Pandora BRAND PROTECTION
1. BRAND PROTECTION
2. AUTHORISED Pandora RETAILERS
3. IDENTIFYING AUTHENTIC Pandora PRODUCTS
4. REPORTING BRAND AND PRODUCT VIOLATIONS
BRAND PROTECTION
Today, Pandora is present on six continents and, like many other global brands, we are facing the challenge of counterfeiters attempting to violate our brand, our products and our identity. It is illegal to sell counterfeit (fake) products. However, fraudulent counterfeiters continually attempt to exploit the Pandora brand and benefit from the fame and worldwide success we have achieved.
Therefore, we safeguard our intellectual property rights by all available means, including comprehensive global surveillance, registration and control programmes, so that you can remain confident that your Pandora product is authentic and lives up to our high quality standards. We take serious action on a local level, as well as internationally, to stop counterfeiting of our products, and we strongly believe that our efforts will decrease the amount of infringers attempting to mislead you into believing that you are buying authentic Pandora jewelry.
The impact of Counterfeiting
When purchasing fake products, people directly or indirectly contribute to undermining responsible practices in the jewelry industry:
• Sellers of fake and illegal products rarely follow the standards and laws that legitimate companies adhere to in their practices, such as laws prohibiting forced labour and child labour, and laws protecting workers' rights
It is our assumption that
• Counterfeiters are known to not pay taxes, duties or customs fees in accordance with laws
• Counterfeiters are know to not manufacture their products in accordance with laws protecting the health and safety of the public, such as laws prohibiting the use of toxic and other harmful substances
• Illegitimate dealers rarely offer customer service and after sales service. By purchasing your jewelry from an authorized Pandora dealer, your purchase is protected under our warranty policy, and you can benefit from the support of our customer service staff in many countries around the world
Find out how you can identify an authentic Pandora product, find an authorized Pandora retailer or how to report Pandora brand and product violations.
AUTHORISED Pandora RETAILERS
Purchase your Pandora jewellery from authorised retailers
Pandora's products are sold through more than 10,300 authorised retailers around the world. By purchasing your Pandora products from one of these retailers, you can be assured they are authentic. Many of our retailers have their own websites, and some have their own web shop selling authentic Pandora products. Use the Store Locator to find your nearest Pandora retailer.
Official Pandora websites and online retailers
The most common brand and product violations happen online, and websites selling fake Pandora products come in all shapes and sizes. Some are poorly designed and use poor quality – if not completely incorrect – images. However, it can be difficult to determine whether the sites are legitimate or not. They may use Pandora in their site name, use copies of official images and may even have a link to our official website, trying to convince consumers that they are official Pandora sites.
Pandora has two official websites; a corporate website www.pandoragroup.com and a consumer website http://us-pandora.net. Moreover, for a number of countries, Pandora has an official e-store at estore.pandora.net.
Pandora is also present on a number of other online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, the Pandora Club, the Pandora YouTube channel and Pandora Magazine.
Pandora on eBay and other auction websites
Pandora does not authorise any of our retailers to sell Pandora jewelry on any Internet auction sites, and we can only guarantee the authenticity of products purchased through our authorised Pandora retailers. While people are able to sell Pandora items from their personal collection, these items are not covered under warranty and purchasing of Pandora products from Internet auction sites is at your own risk.
IDENTIFYING AUTHENTIC Pandora PRODUCTS
Pandora provides a universe of hand-finished and modern jewelry made from genuine materials, primarily solid sterling silver and 14 or 18 k gold with gemstones, stones, cultured pearls, glass and wood. Even though we do our utmost to ensure that our jewelry is easily identifiable through key markings, it can be difficult for you as a consumer to tell the difference between Pandora products and copies, because copies might carry similar identifiers.
While the presence of these key markings does not guarantee authenticity, looking for these key markings is one of the first steps you can take to ensure that the products you purchase are in fact authentic Pandora products.
Check the maker's mark to identify the origin of the jewelry
A maker's mark is a US term for a stamp indicating the origin of jewelry. The standard marker's mark on Pandora jewelry is "ALE", which stands for Algot Enevoldsen, the father of Pandora founder, Per Enevoldsen. You will always see "ALE" stamped on our jewelry, except on some of our smallest pieces. The UK equivalent to maker's mark is sponsor's mark, and the Danish equivalent is responsibility mark.
Some countries require other specific jewelry stamps, and Pandora does of course live up to these requirements by adding additional stamps to our jewelry in these countries.
Check the quality mark to establish the purity of the metal
The term quality mark is the standard term in the US and the equivalent of hallmark in the UK and fineness mark in Denmark. At Pandora, we stamp our jewelry with quality marks to indicate the metal's purity and to guarantee that the metal is genuine.
All our sterling silver jewelry is stamped with a capital "S" for silver, followed by the purity stated as pure silver parts per thousand: S925 (92.5% pure silver).
All our gold jewelry is stamped with a capital "G" for gold, followed by the purity, stated as pure gold parts per thousand in the gold alloy: 14k: G585 (58.5% pure gold) or 18k: G750 (75% pure gold).
The quality marks on Pandora jewelry manufactured before June 2011 only contain numbers, not letters.
REPORTING BRAND AND PRODUCT VIOLATIONS
Pandora will continue to fight those who attempt to abuse our name and brand to sell counterfeit products and deceive our customers, and our Brand Protection team maintains the highest standards of brand protection. But we also need your help. As a consumer, you are an extremely valuable means of defence in our efforts to protect the Pandora brand, and we ask for your help with identifying and reporting sellers of fake Pandora products.
If you discover auctions sites, web pages, bazars, retail shops or adverts in magazines, leaflets or newspapers appearing to be selling counterfeit Pandora products, please report the link and details in English to our Brand Protection team at brandprotection@pandora.net.
Thank you - we appreciate your help in protecting the Pandora brand and products.