Televisions and chainsaws were among the seized items yesterday being passed on by Highland Council’s trading standards team to a social enterprise charity to be recycled.
Power washers and generators make up some of the other fake goods which have been illegally sold across the north over the past year.
Criminals from parts of England and Ireland are thought to be behind the door-to-door scams.
All of the items seized have been as a result of on-going community safety operations with police to tackle the problem of doorstep crime in the Highland Council area.
Yesterday a total of 16 television sets – up to 54ins wide – with missing plugs, cables and safety instructions, could be seen stacked up in the ILM Highland premises in Alness.
The charity has a team of eight staff on site who use machinery to break down the counterfeit electrical devices and recycle the parts.
Yesterday at the Alness site, trading standards team leader Mark McGinty said that the fraudsters have been trying to flog the so-called flat screen, 4K televisions for a suspected £100-£150 a set.
He added: “Televisions are new to us this year and so are the heavy duty power tools. Generators and power washers are more common.
“The television sets here have all come off the same lorry but this type of criminal activity has been happening all across the region.
“Potentially, you are buying something which you don’t know is safe and sometimes you are buying something that could be lethal. Electrical items have to come with certain certificates but none of this stuff has appropriate safety certification.”
Based on patterns across the country, Mr McGinty suspects that the generators are being sold for about £100 and that power washers and chainsaws will be sold for about £130.
Kenny Horsfield, recycling operations manager at ILM, says that this is the second time trading standards have come to them with seized goods for recycling.
Chairman of the Resources Committee, councillor Bill Fernie, said: “The role of our trading standards team in removing such items from circulation is vital, this work protects consumers from harm, protects legitimate business from unfair competition, and quite rightly tackles those who chose to trade illegally.”
