There are a few techniques charlatans use to fool bidders. I've been fooled myself, I won an auction and paid for an item that I thought was for an authentic pair of officially licenced Oakley sunglasses. The method for avoiding fake brand name items is not limited to sunglasses, it can be applied to any brand name item on all of eBay so please remember these steps on avoiding fraudulent auctions. The sunglasses in the auction had a close up blurry picture, so blurry that I was not certain if it was the real brand name. It appeared to match the style exactly so I was confident that it was just likely an accidental blurry photo taken by a bad photographer. This was a mistake on my part. Never assume anything, and never expect to not be disappointed if you have not seen a good quality photograph of the item you want to bid on. These dubious sellers use the bad photo technique more than any other. They will either post no photo at all, a tiny photo difficult to see, a blurry photo, a photo with too might shadow or too much light. They will often apologize and claim it was the best shot they could get. It was likely they took 20 photos with their digital camera before they found one bad enough to fool the public into thinking their cheap knock off item was the real thing. This applies to more than sunglasses, fake Rolex watches with blurry photos are posted frequently. It is very possible of these bad photo auctions 100% were cheap knock offs. If the seller can't get a crystal clear photo of the item they don't deserve to get many bids. You may want to bid on these items because the price is so low, other bidders have purpose avoided it for a reason. To summarize here are the things to look out for in an auction.

1. Blurry photos
2. No photos
3. Tiny photos
4. Photos with too much shadow
5. Photos with too much light

Unless you like to take risks or collect fake brand name items I suggest you avoid any all auctions with bad photos.