NEW YORK – Shoppers rushing to find Fingerlings, the robotic monkeys that are one of the holiday season’s hottest toys and already hard to find, say they’ve been fooled into buying fakes.
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The real Fingerlings, 6-inch multicolored monkeys, wrap around a finger, move, and make sounds. They usually sell for about $15 but are sold out at many stores and websites. And counterfeiters are taking advantage of the shortage — selling fakes using the Amazon and Walmart.com platforms.
Through the sites’ third-party marketplaces, the fraudsters post items for sale using pictures that look like authentic Fingerlings. And they seem to be succeeding: Postings for phony Fingerlings were on Amazon’s best-selling toys list several times in the last two weeks.
Amazon and Walmart say they are shutting down counterfeiters and giving customers refunds.
