According to USA Today, the battle against fake merchandise is not limited to Asia and urban sidewalks in the U.S. The war is being fought in our retail stores as well.
Coach has accused Target of selling a fake Coach purse. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York last week, Coach alleges that a Target store in Largo, Fla., was selling a counterfeit Coach purse marked with its logo and sporting its tags.
Target was advertising the bag as being official Coach merchandise, said Coach spokeswoman Andrea Shaw Resnick. “This is counterfeit,” she said. “We got one of the bags, had an engineer look at it, and there’s no doubt that this is not official Coach merchandise.”
Target said in a statement: “The Coach product showcased in our store is authentic and legitimate. The lawsuit is without merit. Target has procedures in place to ensure that we do not sell counterfeit products to our guests.”
In June, Italian fashion group Fendi sued Wal-Mart in U.S. federal court, accusing the world’s largest retailer of selling counterfeit handbags and passing them off as genuine at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores.