Fake Products Sold Online? Know Your Legal Options

One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.

Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.

TL;DR: If someone sold you fake products online while telling you they were genuine, that can be cheating under Section 318(4) BNS, provided the seller knew the goods were counterfeit when the money changed hands. Ask for a full refund in writing with a short deadline, keep the products and every chat untouched, and if the refund does not come, you have two separate routes: a police complaint and, where the seller trades commercially, a consumer complaint. You can run both.

The parcel arrived on a Tuesday. Two imported cosmetic products, both difficult to source in India, both bought from a reseller who ran an Instagram page with a steady stream of buyers and a promise, repeated in every second story, that everything she sold was genuine. Ritika Shah, who works in Pune, paid about ₹3,000 by UPI. What she did not do, and she says this plainly, was ask for a bill.

Four days later a friend sent her a comparison video. Ritika spent that evening with the two bottles under a lamp, checking batch codes, font weight, the placement of the label. Both were counterfeit. The seller had said otherwise, publicly and in the private messages that led to the purchase, and Ritika had screenshots of all of it.

She asked for a refund. Nothing moved for a week. She then approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao, where the office sent a short legal notice setting out the claim, the evidence, and a deadline. The refund came through within the notice period, along with a request that the matter be closed. Earlier informal requests had gone nowhere because they were never framed as a legal claim with a consequence attached. A full refund followed, which is the outcome she wanted. And here is the thing: the version above is hers alone. The seller has never been heard in this account, and that gap matters in how such matters are assessed.

Key Facts of the Case

• Two imported cosmetic products bought from an Instagram reseller for about ₹3,000, paid by UPI.
• The seller stated, in public posts and in private messages, that the products were authentic.
• The seller stated, in public posts and in private messages, that the products were authentic.
• A friend's comparison video led her to inspect the bottles under a lamp — batch codes, typography, label placement. Both were counterfeit.
• She had screenshots of the seller's claims and her UPI payment record, but no invoice or bill.
• Roughly a week of written refund requests produced nothing.
• A legal notice from the chamber, with a deadline attached, produced a full refund.
• The seller has never been heard in this account. Only one side is before us, and that gap affects how the matter would be assessed.

Sold fake products online — is that cheating, or just a bad purchase?

It can be cheating. Whether it is cheating, on any given set of facts, turns on one thing: what the seller knew when the money changed hands.

The offence most often attracted here is cheating under Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. That is the sub-section that applies when a person is dishonestly induced to deliver property — money counts — on the strength of a deception. The punishment is imprisonment up to seven years and a fine. Simple cheating, without delivery of property, sits under Section 318(2) and carries a lighter punishment.

The gap between a criminal case and a bad purchase is knowledge. If the seller genuinely believed the stock was authentic — because the supplier showed her invoices, say — the deception may not be there at all, and a criminal case built on it becomes very hard to sustain. If she knew, or the circumstances make it obvious she must have known, the case is a criminal one. We do not know which it was here. That is not a dodge; it is the central disputed question in every one of these matters.

What Section 318(4) BNS actually requires

• Deception — a representation that was false, made to the buyer.
• Inducement — the buyer parted with money because of that representation, not for some unrelated reason.
• Delivery of property — the payment itself. UPI transfers qualify.
• Knowledge at the time of sale — the seller knew the representation was false.
• Harm — loss of money is enough.

The representation does not have to be spoken privately. Public posts, repeated stories, a pinned highlight claiming authenticity — all of it counts. In fact, a public claim is often easier to prove than a private one, because it exists independently of what the buyer remembers being told.

Where the criminal case usually gets weak

Three places, in order of frequency.

Knowledge. As above. A reseller who was herself supplied counterfeit goods may have a defence that survives the first round of investigation. Whether she does is a question of evidence we do not have.

Traceability. An Instagram page with no registered entity, no address, no bill, and no name on the UPI ID is difficult to pin to a person. Payment records help. Whether they lead anywhere depends on what the payment app is willing to disclose, and that requires a police request.

Value. A few thousand rupees does not always attract the attention a larger fraud does. That is a practical reality, not a legal bar. An FIR can be registered regardless of amount if the ingredients are made out, but in practice small-value cases tend to move slowly.

Trademark counterfeiting runs alongside, on the seller's side

Separately from your complaint, applying a false trademark to goods or selling goods with a false trademark applied is an offence under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and the punishment there is measured in months and years, not a token fine. Imported cosmetics are also regulated — they sit under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the Cosmetics Rules, 2020, which impose labelling and import requirements. The practical value of this to a buyer is indirect: when a seller is exposed on that front too, the incentive to settle quickly goes up. You do not have to plead it yourself.

And the consumer route, which exists independently

If the seller is trading commercially — repeat sales, a page run as a business — the sale is a consumer transaction under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

• Selling goods that are not what they were represented to be is a deficiency in service and, where the representation was false or misleading, an unfair trade practice.
• You can file where you reside or personally work for gain. In this story, that would have meant Pune, not the seller's city.
• Limitation is two years from the date the problem arose. Miss it and the complaint is generally time-barred unless you satisfy the Commission that there was sufficient cause.
• Claims up to ₹5 lakh carry no filing fee under the rules, and up to ₹50 lakh lie before the District Commission.
• Filing is online through e-Daakhil. Before that, the National Consumer Helpline (1915) runs a pre-litigation route that resolves a surprising number of e-commerce disputes without anyone entering a Commission.

