Fake Branded Product Online: Refund and Trademark Action (2026)

A friend in Pune ordered Apple AirPods Pro from a Diwali sale at ₹16,999, about ₹8,000 below the Apple India MRP. The box arrived sealed, the audio worked for three days, and on day four the right earbud died.

He took the unit to an Apple Authorised Service Provider in Koregaon Park. The technician scanned the serial on Apple's GSX system: it belonged to a unit sold in the Philippines in 2022. The chip was a clone.

The seller's chat reply: “Used product, no return.” The marketplace bot offered ₹500 as a “courtesy refund”. The escalation needed three statutes.

This guide is the playbook he used to recover ₹16,999, plus ₹15,000 compensation, and get the seller's account suspended within nine days.

A counterfeit product is not the same as a defective product or a wrong product. The legal test under section 28 of the Trademarks Act 1999 is whether the goods bear a mark identical or deceptively similar to a registered trademark, applied without the proprietor's consent.

Common signs in 2026 e-commerce:

• Serial number mismatch. Apple, Samsung, Sony and Bose run public serial-check portals. A serial that returns “not found” or “sold in another country” is a strong signal.
• Off-MRP pricing. A 40 to 60 percent “loot deal” on a ₹20,000+ branded item is the single biggest red flag.
• Spelling and font drift. “Adidas” with altered letter spacing, “Nike” tag missing the registered-trademark symbol, “L'Oreal Paris” without the accent.
• Packaging weight and print. Counterfeit boxes are lighter and use offset printing instead of spot-UV.
• Missing GSTIN on the invoice. Counterfeit sellers omit the 15-digit GSTIN or use a recycled fake number.

If two or more of these signs appear, you are not in a return dispute. You are in a trademark crime, and your remedies expand sharply.

Before you contact anyone, build the evidence pack. Counterfeit cases collapse without it.

1. Unboxing video, single take, no cuts. Show the courier label, the outer poly-bag, the brand box, and the serial sticker. Read the order ID aloud. This is the single most important piece of evidence.
2. Photographs of the counterfeit indicators. Macro shots of the logo, the serial number, the print quality, the misspellings.
3. Authorised service centre certificate. Visit the brand's official service centre (Apple Authorised Service Provider, Samsung Smart Cafe, Nike India brand store, L'Oreal authorised dermatologist channel) and request a written counterfeit confirmation on letterhead. Most centres charge ₹0 to ₹500 for this. Some refuse to put it in writing. In that case, ask them to send an email confirmation. An email is admissible under section 65B of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023.
4. Tax invoice. Download the PDF invoice from the marketplace order page. Check the GSTIN, seller legal name, and seller registered address.
5. Marketplace chat transcripts. Screenshot every exchange, including the bot's first low-ball offer.
6. MRP comparison screenshot. A screenshot of the brand's official India website showing the genuine MRP, dated.
7. Bank or UPI debit screenshot. Proof you actually paid the amount claimed.

Save all of this in a single folder named with the order ID. You will attach it to four separate filings in the next sections.

Send a single written demand within 72 hours of the service centre confirmation. Use the marketplace's complaint form and email. Email creates a dated paper trail that the chat does not.

The demand must contain six elements:

1. Order ID, date, amount, product name.
2. Statement that the product is counterfeit, with the service centre certificate attached.
3. Citation of section 2(47) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 (unfair trade practice) and section 5 of the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020 (marketplace duty to ensure authenticity).
4. Citation of section 103 of the Trademarks Act 1999 (penalty for applying false trademarks, six months to three years imprisonment).
5. Demand: full refund within 7 days, plus reverse pickup at seller's cost, plus written confirmation that the listing has been removed.
6. Warning: failure to comply will be reported to the brand owner, the consumer commission, and the cyber-crime cell.

Send to the seller's listed email and to the marketplace grievance officer. Every marketplace operating in India is required under rule 4(1)(d) of the E-Commerce Rules 2020 to display a grievance officer's name, email and phone on the website. Save the auto-acknowledgement.

