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Designer Bags Scams

Anytime that an item becomes excessively popular, you can bet your life that the scam artists will come out of the woodwork. Optimists tend to believe that people are generally good; however, the evidence throughout history points to the opposite idea: people are generally greedy and bad. The number of unconscionable people showing up in the world on a daily basis tends to support the last theory. When a fast buck can be made with less work or deficient materials the scam scum will be the first in line to find that fast buck. With the advent of high communication technology, the problem becomes global in nature and often more difficult to control, thus our subject, scams dealing with designer bags.

The wonderful world of technology has brought about the great online merchants such as Amazon or Dell. The online auction has also appeared and made famous such sites as Ebay, which to many is a wonderful phenomenon of technology. Many people have legitimate businesses through Ebay and other online auction sites while others have chosen to exploit and abuse the system in order to gain illegitimate profits at the expense of unwary customers. The latter category includes the designer bags/purse scam artists who through one way or another, have found a way to cheat the customer by selling merchandise that is not made by the claimed manufacturer. Some have simply copied the design and used a cheaper material while applying the claim that their bag is made by the legitimate design company. This is thieving in the simplist of terms and the buyer must be aware of the various themes that these scam artists will use to relieve them of their hard earned money and then disappearing into the Internet to later surface again and use the same ploy to sucker yet another poor customer into their web of deceit. Let us examine a number of known, popular (with the scammers) designer bag scam themes.

Most scam artists prefer to use the online auctions scenario for the simple reason that it is quite difficult to find them through the Internet. Some will use valid real storefronts but risk the possibility of discovery and prosecution so most prefer the auctions where they can disappear and lose their identity in a matter of moments.

The first scam we will discuss is frequently known as the "Factory Seconds" scam. What happens is a scam artist finds reasonable facsimile bags (fakes), manufactured by an inexpensive Third World firm, and makes the claim that these bags are made by a famous designer such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel or other reputable designer. They then claim that their bags are "factory seconds" (had a minor flaw in it that is usually not evident on initial visual inspection) so they are a bit less expensive. In actuality it is still at least half to two-thirds the price of an original designer model purse but the scam artist paid practically nothing for the knock-off to begin with. The truth is, their bags are highly inferior to the actual Vuitton bags and may have numerous defects. Their secret is that they find a way to make the bags look like popular Vuitton models and the highly motivated customer believes that they are getting a great deal. The fact is, the customer is being lied to and cheated because the vast majority of high class fashion designers do not deal with "factory seconds." The big-name designers destroy all merchandise that does not meet their strict standards; however, a picture online may look like the real thing.

Another frequently seen scheme is known as the "authorized representative" scam. In short, the scam criminal somehow acquires foreign made bag knock-offs or fakes that are, again, reasonable facsimiles of original designer models such as Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Prada or Coach. They then take pictures of these fakes and place them online either from their offshore locations or on online auctions. The pictures also may be of real or actual designer purses and from another source such as the Internet. The criminals then place ads on web sites or on auctions claiming to have attained real or actual designer bags as a result of being an official "authorized representative" (buyer or seller) of one of the design companies and able to acquire the bags at significant wholesale discounts. The truth is that the major bag designers rarely, if ever, use wholesaling as part of their sales plan. These bags are in unbelievable demand and the designer/manufacturers do not need to place cheap, wholesale prices on them in order to sell them. They have their price and that is what a dealer will buy them for prior to selling them at a mark-up price. Legitimate dealer prices will vary a little but probably not to the extent that the scam artist is offering. Beware of these types of scams. Be aware though, that there are a few authorized wholesalers but the number is really quite low. We have an article about wholesaling on this site. Check it out and see what you think.

The buyer of legitimate designer hand-bags should purchase with caution, especially when purchasing online. There are numerous online scams that can cause you to lose your money and increase your frustration and confidence. We will post other articles as we discover more scams of these much sought after fashion items.

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Anytime that an item becomes excessively popular, you can bet your life that the scam artists will come out of the woodwork. Optimists tend to believe that people are generally good; however, the evidence throughout history points to the opposite idea: people are generally greedy and bad. The number of unconscionable people showing up in the world on a daily basis tends to support the last theory. When a fast buck can be made with less work or deficient materials the scam scum will be the first in line to find that fast buck...

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