Watch out for Sellers with Juicy Couture Stock Photos

I just had to write this guide to give some tips to my fellow ebayers so they wont get taken advantage of like I did.  There are alot of sellers out in eBay land selling fake Juicy Couture jewelry and are getting away with it.  I didnt realize just how many until I was scammed myself and started doing the research.  I was really angry with myself because I know Juicy and thought I could detect a fake from a mile away.  Well, I was sooo wrong.  Even sellers with 100% feedback are capable of selling fake JC products.  Mainly because alot of ebayers either dont care about buying fake products or they just dont know any better to know if they bought a fake.  Some just arent willing to risk leaving negative feedback to warn others in fear that the seller will leave them negative feedback and ruin their feedback score.  I am going to give a little advice that will hopefully help someone that wouldnt be able to tell the difference.  And, maybe also this will encourage other ebayers to risk getting the negative feedback to make sure these sellers are not taking advantage of people.  I know I was willing to take that risk and yes the seller did retaliate by leaving me negative feedback. 

I must first get this out of my system, "I just LOVE Juicy Couture".  Those that are admirers like me would know how that felt to just say it out loud.  I own lots of authentic Juicy Couture handbags, daydreamer totes, snow boots, cosmetic bags and of course lots & lots of jewelry.  This was my first time buying Juicy Couture jewelry (and last) on eBay.  I always shop at the Juicy Couture store, Nordstroms or Bloomingdales.  Online I would purchase from juicycouture.com (all purchases is processed through Neiman Marcus), neimanmarcus.com, nordstroms.com or shopbop.com.  By the way, for those who didnt know Juicy Couture is owned by Liz Co.  Now I am a very savy shopper on eBay (well I thought I was until recently) especially since I used to sell on eBay myself but had to stop for health reasons.  I would read every description to the exact word, check out the sellers feedback and look over the pictures before I would buy.  I started shopping in November and wanted to buy my mother 2 pairs of Juicy Couture earrings for Xmas so I thought, well just try eBay and maybe I will get a deal.

I saw 2 listings from the same seller that showed authentic Juicy Couture earrings which stated 14K gold plated earrings. Here are the pictures I viewed:

Well, they look like the real thing right? That is because the seller used stock photos taken from the Juicy Couture website.  So, I was really excited when I seen these because I saw them in Nordstroms more than 6 months ago but said to myself, I'll come back next week and buy them.  I dont know what I was thinking about because Juicy never leaves the same item on stock for too long and missed out so here was my perfect chance to get them on eBay for even cheaper. Then here comes the mail.  This is what I got and I included pictures of the sku barcode tag on the bottom of the box which reaked of cigarette smoke:

 FAKE              FAKE BARCODE

 FAKE             FAKE BARCODE

The photos arent the best, sorry.  If you look at them closely you can tell they are obvious fakes.  But, to confirm what I already knew to be true I took them to the Juicy Couture store in San Francisco for an appraisal.  I had 2 managers looking at these earrings and we just laughed.  Here is some obvious differences:  Juicy Couture faux pearls as shown on the butterfly earrings in the picture are finished with a gold plated crown between each pearl (the fakes ones look like dental floss), both earrings shape is flat not round as shown in the picture, they both are brass colored not 14k gold plated, you can clearly read Juicy in black marked on the gold dangling heart in the real picture but the fake is illegible and is in brass writing.  The managers did state this is one of the best fakes they have seen.  To further prove their not authentic, the male manager scanned the bottom box of each earring and it was rejected each time.  The managers stated all Juicy products no matter which store (Nordstroms, etc) they are bought from will show up in the system if scanned even at small boutiques.  Both managers confirmed Juicy does not wholesale their products so if a seller has alot of a certain product, it is definitely fake.  If you ever bought real JC gold plated jewelry, you know it has the perfect shine and the crystals just gleam.  Well, these didnt.  I took some pictures of a couple of my own earrings as examples including the bottom of a real Juicy Couture box:

 REAL    REAL REAL BARCODE

You see the faux pearl on the first one has a gold plated crown and both earrings are round.  If you compare this box to the fake boxes you will notice the difference.  The real barcode is not shiny and is cut equally on each side.  The fake box is cut sloppy, is really shiny and if you look closer the number print is not the same and doesnt include the same information.  One of the fake boxes say EARRING and the other says EARRINGS.  The one that says EARRINGS has Retail spelled wrong in the section for SUGG RETAL (this is what it says) Juicy is not going to make a mistake like that. Please report fraudulent sellers to eBay. 

I had to go through a battle to get my money back from this seller.  Though I shipped backed the earrings within the 10 day timeframe via USPS signature confirmation, they still tried to take a long time giving me my money back and I wanted back the shipping too. Giving me all types of reasons why, like the holiday season is slow to refund amongst many excuses.  Then I was sent an email saying if I left negative feedback once the refund was issued, they were going to have paypal reverse my refund.  This really made me mad that they would threaten to reverse a refund for purchases that were already sent back and confirmed as received.  I had to expedite a claim through paypal for selling counterfeit goods as they were taking to long and to avoid any problems with trying to get the refund back.  Well, I am glad to report I won and it took 5 days to get my money back including shipping.  Here I waited more than 1 month trying to get them to give me my money back when I couldve had it back in less than 7 days.

I know this is alot of information but, I hope it was helpful. Be careful shoppers and always ask for the actual photos of a product when the picture looks like a stock photo.  If they are really selling authentic JC, it shouldnt be a problem.  Dont be fooled by good feedback either and read all the negative feedback about a seller no matter how many pages you have to go through.  Trust me it is worth it in the end.  I noticed some buyers leave negative remarks in the positive feedback too about fake purchases.  I know your feedback score is important to you but, we have to look out for each other and report these fraudulent sellers. 

I am open to any questions and please rate my guide.  Thank you