CLEVELAND — With the online holiday shopping season upon us, one of the top ways scammers are tricking people is with counterfeit products of in-demand items that might be hard to find.
A reddit user posted about one popular gift: the "Ms. Rachel Speak & Sing" doll, mentioning that some people who tried to buy it received fake versions.
THE QUESTION
So let's VERIFY: Can you ever be sure the hot toy you're trying to purchase online is legitimate, and not counterfeit?
SOURCES
Our sources are:
- The woman who plays Ms. Rachel on the popular YouTube series "Songs for Littles"
- Her official website
- Better Business Bureau
EXPLANATION
Ms. Rachel is a real teacher who creates YouTube videos to educate babies and toddlers. When you go to MsRachel.com, you can see a link to buy her Speak & Sing doll, but when you try to add it to your bag, it shows it's out of stock everywhere but Target.
Because it's so popular, counterfeit sales for the doll have been such a problem that the actual Ms. Rachel, Rachel Griffin Accurso, posted a warning on TikTok saying, "I'm so sorry that this is happening. There are fake Ms. Rachel dolls so I wanna make sure you got a real one. So let's go over how to tell. This is so important to me because we don’t know of the fake ones are safe or not.
She then pointed out what the real doll's packaging will look like.
"It comes with a learning card, it has a little Ms. Rachel tag," she added, before demonstrating which songs would play when you squeeze the corresponding hand on the doll. "This hand has 15 sayings, this hand plays four songs."
ANSWER
So we can VERIFY: Yes, you can make sure the hot toy you're trying to purchase online is legitimate, and not counterfeit.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
You can apply what Ms. Rachel said to making sure all of your hot holiday gifts are exactly what you intended to buy.
The Better Business Bureau says the best ways to avoid being tricked are to buy from authorized retailers, don't let yourself get sucked in by a price that seems significantly low, and watch for things like misspellings, blurry logos, and inconsistent packaging.
Remember, if you see something you want us to fact check, you can send it our way at VERIFY@wkyc.com.