One honest limit: whether the seller counts as an "e-commerce entity" under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 depends on how the business is structured. A one-person Instagram reseller may fall outside the definition, which means you cannot lean on the marketplace obligations those rules create. The general consumer remedy under the Act still applies.

Filing a complaint for an online sale gone wrong: what happens, in order

Step 1 — Put the claim in writing, with a deadline

Not a message. A written demand that names the goods, the amount, the false representation, and a date by which the refund must come. Informal requests get ignored because nothing follows them. A demand with a deadline and a stated consequence is a different document.

Step 2 — Preserve everything before you do anything else

• Screenshots of every post, story and message that claimed the goods were genuine. Take them now, in a single pass.
• Your payment record — the UPI transaction reference, not just the screenshot of the app screen.
• The parcel: outer label, tracking number, sender details, and the product packaging with batch codes.
• The counterfeit goods themselves. Do not return them and do not throw them away. Sending them back destroys your evidence.

Electronic records are admissible under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which replaces the old Section 65B of the Evidence Act. It requires a certificate in a prescribed form when the record is produced in court. That is a procedural step a lawyer handles — but it is the reason you keep the original device, and not merely a screenshot of a screenshot.

Step 3 — Police, if you want the criminal route

An FIR for a cognizable offence is registered under Section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. For online frauds the practical first stop is often cybercrime.gov.in or the 1930 financial-fraud helpline, which is tied to bank transaction reversal processes. BNSS also allows information to be given electronically, with the signature to follow within a prescribed period.

If the police station will not register it, there are two established next steps: a complaint to the Superintendent of Police under Section 173(4) BNSS, and thereafter a request to a Magistrate under Section 175(3) BNSS to direct an investigation, or a private complaint before the Magistrate. These are real remedies. They also take time, and for a claim of a few thousand rupees you should go in knowing that.

Step 4 — Consumer complaint, and yes, both can run together

A criminal complaint and a consumer complaint are not mutually exclusive. One is about punishment for an offence; the other is about getting your money back and, in some cases, compensation. What you cannot do is recover the same amount twice. Practically, a refund plus a modest compensation award is the usual shape of a consumer outcome.

What this route realistically gets you

Money back, most of the time, when the seller is identifiable and still trading. A refund plus something for the trouble, sometimes, through the consumer route. A conviction, occasionally, and usually not quickly.

Where the seller is a person with a page and a UPI ID and nothing else, and the amount is small, a strongly worded notice is often the whole of the fight. That is not a failure. It is the correct sequence: cheapest remedy first, escalation only if it fails.

Where the goods were expensive, or the seller is running a larger operation, or the same page has done this to other people, the calculation changes. A pattern matters. One buyer complains and it looks like a dispute. Six buyers with the same product, the same claims and the same payment ID is a different kind of file.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to send us, if you want this looked at

You do not need to write a long account. Send these three things and we can tell you within a first reading whether you have a matter worth pursuing:

• The order details or payment record — date, amount, and the UPI reference or transaction
• The screenshots of the claims — public posts and private messages — with dates visible.
• Photographs of the parcel label and the product packaging, batch codes included, if you still have them.

Keep the goods. Do not send them back to the seller in exchange for a promise of refund, however reasonable that sounds in the moment. Once they are gone, you are arguing about a product nobody can examine.

Send it to /contact-us or book a slot at /book. A short note is enough — what was bought, when, what the seller claimed, what you have in writing, and whether the seller is still operating. Most of these matters can be assessed on the first reading. If the seller has vanished and the amount is small, we will tell you that plainly rather than start a file that leads nowhere.

Where this leaves a buyer

Notice first, complaint only if notice fails. That sequence is not a formality; it is what makes the complaint credible, because it shows you tried to resolve the matter and the seller chose not to. Everything else — the screenshots, the payment reference, the untouched packaging — is only useful if it is preserved before the page disappears and the messages are deleted.

What remains unresolved in a matter like this is almost always the seller's side. Only the buyer is talking, and the buyer's account, however honest, is not the whole record. That is precisely the gap an investigation or a Commission exists to fill, and it is why an early, careful assessment matters more than a loud one.

This article is general information about Indian law and is not legal advice on your own situation. Facts differ, and the outcome of any complaint depends on evidence that can only be examined directly.

Reach the Chamber

Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India. Criminal defence, cyber crime and economic offences.

• Chamber: Lawyers' Chamber, Chamber No. 86, Supreme Court of India, New Delhi - 110001
• Phone: +91 97295 06771
• Email: me@sudhirrao.com

Adv. Jyoti Rao, associate, Bar Council of Delhi D/891/2023, handles family and matrimonial matters.

Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India

Facing a similar matter? Speak to a criminal advocate in Delhi — Advocate Sudhir Rao appears in bail, trial and appellate matters before the Delhi District Courts, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India.