Thursday 20 Jumada al-ula 1446 - 21 November 2024
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A trader is asking whether it is permissible for him to remove the tradename of a product or replace it with another name

Question

I bought a quantity of cooling devices – i.e., air conditioners – and on the air conditioner there is the name of the manufacturing company. This company is in another country. Is it permissible for me to remove the name of the company from the air conditioners, and put any other name on it, so that it will not be known what the source of this machine is, because it is a high quality product, and I do not want any other traders to compete with me in this product, because I went through a great deal until I was able to obtain them. Or should I not put any name on it? Is this permissible?

Answer

Praise be to Allah.

It does not seem to us that there is any reason why you cannot remove the name of the manufacturing company, if that does not involve any deceit or cheating of the manufacturing company or the purchaser.

But the manufacturing company may lower its prices, in return for what the importers do of advertising and distributing their products. In that case, removing the company’s name is a kind of betrayal, because its objectives will not be achieved in that case, and you will have gone against what you agreed upon with the company.

Or the company’s name may be indicative of the poor quality of its product, in which case removing it will be betraying the purchaser, because if he knew that the item was from that company, he would not buy it at all, or he would not buy it for the price stipulated.

If removing the company’s name is not betraying or cheating the purchaser, or making him think that the item was made by another company that produces better goods, then there is nothing wrong with it, in sha Allah.

But it is better to do that with the agreement of the manufacturing company, if possible.

And Allah knows best.

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Source: Islam Q&A