Unfortunately in this day and age we need to be more vigilant than ever, the potential for buying counterfeit products is on the rise.

Not only is there a danger from these counterfeits because they don’t work as advertised but some may have the potential do harm outright!

So how do you know if what you are buying is the real thing?

There are clues, and The Environmental Protection Agency (which reports that the number of potentially dangerous counterfeits is increasing) has published a set of guide lines to help you tell the difference.

Here’s some of the advice from the FDA:

There is no single characteristic that will identify all counterfeit products. Some of the issues that have been found include:

• Differences in weight between the outer package and the product inside
• Lack of directions in English
• Products not packaged in child-resistant packaging
• Missing directions for use
• Product in the container is not appropriate for the animal or size of animal pictured on the outside
• Stickers on the box to hide the foreign labeling
• EPA registration number is missing
• foreign labeled product with stickers containing some U.S. information
• foreign-labeled products

You can learn more about the dangers of counterfeit product and what to do if you are the victim of this type of fraud at the FDA website.