~~ Designer Handbag Ebay Buyers Guide ~~

FAKE! $442.00

Check out item number 6889281396. Think its real? Its not! Notice how they took pictures before they knew they were going to sell it! Fake Used handbags usualy sell for more than New ones simply becuase people think it has a great chance of being authentic and believe the lies people tell of where they purchased it. Also notice the covering over the cheap hardware and handles. This item was purchased for $80 and was sold for over $400.

~ Let’s Get Started! ~

If you are looking to buy an authentic designer handbag off of Ebay than you have already made the right decision in buying this guide. The fact is that easily 80% of auctions for designer handbags on EBay are fakes. Many believe that this figure is closer to 95%. How does EBay allow this to happen? The truth is that they cannot do anything about it. There are a countless number of auctions posted on the site daily. They do not have the ability to validate every auction. In the designer handbag category, EBay relies on people to be their eyes and report fraudulent auctions. There are many good people trying to limit the number of fake auctions but after the auction gets shut down the seller can just post another one. I will start this guide with general tips that should filter out many of the fakes. Then we will move into the more detailed portion of the guide where I will show you how to pick out the fake handbag sellers with pictures. Here are some general tips:

~ Nine Beginners Tips ~

1. Items with the stamp “Made in France” are not always legitimate. Many manufacturers simply just stamp it to add to its credibility. Many items made in China or any Asian countries are fakes. On expensive handbags you will not find any sewn labels such as the ones you would find on a t-shirt. Dooney & Bourke is one exception to this rule.

2. A designer bag will have exceptional quality and marksmanship. You will never find loose strings, mismatched seams, cheap zippers, or cheap packaging. Poor stitching is the first clear sign of a fake. Unfortunately you will be unable to closely inspect the item.

3. Sellers know that you will be unable to inspect items closely and take advantage of this by using few or low quality pictures. Stock pictures are a clear warning. The pictures should be of the exact item you are going to bid on.

4. Sellers that don’t offer a guarantee, return policy, or refunds are most likely looking to steal your money. Do not buy items that sellers will not guarantee.

5. Don’t be impressed if an item offers tags, a dust bag, or an identity card. These are beginning to be counterfeited along with the bags. Plastic or foam covers over handles are also not usually seen on high priced items.

6. Authentic items do not go for low prices. A seller will not sell an item worth $1000 for $200. Many people see that there is a large supply and think that the price is driven down but this is not true.

7. A seller saying its 100% Authentic in the title does not mean anything. Sellers use many different methods to scam you into buying the item. You will learn more about this later.

8. If you are new to EBay, you need to become familiar with the system before you buy anything. Feedback scores, Payment Methods, and Buyer Protection are things you should definitely know about. I will teach you about these things later in this guide.

9. If the seller is loosely calling something authentic than it most likely is not. I have come across auctions where the seller says, “I have not checked the authenticity of this item, it is your job to ask me questions to verify its authenticity.” This is a clear sign of a fake.

FAKE! $232.00

The stock photo in item number 6889268074 is a dead givaway. Do not even open auction where hadbags have stock photos.

~ How to Examine an Auction ~

Now, let’s take a look at some handbag auctions and learn how to recognize the fakes from the authentic items. Would you buy the item below? Do you think you would be buying an authentic item? Take a look at the item on the following page.

If you had purchased the item above than you would have been ripped off. There are seven clear signs that would have told you to stay away from this auction.
1. The seller’s feedback is private. Feedback tells you how the seller performed in previous transactions. If the seller chooses to keep his score private than he obviously has something to hide. You should exit out of this auction before even looking at the description. You should check the feedback score whether it is high or not. Just see what other members are saying about the seller, and more importantly, see what the feedback is from. If all of the feedback was received from sellers on items that cost one or two dollars than you need to leave. This seller just bought those items so he could get feedback to rip someone off. And that someone is not going to be you. In this case you can ignore the 100% feedback score because you cannot see what the feedback is for.

