Check The Id Of That Furby

Furby fans, beware. There may be frauds among those fuzzy furballs. Fortunately, the fakes are easy enough to spot. Furbies, as any parent of a 5-year-old knows, speak Furbish, but can be "taught" to speak English. These fakes, however, speak only gibberish. That might be merely amusing--except Furby's makers are upset by the sheer number of counterfeits turning up around the region.

Marketing execs from Tiger Electronics, a subsidiary of Hasbro and maker of the hit toy, first spotted the fakes at a recent Hong Kong toy fair. They traced them to Panyu, sort of a counterfeiter's paradise in southern China. With the government's help, Tiger shut down a production line there that made up to 5,000 fakes every day.