Monday, July 2, 2001		On Hardware

Fake mouse spells trouble
Naveen S.Garewal

A large number of fake peripherals have flooded the computer markets thereby not only cheating known companies of huge amounts of money but also taking the unsuspecting customers for a ride. In the process the buyer ends up paying lot of money for a product that is worth much less. Almost every peripheral has a duplicate available in the market, but the most common products on which the consumers get cheated are products like Mouse, keyboards, printer cartridges, etc which can be easily duplicated.

Besides wearing out easily, the fake peripherals like a keyboard or a mouse can be more irritating to a user. There is a huge duplicate peripheral market in South East Asia from where these products find their way into the Indian market. Among the mice, Microsoft and Logitech are the two companies that are the most affected, forcing them to launch campaigns to educate the consumers.

According to Mr. Ram Pansari, Branch Head of Rashi Peripherals, a direct computer peripherals importing company, the situation is so alarming that companies are being forced to get raids on the vendors storing and selling duplicate products. "We are concerned because it is our product that actually gets the bad name. How is the customer to know that he is using a fake product?"

Two arrests have been made in Ahmedabad and Delhi last month according to him and similar raids are expected in Chandigarh too, according to informed sources.

"As many as 50 per cent of the key boards and mouse in the market are fake", says a Sector 8, Chandigarh, computer dealer. "An original mouse costs around Rs 400 to the dealer, so if the same thing is available for Rs100 or so then it obviously is a fake", he says. Fake products generally do not carry any warranty and the dealer will not issue any bill. So the simplest thing a customer can do is to insist on a warranty and bill.

From time to time we try to put out information that is useful to our readers. With the information provided, readers can differentiate between a fake and an original mouse.