical Equipment Safety Regulations 1994. The reasons given were they lacked instructions; were not marked in accordance with British Standards; did not function as a hammer drill when in hammer mode; and were electrically unsafe. One drill was so badly assembled that a brush cap could be removed without the aid of a tool, giving access to live parts with potential lethal consequences.

In court the defendant claimed that he had bought 26 drills from his brother-in-law. However, he was found to be in possession of two receipted invoices from Canon Wholesale of Oldbury, West Midlands. He was fined £1300 plus £500 towards prosecution costs. The 22 drills and accessories were ordered forfeit.

Buying for safety
Savvy contractors and employees responsible for buying their own tools will appreciate that to avoid being sold counterfeit, unsafe products they need to purchase branded goods only from reputable stockists. They will then receive an operating instruction book and a receipt to confirm the guarantees offered – all items that do not come with goods bought from an illegal trader.

Crispin Dunn-Maynell, secretary of the Portable Electric Power Tool Manufacturers' Association, has welcomed the formation of the UKPTAAC. "The reputation of these brands suffer from counterfeiting", he comments. "The whole industry loses sales and the professional user loses work and money. We need to attack this illegal trade."