If the marketplace stalls beyond 30 days, escalate to the Resident Grievance Officer and then the Chief Compliance Officer under rule 4 of the IT Rules 2021. Their contact details are also a compliance disclosure.

This is the section that flips the dispute from “consumer complaint” to “criminal case”, and most buyers never invoke it.

Section 103 punishes applying a false trademark or counterfeit packaging on goods. Punishment: six months to three years imprisonment, plus ₹50,000 to ₹2,00,000 fine.

Section 104 punishes selling goods to which a false trademark is applied, with the same punishment range. The seller's proviso defence is narrow: they must prove they took all reasonable precautions and gave full supplier information on demand. A seller who cannot produce a valid invoice from the brand's authorised distributor fails this test instantly.

Section 115(4) authorises any police officer above Deputy Superintendent rank to search and seize counterfeit goods without a warrant.

The Delhi High Court's ruling in Christian Louboutin SAS v. Nakul Bajaj and Others (CS (COMM) 344/2018, decided 2 November 2018) held that an e-commerce platform going beyond a passive intermediary loses safe-harbour protection under section 79 of the IT Act 2000 and becomes jointly liable for trademark infringement. The judgment listed 26 active functions that strip safe harbour. Most major Indian marketplaces perform 18 to 22 of those 26.

Cite this case in every filing.

The brand owner has the strongest takedown power on the platform, much stronger than yours as a single buyer.

Every major brand selling in India runs an Indian Brand Protection or Anti-Counterfeit cell. Public contacts as of May 2026:

• Apple India: [email protected] (also reachable via the Apple Brand Protection Online Form).
• Samsung India: [email protected] with subject line “Counterfeit on [marketplace name]”.
• Nike India: [email protected].
• L'Oreal India: [email protected].
• Adidas India: [email protected].

Send them: the seller's exact name and address from the invoice, the product listing URL, photographs, the service centre certificate, and your order ID. Brands have direct API-level takedown channels with every marketplace and routinely get listings pulled within 48 hours.

The buyer-side advantage of notifying the brand: the brand often pursues the seller for damages independently. Once that happens, the seller settles your refund quickly to avoid further escalation.

Counterfeit sale is cheating under section 318 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2024 (the successor to IPC section 420). It is also forgery under section 336 BNS where the brand logo, hologram or serial is fabricated.

The cheating is on you, the buyer. The forgery is on the brand owner. Both can co-exist in the same FIR.

File the FIR at the cyber-crime police station of the district where you received delivery (jurisdiction lies where the deception was completed, that is, your address). Section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 obligates the officer-in-charge to register an FIR for any cognisable offence. Cheating above ₹5,000 is cognisable.

If the local police refuse, use the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal at https://cybercrime.gov.in (a verified gov.in URL) and lodge an “Online and Social Media Related Crime” complaint. The portal auto-routes to the correct state cyber unit and generates an acknowledgement number you can attach to your consumer complaint.

The FIR is the single strongest leverage point. Marketplaces escalate from “₹500 courtesy refund” to “full refund plus compensation” the moment they see an FIR copy.

When the marketplace stalls past 30 days or offers less than full refund, file a consumer complaint under section 35 of the Consumer Protection Act 2019.

Pecuniary jurisdiction (after the 2021 amendment):

• District Commission: up to ₹50 lakh.
• State Commission: ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore.
• National Commission: above ₹2 crore.

For a ₹16,999 AirPods case the District Commission is the right forum. Filing fee is ₹100 to ₹500.

File online at https://edaakhil.nic.in (the official e-filing portal of the Department of Consumer Affairs, a gov.in service). The portal lets you upload up to 50 MB of evidence, video included.

