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eBay Launches Authentication Service To Combat Counterfeit High-End Goods (venturebeat.com)
Ecommerce giant eBay has launched a previously announced service designed to combat the scourge of fake goods on the platform. From a report: eBay has proven popular with fake goods' sellers for some time, with fashion accessories and jewelry featuring highly on counterfeiters' agenda. The company announced eBay Authenticate way back in January with a broad focus on giving "high-end" goods an official stamp of approval prior to sale. Ultimately designed to encourage buyers to part with cash on expensive items, it uses a network of professional authenticators who take physical receipt of a seller's products, validates them, and then photographs, lists, and ships the goods to the successful buyer. For today's launch of eBay Authenticate, the service is only available for luxury handbags from 12 brands, including Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Valentino, though the program will be expanded to cover other luxury goods and brands from next year. "With tens-of-thousands of high-end handbags currently available, eBay is primed to boost customer confidence in selling and shopping for an amazing selection of designer merchandise," noted Laura Chambers, vice president of consumer selling at eBay. "We also believe our sellers will love this service, as it provides them with a white-glove service when selling luxury handbags."
I shouldn't need to use a third-party service to verify if something is authentic.
we'll be hearing how some manufacturers are using this system to block sale of used goods.
Nothing like getting screwed at every possibility.
Let the free market decide. All these rules only keep the market from adjusting the true product cost and limits competition. I should be free to sell whatever hand bag I choose and slap whatever label I want on it
Anything useful is cloned, yet another useless protection for things that SHOULD be cloned to get lower prices.
Who gives a shit if your bag is fake? But who doesn't if we're talking electronic, meds, etc.
Who knew? Not me.
I am amazed at the amount of money people are willing to part with for a handbag that probably cost pennies on the dollar for some kid in china to sew together some leather pieces and slap a logo on it. You want to talk about a racket, talk about paying those prices for something like Gucci or whatever.
If, by providing a sufficiently convincing level of 'expertise' (pronounced:BULL-shit), they can convince large-income spenders to plop down more cash, then it's a worthwhile investment.
Same story as with the housing financial meltdown a few years back: Folks just need to see that 'AAA' with enough expertise present in their investment news feeds to feel they'd be missing out on a 'great opportunity', and they'll wait in line plop down a pile of cash.
Here's the thing - it will start out as fully legitimate verification, as advertised for the most part. Then, folks will learn exactly how eBay considers it, in terms of a low-expense advertising element, and find all the cracks in that logical armor.
And they'll play with terms, conditions, and actions on both sides of the 'pure fraud' barrier, until they find the recipe that works - and then find out how to either split out separate organizations to flog off scams, or 'legitimize' (think empty boxes instead of actual product) their misleading claims to rake in rich fools.
The more radically free the market, the more filled with abject lies it's going to be, including the tools used to verify truth.
It's great that we can now validate the authenticity of these high end handbags. Now you'll never need to wonder whether you are getting ripped off or just legitimately fleeced
A lot of goods are stolen by hijacked accounts in a quick hijack and pump scheme. Find an account with 99.9% feedback, hack into the account and start listing really nice goods just cheap enough to be an amazing bargain but still somewhat plausible a price.
This is pretty common, I've never been stung by one, but 2factor should be everywhere now, with apps like authy and google authenticator, sms etc - cmon?...
For the millions of buyers who want to buy new, genuine Louis Vuitton bags on fucking eBay.
I'm sorry, but I have to chuckle at the thought that there's really such a thing as "luxury handbags."
And the only thing stupider than a bag capable of being luxurious (what, it has a secret compartment for your weed?), is that it could possibly be counterfeit. "Sorry, this bag isn't redeemable; we don't have its serial number on file. You'll just have to use it as a bag, I guess."
eBay is just playing catch up.
Forget handbags, there are high-end electronics accessories being cloned that I would not think would be cloned. The problem is, they do not work as well. Three examples I was personally burned by:
Logitech R800 presentation remote. Problems in the fake: the green laser failed and became faded in some weeks time, ditto detached internally as it was fixed in a small drop of glue, and the radio was unreliable (missed clicks in some rooms).
Canon TC80-N3 camera remote. Problem in the fake: the battery life was 1/15th of the Canon item. I.e., the same coin battery lasted a few months in the fake while it lasted about 10 years in the brand item.
Canon battery charger LC-E6. Problem in the fake: charged slowly, several hours instead of under an hour in the brand item. That one I returned immediately.
In all cases, the fake cost just as outrageously much as the brand item, was labeled as the brand item, and came in meticulously copied brand packaging with manual and all. It was actually impossible to tell the difference... until it developed problems. In two of the three cases, the malfunction was detected beyond the 2-month ebay money back warranty. I managed to return two items to the seller, trashed another. One item was bought on amazon marketplace, two on ebay. For this very reason, I'm now going to reputable dealers only (such as B&H Photo-Video) for any brand name electronics and computer accessory, no matter how small.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Authentic.
So there is third-party verification: I remember how well that went with Moody's before the GFC or, with Arthur-Anderson before that. How will eBay ensure separation of parties (ie. chinese wall) and prevent conflict of interest?
There are 3 problems:
- A seller promising real haute-couture and delivering a fake. That is, fraud.
- A customer not getting the quality promised: Excepting fraud, this isn't a solution.
- A customer preferring fake haute-couture over the real thing. That is, brand theft.
...decide to keep the real deal and substitute with a fake before sending to receiver?
Must be tempting for the middleman when expensive goods pass through their hands.
Something tells me that the sort of person who is likely to be shopping for "high end" goods on eBay are likely to care more about the price than the authenticity.
I make my own bags. I make them out of sturdy upholstery fabric that I find in the remnants section of fabric stores. That fabric is extremely durable. And if its from remnants, it is about 1/4 the price, if not cheaper.
$10.00 of fabric from remnants is more than enough to put together a very sturdy lined bag.
I still have one of the bags that I made about five years ago. I use it to carry up to about 50 pounds of stuff. It does not show any wear at all.
I wonder how long a Gucci would last hauling 50 pounds of groceries, tools, etc.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
First thing they should do is get rid of all of those sellers with 'genuine' emerald rough and shit with the bullshit certification cards. If they can't guarantee genuine ROCKS then I wouldn't count on them being able to distinguish genuine electronics or clothing brands.
Oh, wait, this is probably another scam to get you to pay to avoid commingling.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Russian Trolls undermine America's trust in Adobe to sow terror"