Counterfeit Laundry Detergent? Yeah, That’s A Thing

Just when you thought there were some things that couldn’t possibly be fake, you end up wrong.

Counterfeit laundry detergent has been popping up in Los Angeles at swap meets, fundraisers, and even online.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department turned up more than 400 buckets of apparently counterfeit laundry detergents at multiple locations in the Los Angeles area after a raid.

“GMA” was there when the raids were conducted.

According to investigators, the phony detergent is bought for around $5, and then resold for sometimes as much as five times that price.

Lt. Geoffrey Deedrick of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Office of Counterfeit and Piracy Team commented, “These guys are driving around with van loads of this stuff every day like it’s nothing,” Deedrick said. “If you made just as much money selling counterfeit Tide as heroin, what would you choose? The Tide.”

Procter & Gamble spokeswoman Anne Candido says the sale of counterfeit laundry detergent has been on the rise. “We started seeing this really escalate starting about a year ago,” she said. “It’s showing up all over the place and the social media is the enabler.”

Procter & Gamble, the name behind Tide, Downy and Gain detergents, has helped to identify close to 50 factories that are sending out counterfeit goods. This was just in the past year.

The company is urging the U.S. Senate to pass relevant legislation.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) and have not been compensated for this article.