Huge risk of buying anything from unlicensed street vendors

Without getting into the racial weeds like the other thread, how does a tourist distinguish an unlicensed street vendor selling tchotchkes from a licensed one? Does the latter exist? Licenses aren't displayed anywhere (that I've noticed anyway) and the quality of the goods may not differ much at all (or does it?). I stay away from all that stuff like the plague, but this is for clarification purposes only.

Incredible! I had never heard that. I certainly don't think it's in the RS guidebook. Thanks for that info!

Tell me, Roberto--is that law enforced more than the 'bus police' that every once in a blue moon get on a Rome bus looking for validated passes? Seems to me that scores of Romans flaunt this law every day.

For as fast as those guys can run, hauling their rolled up tarp full of stuff , they should be on the Olympic track team, not selling trinkets.

Those scores of Romans have bus passes that do not need to be validated each time they ride a bus.

None of the responses has yet touched on the salient point: What was Roberto doing buying selfie sticks? I thought he had more class than that!

I would assume any street vendors selling out of a back pack or a tarp on the ground to be unlicensed. They're prepared to grab their gear and go if police come around.

If they've at least constructed a wooden shack and don't appear to be selling fakes or items so cheap they must have fallen off a truck, then your chances are better. I've never seen the type of rolling cart pictured on one of Roberto's links and can't really say 'bout those.

If I was more of a pessimist, I would almost think the trinket seller and the "police" were working together since they so conveniently appeared just as you completed your transaction.

Roberto—enlightening warning.

How much is this about buying from an unlicensed vendor, and how much is about buying fake Italian products, knock-offs? Do you have more info? I didn’t put the articles through Google translate.

Michael Schneider just posted this video link from the Paris police about avoiding theft and scams. At the end of the video, it says not to buy from illegal vendors due to counterfeit goods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdpFP4UktBU&feature=youtu.be

Thank you for the information, Roberto. Selfie sticks? Really???? :)

If I was more of a pessimist, I would almost think the trinket seller and the "police" were working together since they so conveniently appeared just as you completed your transaction

I doubt that somebody who did the military service in the Carabinieri is not able to recognize a fake policeman.
If I were a fake cop I'd ask for 100 €, not 1,000. No italian would/could pay 1,000 € on the spot in cash and they did not seem interested in scamming tourists.
Those were real cops who were stretching law 99/2009 a little beyond its limits, that law was not meant for trinkets and selfie sticks as there are no original selfie sticks and no trade mark on them.

I wasn’t buying selfie sticks for myself, but I figured they would be a cheap trinkets for my office coworkers. However it is true I have become a classless American, and that is something my Italian friends remind me and that is why the African vendor approached me in English (was also wearing shorts, big white tennis shoes, a typical tourist hat and Hawaiian shirt)..
I was able to save one selfie stick, because I told the police one was mine (they confiscated the rest, don’t remember how many I had bought). I am in the office and have it with me now, we use it for Office parties (it doesn’t work but it can hold a phone up). We actually just used it now for a birthday.
I also thought the law applies only to knock off of famous Italian brands, but I don’t think this piece of junk is a knock off of any famous brand. It says monopod and made in China. It doesn’t say Armani or Gucci.

I don’t know what to tell you. I doubt those policemen were fake policemen with a fake badge (and that would be kind of risky to pull something like that on Piazza della Signoria with thousands of people around). The African guy also ran away like a chased gazelle in the Serengeti so I’m sure he knew they were policemen he had seen before. The articles linked above seem to imply it’s not just knockoffs they go after. All I know is that since that incident, I don’t buy anything in the street unless it’s an obviously legitimate vendor like those carts at San Lorenzo.

Regarding relying on racial profiling, that doesn’t work. 99% of those legitimate vendors at San Lorenzo employ foreign immigrants to sell from the carts (Barrocci, in Florentine). The only real Italian (Florentine) selling at his San Lorenzo cart is a friend of mine, also called Roberto, pictured below. He sells nice Italian hats (not knockoffs). His wife is from Honolulu, where he lived for a while, so if you are from Hawaii he might give you a discount.

https://goo.gl/images/kHo1jV

Without getting into the racial weeds like the other thread, how does
a tourist distinguish an unlicensed street vendor selling tchotchkes
from a licensed one?

If they're selling from a tarp spread out on the ground or wandering around with a backpack and a few trinkets in their hands, it's a fair bet they're unlicensed. If they take off like a scalded cat at the sight of a cop, it's a sure thing. I'm pretty sure the kiosks/carts that you see in the piazzas are licensed, since they can't run away with them at all.

Roberto, I've known for years about the fines for buying counterfeit goods like purses, but I didn't know these fines extended to the cheap trinkets as well. Not that I'd be interested in buying junk like that anyway.

hey roberto
thanks for the heads up about your friend roberto. next time i'm in florence i will have on my hawaiian print muu muu, puka shell necklace and my slippahs :O)
aloha

Found the Law in the portal of the Florence Municipal Police. Here it is, translated for you (in real English, not Googlish):

Italian Public Law 80/2005, later modified by Law 49/2006 and Law 99/2009:

It is subject to an administrative sanction from € 100 euro to € 7,000 euro the final purchaser of any items which, due to the quality of the product, or the condition of those who sell them, or the entity of the price, may lead to believe that the regulations on origin and provenance of those products or the industrial property laws may have been violated. [...]
In any case, the authorities will proceed with the confiscation of the subject items referred to in the preceding paragraph.
The fact constitutes a penal crime, if the purchase is made by a commercial operator or importer or any other person other than the final purchaser, in which case the pecuniary administrative sanction is set from a minimum of € 20,000 up to a maximum of € 1 million. […]

So the law distinguishes if the purchase is made by the final purchaser/user or by someone other than the final user (someone who intends to resell those products) in which case the fine is much higher.

The law also defines as punishable not only the purchase of counterfeit knockoff items (industrial property laws are violated) but also of items whose origin and provenance may be questionable (e.g. possible stolen items) based on the quality and low price of the product, or the condition of the seller (selling from a backpack in the middle of the street while running away from police would probably fall in this "condition of the seller").

It's worthwhile to remember that the Italian organized crime utilizes these migrants to resell (fence) stolen goods that have been stolen in large scale usually from manufacturers or distribution centers, as well as items manufactured illegally by unlicensed companies involved in organized crime. Do not think that the origin of the items sold in the streets is legitimate. It almost never is. The migrants are just the foot soldiers of the much worse Italian organized criminals who are simply exploiting the migrants.

So, did I fall victim of the refrigerator magnet mafia? Or maybe I am the culprit?

There are now signs around the Accademia and Uffizi warning people to only deal with official museum representatives and not the scores of people trying to sell them tickets/tours of the museums and sights around Florence.

The illegal goods sellers/panhandlers/"good luck" band placers around Florence are getting more aggressive. But so it seems is the presence of local police/Carabinieri/regular military.

So much for the idea of not taking an umbrella to Italy and planning to buy one from the street vendors who materialize when it starts to rain.

Yep. God knows how many umbrellas I bought from the African vendors. Thank God I was never caught by the knockoff police then.

I’ve yet to see anything a street vendor was selling that I’d want to buy (except scrumptious roasted chestnuts in Siena on a chilly December evening).

We buy art from local artists to help remember our trips. Our walls are adorned with paintings and watercolors from Italy, the UK, France, Germany, Nicaragua, Honduras and Tanzania. I don’t think we’ve ever paid more than $50.00.