2. The seller just recently registered. The seller registered July 24th, 2005, this auction took place on August 14th, 2005. After sellers are done ripping people off and have received too many negative feedbacks, they register as new users and do it again. Look for a seller with experience selling in the designer handbag category.
3. Seller does not offer buyer protection. You can view whether the seller offers buyer protection or not in the listing page. The listing will have the regular Paypal logo plus a check mark. Only open the listings that offer this. If the seller were reputable than why would they not take the extra five minutes to offer you protection. This protection only covers up to $1000.
4. Item is new with tags. Do you think you could get a genuine LV Handbag for nearly $175, which is what this sold for with shipping? I didn’t think so. If a deal on eBay seems to good to be true, it probably is.
5. The description is very brief. If I were selling an authentic item and I wanted to make a profit on it I would take extra time to write a very detailed description. This auction has about thirty words. Obviously this seller knows nothing about handbags. He couldn’t even take the ten seconds it would take to copy and paste a stock description.
6. Pictures are very important to eBay buyers. Because you cannot hold the item in your hands, you rely on the pictures to examine it. Look for auctions with many high quality pictures. Ask the seller to take a picture of a particular angle for you. If you want to see the stitching and the seller doesn’t send you the picture than forget about it. Make sure that it states in the description that the item pictured is the item you will receive. If it doesn’t state that than email the seller and ask if it is. Also take notice on the plastic and foam wrapping around the handle. The manufacturers put this wrapping on because the paint on the metal parts chips very easily when they are shipped. What, you didn’t expect real brass did you?
7. Seller requires payment quickly. This may mean nothing but in this case it is a very bad sign. This seller had many other auctions ending in a few days within each other. He probably plans to collect all the payments, ship the fake items, and close his account. He is long gone by the time the items reach the buyers.
Wow, there are seven clear reasons for not buying from this seller. If you have any doubt at all on any auction than you should not buy from that seller. Apply these rules to every auction and you won’t get ripped off. But don’t go running off just yet to buy an item. We have several more rules for determining sellers to be dishonest. Before we move on I must note one other important thing. The seller in the example above was a very lazy one. Had they taken an extra five minutes taking pictures, writing a description, and telling you lies about its authenticity, this auction would have ended very differently. The auction would have ended much higher. This seller was very simple to catch, it’s the ones who put more effort into auctions that you have to watch out for. This seller paid $70 for this item. The unsuspecting buyer paid $170. We have to put an end to this. You will do your part just for not buying from these sellers. Their business will start to decrease and the sellers of authentic items will start to appear. I will update this guide regularly because surly some of those sellers will buy this guide to try to stay ahead of me. However, you and I will always be one step ahead of them because there are some things that they cannot hide. Thank you for buying this guide and fighting back to the fraudulent sellers. I have had numerous emails from buyers stating that they wished they had bought this guide before they purchased a fake. They won’t make the same mistake again. In the next example let’s just focus on two things. Ignore all of the things we already listed above. Do you see anything wrong with this item? What you and most people probably didn’t realize is that this price is way to high. Also take note on the number of bids.

8. The price for this item is higher than most of the similar items on eBay. People see this and they think that if the price is higher and people are bidding on it than it is authentic. This is not true. I will tell you how the price is driven up in the next rule. Of course you already know this item is fake because of all the other rules but this rule won’t help you find a fake. It will help save you money on authentic items. A high price does not always mean it is authentic.

9. Check out the bidding activity below. It has a lot more bids than most other items. Take a look at the image below. Do you see all of the multiple bids from the new and no feedback sellers? This is called shill bidding. One or more of those people are either the seller himself with another ID or one of his friends bidding to bring the price up. People will see that there are many bids on it and they will want in too. All the time not realizing that the person bidding up the auction has no intent of purchasing the item.
10. So you find a seller that appears to be selling an authentic item according to all the rules and the feedback score is high. It has to be an authentic item right? Not always. A seller can manage to have a high feedback score while selling fakes. This is because the replicas have increased the quality of their items also. The two items in the pictures are both very good replicas. Most people who buy a handbag on eBay do not have a clue as to how to tell if it is real. They take it out of the dust bag and immediately notice a smell similar to the real thing. Replications are now made of the same quality products as the real thing. In this case you will have to look at the craftsmanship of the item. Check for loose strings, mismatched seams, and cheap zippers. Check for chips in the “brass” handles. Gently spread the seams open and look for glue. The authentic manufactures would never allow a defection, no matter how small, in an item.
11. Ask the seller questions about the item. If they do not know what they are talking about than look for someone who does.
12. Powersellers are not always honest sellers. It is fairly easy for a person selling designer bags to become a Powerseller because of the high prices. They only have to sell $1000 a month for three months.
13. You can take a handbag to a retailer to have it authenticated for free. Retailers also sometimes offer discounts on returned items if you ask.

