MLB Advises Fans To Beware Of Fake All-Star Merchandise

Baseball's All-Star Game is in South Florida for the first time but there are plenty of shady dealers who have been around this type of event before and will try to sell fraudulent merchandise that fans need to be wary of.

With all of the events that accompany the Mid-Summer Classic, there are plenty of stores and stands selling merchandise to commemorate the major event. Between the showcase events at Marlins Park, FanFest at the Miami Beach Convention Center and the other highlights of the week, there are also a lot of temporary outlets to get merchandise and mementos. 

Regardless of where you shop, Major League Baseball makes sure to put clear identifiable markings on their products to help fans distinguish from the real deal and the reproduced.

"The items that are most often counterfeit are tops and caps," MLB Senior Vice President for Legal and Business Affairs Ethan Orlinsky at Marlins Park. "Many of these items bear cut labels because the licensees--the legitimate vendors--won't accept these for the products that they produce with our marks on them. So any item that bears a cut label is likely to be counterfeit."

Whether its a hat, jersey, shirt, bobblehead doll or any other authentic piece of MLB merchandise, shoppers should pay attention to the detail and look for holographic stickers that are affixed to the products. There are even some counterfeit products containing their own stickers to try to dupe consumers but MLB makes sure that fans who pay attention to detail can tell which are real.

"There's a unique alpha-numeric combination on each legitimate sticker," said Orlinsky. "Each sticker has a raised red stitch so that you can both see it and touch it and it has elements within, both overt and covert, to distinguish between the legitimate and the illegitimate hologram."

Orlinsky says MLB works with their vendors as well as teams and law enforcement agencies to track down fraudsters around the country because the counterfeit merchandise winds up costing fans who were bilked and the producers of authentic items millions of dollars each year.

There will plenty of police officers from the City of Miami and Miami-Dade Police Departments as well as other officials who are looking to spot the schiesters trying to sell the fraudulent products but if you are approached by someone with fake products, make sure to try to track down a cop and report it.


 (Photo credit: Rob Carr)


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