How do you spot fake La Perla items on eBay?

After selling retail and wholesale La Perla for the past 10 years and being eBay Power Seller veteran, I have been asked the question of fake La Perla on eBay many times over.  My answer has always been, that I do not even see a reason for someone to put out such items on eBay and why would they do that?  After all, how can one confuse La Perla with something else?  As time has proven - I was wrong.  Driven by those questions, some sellers decided why not try it?  And unfortunately to my dismay it has worked.

In fact, only recently that I have actually been noticing fairly consistent certain number of fakes on eBay.  In fact, they are usually not even fakes.  By "fakes" to me this normally means that those items might resemble something similar, that was actually produced by La Perla.  But the items that I do see do not resemble anything except cheap lingerie from the world famous lingerie and clothing catalog ( I will refrain from names, but you can figure out).

At the beginning it was mostly UK sellers.  But now there are some USA sellers that daily do this and in fairly large quantities too.   I am susprised and speecheless when I read feedback buyer left to the seller of fraudulent items, explaining the happiness and joy with the $24 bra he/she won outbidding 4 other people.  The bra that person bought is right from last year's Victoria's Secret catalog and liquidation cost of it is $3.00.  It has been returned by original customer and manufacturer cut the tags as they always do prior to delivery to the liquidator.  Oh, I am sorry!  Did I just blew out the major Secret???  There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying Victoria's secret items.  But you do not see Kia dealer calling his cars Ferrari.  There are those that drive Kia and perfectly happy with it.  Nothing wrong with it.

I am from the original and old eBay seller mentality and believe that there are good and respectful sellers on eBay.  It is those that commit fraud and sleep with it at night, that make me want to cringe as they ruin it for everyone - sellers and buyers.

Can eBay help after the auction?  eBay's position on this issue is that fake or not remains between seller and buyer and not eBay.  Feedback and report to eBay's Trust and Safety is the only avenue you have.  But second would not be able to do much.

So how do you spot fake La Perla?  I have made a short list for you to follow and you will see, in fact, how easy it is:

1. La Perla never had any liquidations.  You see this statement - it is a fake.
2. La Perla never ever cuts any tags - paper or fabric.  In fact, no official dealer or retail seller of La Perla ever seen or will see cut tags from La Perla or any other La Perla dealer.  You see this - it is a fake!  In lingerie, I am aware only of Victoria's Secret and their liquidators that cut tags and usually in a half.  That is also a hint.
3. Check seller out.  Is feedback high? Is it marked as "Private"?  Check who and why left negatives?  Most of the sellers of fake merchandise do not have high feedback and normally well below 100.  The reason for it is that they know that soon they have to change their user name as the current one will get ruined by negatives.  However, do not realy on this for 100%.  Some can get pretty high before the change.
4. Check the user name and pictures in the auction.  You will be surprised how many auctions with fakes I have seen even today, that have photos takes from VS catalog (which is illegal in itself) and then have user name that has a good hint what they really sell.  But Genuine La Perla written all over the auction with cut tags and everything else from above I just covered.  It is simply amazing how lazy those criminals can get and how naive buyer could be.
5. Check how reasonable the price is.  If it is too good to be true, then it is not true.  Works 100% of the time with La Perla from regular sellers of the brand.  So if someone is getting rid of their personal bra or so, then this does not work.  But when you see a seller with 10 items, all new and all rediculosly low priced, make your own judgement as it is a no brainer.  There is no $19 or even $24 La Perla bras.  They cost more to be made.  Watch for my upcoming "Buyers Guide to La Perla on eBay" to see how La Perla items priced on eBay and what it means.
6. Check seller's feedback for buyers.  Check some of those buyers and see if they ever bought La Perla from usual long-time sellers of La Perla on eBay.  The reason you will do that is because if one ever bought even 1 item of real La Perla, that buyer will always be able to spot fake and would never be happy with fake purchase.  There is that much difference and yes, it is that obvious.  Remember example with Kia and Ferrari from above?
7. Beware of the wording in listing "Genuine La Perla".  Beware does not mean ignore those listings.  It is just very uncommon for establshed sellers of La Perla to use that wording, but it is very common for the fakes I have seen.

There are many more obvious or not so obvious ways to add here.  But I do not want to make it very complicated to the point of discouraging people from buying La Perla on eBay.  By all means this is not my intent.  eBay is a great place with excellent prices to shop for such an amazing brand.  And there are several very well establshed sellers to buy from.  I just hate to see buyers who will never know what they are missing by buying real junk offered as La Perla. 

Happy shopping!

ART de FEMME