In your prayer (the relief clause), claim:

1. Full refund of the product price.
2. Compensation for mental agony (typically ₹10,000 to ₹50,000 awarded for counterfeit cases).
3. Litigation costs (₹5,000 to ₹15,000).
4. Punitive damages under section 39(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019.
5. A direction to the marketplace to remove the listing and freeze the seller's account.

Add both the seller and the marketplace as separate respondents. The Christian Louboutin v. Nakul Bajaj principle gives you a strong joint-liability argument against the marketplace.

Most buyers cite the Consumer Protection Act 2019 but miss the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020, which are far more specific. Key rules:

• Rule 4(2): No e-commerce entity shall adopt any unfair trade practice, whether in the course of business on its platform or otherwise.
• Rule 4(11): Marketplace must not impose cancellation charges except where the seller bears similar charges.
• Rule 5(3): Marketplace must include in its terms a description of any differentiated treatment which it gives or might give between goods or services or sellers of the same category.
• Rule 5(7): Marketplace must not manipulate the price of goods to gain unreasonable profit by imposing on consumers any unjustified price.
• Rule 6(5)(d): Inventory e-commerce entity (one that owns the goods) is liable for warranty even if a third party fulfils.

For counterfeit cases the operational rule is Rule 5(4): the marketplace must require sellers to provide an undertaking that descriptions, images and other content of products on the platform are accurate and correspond directly with the appearance, nature, quality, purpose and other general features of the goods. A counterfeit listing breaches this undertaking, and the marketplace's failure to police it is itself an unfair trade practice.

Quote rule 5(4) verbatim in your consumer commission complaint.

Under rule 6(5) of the E-Commerce Rules 2020, refund must be effected within a reasonable period, which the consumer commissions interpret as 7 to 14 days for prepaid orders and 24 to 48 hours after pickup confirmation.

If the refund is delayed beyond 14 days, you are entitled to interest at the rate the District Commission deems fit. The going rate in 2024 to 2026 awards is 9 to 12 percent per annum.

For UPI and card payments, the marketplace cannot cite “bank delay” as a defence. RBI's Master Direction on Payment and Settlement Systems makes the marketplace responsible once it initiates the reversal.

If you paid by COD, the refund is usually issued as a marketplace gift card. You have a statutory right to demand a bank transfer instead, citing section 2(7) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019: a “consumer” cannot be forced into a closed-loop instrument that restricts choice.

L'Oreal, Maybelline, MAC and Forest Essentials counterfeits often contain banned substances. File a separate complaint with the Drugs Control Administration of your state under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940. The DCA can prosecute under section 27A with up to three years imprisonment.

Fake AirPods, Samsung chargers and power banks are BIS-non-compliant. File a parallel complaint with the Bureau of Indian Standards at https://bis.gov.in. BIS has independent seizure powers under the BIS Act 2016.

Nike, Adidas, Puma and New Balance run “verified seller” programmes. If your seller is not on the brand's verified list, ask the brand for written confirmation that the seller is unauthorised, and attach it.

Pirated NCERT, Pearson and Oxford books are counterfeit under section 51 of the Copyright Act 1957, not the Trademarks Act. The remedy structure is similar.

Where a state agency is involved (DCA, BIS, customs, the cyber-crime cell), the Right to Information Act 2005 is your visibility tool.

Sample RTI questions to the cyber-crime cell, 30 days after FIR registration:

1. Current status of FIR number [] dated [date].
2. Name and designation of the investigating officer.
3. Number of counterfeit-product FIRs in this police station in the last 12 months and number proceeding to chargesheet.
4. Action taken on seizure of counterfeit stock from the seller's address.

A pending RTI on the file is the single most effective trigger for an investigating officer to visit the seller's address.

For drafting these RTIs efficiently, see the AI RTI Drafter. For evaluating the PIO's reply, see the PIO Reply Checker. For the underlying statute walkthrough, see the RTI Act 2005 Complete Guide.

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• Weekend Problem Solver, the master index
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• RTI Act 2005 Complete Guide
• AI RTI Drafter
• PIO Reply Checker