~ Money Saving Tips After You Found The Perfect Item! ~

So you found that perfect handbag that you have determined is authentic and you have to have it. How do you get the lowest price on it? There are several strategies you may use.
1. You are probably familiar with the sniping strategy or you have lost an item because of a sniper. The sniping strategy is basically waiting for the last minute to place your bid. Placing your bid in the final seconds of an auction will, if your bid is high enough, make you the high bidder. The other bidders will not have time to place another bid before it closes so you end up taking the item. Your bid should be the highest price you are willing to pay. Do not place your bid at a dollar higher than the current price because you will not get it. There also will most likely be other snipers. If you choose to snipe, open several browsers to the bid page to get ready for any more bids you may want to make. Look at ended auctions of the same item. You want to see how much it went for to give you an idea of how much you should bid.
2. Do not place your item in even increments. Place a bid of $3.06 or $3.56. If another bidder places a bid of $3 or $3.55 than you will win the auction.
3. Don’t bid during peak times or days. Sunday is a bad day to buy anything on eBay. This is the busiest day and this is bad for you because more people will be bidding. Afternoons are also busy times. Bidding on items ending in the middle of the night are the best. There will likely be no other snipers and all of the other bidders will be sleeping. This is a huge advantage. If you live in the PDT time zone you also have an advantage over everyone on the east coast because you are three hours behind. If you live on the east coast, wake up early one morning to buy the item. Also avoid normally busy holidays such as Christmas.
4. Seller has multiple auctions. If a seller has three items ending closely together than you can get a lower price. Skip the auction ending first; it will go for the highest price. The second auction is the one you want to bid on. Bidders for the first item will not have enough time to regroup and bid on the second item, so they will move on to the third. Not you however, you will bid on the second item. The auctions have to end together in a short period of time for this to work.
5. This last tip will not help you in the handbag category but it may help you for other items. Increase your bids by $.50 or $1. This will scare some sellers because they will see that there is a large amount of bidding so they think the item will go for a high price. This doesn’t work in the handbag category because the items with the most bids result in even more bidding activity. Sellers see that many people are bidding on a particular item so the item must be authentic. This is why shill bidding is effective in the handbag category and not in others.

FAKE! $555.00

Why would anyone purchase from a seller that has a private feedback? Because they didn’t read this guide! If there feedback is private than they are hiding something. Also avoid sellers with low feedback scores and recently registered sellers. Item # 6889448281

~ Protecting Yourself After You Found An Authentic Item ~

1. Use Paypal. Whether the seller has buyer protection or not, Paypal will protect you for up to $1000. Please note that you must be a verified Paypal member and the item must be shipped to your verified address for you to qualify for protection. This process takes little time to complete and would be worth your while.

2. EBay also offers insurance. They offer coverage of $200 and $500 for purchases made from a PowerSeller. However, eBay will only refund this money if you do not receive the item at all. They will not refund your money if you purchase a fake item.

3. Do not use checks to pay for items! A single check contains all of the information someone would need to create more checks and defraud you. In addition to that, you will have trouble receiving a refund if something does occur. And you will not be protected for any money. Your alternative is to use a check through Paypal. This will give you the safety and protection you will need.

4. Use an Escrow service. This will cost you about 1% of the purchase price. Basically it brings a third party to the transaction. You pay the company, you receive your item, and if you are satisfied then you can release the payment to the seller. Ask the seller to use an escrow service such as escrow.com

5. What should you do if you buy a very expensive item on eBay and realize that the seller sent you a fake? Say you spent $2,500 for a handbag and Paypal will refund $1000 to you. How do you get the rest back? You may take the seller to court. You will easily win the case if you are able to prove the item is a fake. Selling fake handbags is also a serious crime. Often time just threatening the seller of taking him to court will be enough for him to return your money. If you are going to threaten the party do it kindly and give many warnings. Saying that you are going to sue the other party for all that their worth and cursing at them will hurt your case if you do end up in court.

6. If you do run into a problem and the seller will not cooperate than you need to leave negative feedback instantly. After you leave negative feedback go to Services, eBay Security Center and report the seller. This will prevent the seller from retaliating and leaving negative feedback for you because parties in a dispute cannot leave feedback.

7. Keep all emails, receipts, and any other documents. This will help you if you do have to prove a fraudulent purchase.