A Sydney-based luxury retailer has been accused of selling fake Prada and Gucci handbags, as counterfeits become harder to spot.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Louise Cameron wouldn’t call herself rich, not by any means. But the 44-year-old mother of three from Adelaide had always dreamed of owning a designer bag. And not just any bag, a Saint Laurent Envelope Medium Chain Bag, which sells at the brand’s boutiques for more than $4000. So, when she found it online at discount designer outlet Cosette for $2400, it was too good a deal to pass up.
Cosette denies that refunding Cameron’s money amounts to an admission that the bag was fake: “Despite the incorrect belief that the bags were fake ... the customers were immediately and fully refunded under Cosette’s returns policy or as a gesture of goodwill as we care about customer satisfaction. Any claims that we sell fake bags or that these refunds imply that we have admitted that we sell fake bags are false,” the company wrote in a statement to this masthead.
Kostopulos bought the bag from Cosette in July 2021 for $1500, substantially less than the $2300 recommended retail price at the time. “It wasn’t so cheap that it seemed illegitimate, which made me think they were getting it from some supplier.” Comment was sought from the luxury brands mentioned in the story, but all declined to comment or did not respond before deadline.The Prada Re-Edition 2005 Nylon bag has been popular with celebrities and the street-style set.The booming secondary market in designer goods means there is huge demand for authentication services.
He says not only is the manufacturing of fakes often linked to criminal networks and slave labour, but they can also be made from dangerous materials, including toxic chemicals. “People don’t realise when these items rub against your skin, they’re immediately detrimental to you,” Srinivasan says. She agrees the only way a shopper is guaranteed a real bag is to buy it from the brand’s own stores, even though there have been some instances of “return fraud” – the practice of buying a real bag and returning a fake one in its place. The phenomenon even inspired the 2022 novelStill, Di Russo doesn’t want the prevalence of fakes to deter people from buying preloved items. “There is no authentication method that is 100 per cent certain,” she says. “But ...
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