Staffordshire shoppers are being urged to be aware of counterfeit goods when shopping in the run up to Christmas.

The warning from Staffordshire County Council's trading standards service is reminding people that counterfeit items could be offered to them through social media, online and at local markets.

Over the last few years the service have seized millions of pounds of fake goods. Popular fakes include clothing, children's toys, toiletries, alcohol and tobacco.

Counterfeit goods are often poor quality imitations that will leave people out of pocket and could also be harmful to their health. Legitimate traders also suffer as a result of counterfeit sales; harming the local economy in the process.

Victoria Wilson, Cabinet Member for Communities at Staffordshire County Council said:

"The run up to Christmas is one of the busiest times of year for shopping, but unfortunately it's also a busy time for counterfeiters.

"This is just a gentle reminder from our Trading Standards team to be on your guard for counterfeit items.

"Fake goods are big business these days and are increasingly hard to detect just to look at, so when something is being sold at a knock-down price, people should be extremely wary. We always say that if something looks too good to be true, it usually is."

To avoid counterfeit goods, people should look out for the "3 P's":

-PRICE: If the price looks too good to be true, it probably is.

-PACKAGING: If the product is being sold without its packaging, or the packaging appears to be of low quality, or includes printing errors (for example, blurry pictures, typos, spelling or grammatical errors) it is probably counterfeit.

- PLACE: Consider where the product is being sold. If it's in-store, ask yourself if you would normally expect to find the product sold in this type of environment. Deal only with legitimate, established retailers.

If buying online, counterfeiters often steal pictures and formatting from the real websites to make their websites look legitimate, so don't be fooled by a professional-looking website. If you find typos, grammatical and spelling errors, or incomplete information, then the site is probably fake.

To report counterfeit goods sales people should call the anonymous Staffordshire Fight the Fakes line on 01785 330356.