I had the first awareness listing up when the first fake Marni item was spotted on eBay back on Oct 2005, and during the past nine months the counterfeit Marni are already flooded everywhere!  They are mostly current season's items, with an impossible low starting price and sometimes a very low Buy-It-Now price.  I have a few illustrations of the fake Marni compared to the real Marni items being put up in my 'About Me' page and some examples of current fake Marni items on eBay in my other guide, so for those of you who are interested, you might want to take a look at there as well.

Part II/ Part III/  My About Me Page

There are a couple of general facts that you could actually tell right away if an Marni item you are interested at is really a real one or not:

Rule 1) The counterfeit Marni originates from factories in China, and are being offered on eBay by different seller IDs (could possibly be the same group of people behind these IDs) who claim to be located at different parts of the world including UK, US, Australia or HK (These oversea accounts could possibly be hijacked or were sold to China eBayers).  But if you check the rest of the items they are selling, you will find that, they are basically all selling the same brands (all fakes), including:

Anna Sui, BCBG, Cacharel, Catherine Malandrino, Diane Von Furstenburg, Marc Jacobs, Philosophy De Alberta Ferretti, Rebecca Taylor, Theory, and Tsumori Chisato

So please check the other items the sellers are also selling, if you see the above mentioned combinations on their other listings, and they also offer different sizes/ colors at a crazily discounted prices, chance is, the item you are looking at is definitely a counterfeit.  None of the genuine Marni sellers on eBay offer the above mentioned clothing!

Rule 2) Check the seller's feedback ALWAYS!  Forget those who have feedbacks private (these are the ones who try to hide their negative comments).  Almost all of the counterfeit sellers will refund their fake craps in order not to receive any negative, and once they do receive a negative they private their feedback right away until enough time has passed and the negative is buried down to the very bottom or the negative is withdrawn after a refund is made to the buyer.

Rule 3) If you see a questionable Marni item on ebay and wonder if it is fake or not, try eBay China and 99% of time you will also find the same item there!  Always a rule of thumb:  DO NOT buy from sellers in China! Nor buy from items that are shipped from China!

Rule 4) The counterfeit Marni sellers don't have any Marni footwear or hardly any Marni accessories, they are extremely costly and complicated to reproduce and hard to be made like the real!  Recently there is a surface of fake Marni bag, trinkets and belts all from the 06ss collections, but since the cost of faking these items are high, you can always tell that they are fake if you see a sudden emerge of unusual Marni sellers, who you have never seen selling Marni in the past, all offering the same item at the same time on eBay.

Rule 5) Do not buy a Marni item with the material tag cut in half or cut out in the middle which you could not read the material content anymore.  The script on the fake Marni tag differs from the real, that's why the counterfeit sellers usually cut out in the middle of the material tag so that you won't be able to compare!

Rule 6) If you have already made a purchase, pay attention to where the item is coming from.  Most of the fake sellers claim that their item location is in UK or US etc, but the parcel is actually shipped from China or Hong Kong.  The fake sellers deliberately hide their actual location so you won't know that you are buying a copy made and shipped from China!

Rule 7) Always buy from a seller who is reputable.  There are only a handful of regular Marni sellers on eBay and most of us know each others well.  You could always check out what a seller has sold in the past 30 days by the 'Advance Search' function on the upper right hand corner of any page on eBay.  Majority of the reputable Marni sellers are very dedicated to Marni and they always sell mostly Marni on the past 30 days.  If you come across with a seller who sold suspicious Marc Jacobs, BCBG, DVF... (the above mentioned list) in the past 30 days, RUN!  If you have any question, please feel free to email me, I am most happy to answer question about Marni!  I hope you all have a safe and happy Marni hunting on eBay!