Bought Fake Chanel on eBay...now what?

yvette362

Member
Jun 22, 2013
43
5
Hi everyone, I'm wondering if I could get some advice?
I just purchased a Chanel boy for over 3k USD and it was from Georgia (country). The purse turned out to be fake after I posted on the authentication forum here and I requested a refund from the seller. She quickly refunded me and I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks. I reached out multiple times to ask her for the return label and even called eBay to see if they could assist. They advised me to keep trying to contact the seller but since she already refunded me, there's nothing they can do.
Now (3 weeks later) the seller has started harassing me about returning the purse. I politely requested that she send me a return label and I am more than happy to send it, but I will not spend $50-100 to ship it to her internationally. The purse was a fake so I refuse to spend my own money just to send it to her.

What should I do? I'm tempted to just give it away to Goodwill rather than give it back to the seller so she can sell to another innocent buyer.
 
Hi everyone, I'm wondering if I could get some advice?
I just purchased a Chanel boy for over 3k USD and it was from Georgia (country). The purse turned out to be fake after I posted on the authentication forum here and I requested a refund from the seller. She quickly refunded me and I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks. I reached out multiple times to ask her for the return label and even called eBay to see if they could assist. They advised me to keep trying to contact the seller but since she already refunded me, there's nothing they can do.
Now (3 weeks later) the seller has started harassing me about returning the purse. I politely requested that she send me a return label and I am more than happy to send it, but I will not spend $50-100 to ship it to her internationally. The purse was a fake so I refuse to spend my own money just to send it to her.

What should I do? I'm tempted to just give it away to Goodwill rather than give it back to the seller so she can sell to another innocent buyer.
if she refunded your money you should send her back her item, whether fake or not. she is entitled to her item back if you got refunded. you didn't do the ebay return process the correct way or you would not have had to pay for shipping. ebay has a method you need to follow, and if you follow it correctly then the seller pays for return shipping. it sounds like you did the return process wrong. you might want to post your issue in the ebay forum for help, but if she gave you back your money you have no right to keep her item or gift it to goodwill
 
if she refunded your money you should send her back her item, whether fake or not. she is entitled to her item back if you got refunded. you didn't do the ebay return process the correct way or you would not have had to pay for shipping. ebay has a method you need to follow, and if you follow it correctly then the seller pays for return shipping. it sounds like you did the return process wrong. you might want to post your issue in the ebay forum for help, but if she gave you back your money you have no right to keep her item or gift it to goodwill
I did follow the eBay return policy. I filed a return, stated the reason and the seller refunded the money thru the eBay case. I was then instructed per eBay to wait for the seller to provide a return label. If it was a local item then I wouldn't mind spending $20 to send it via priority mail but since it's international the price is much more.
 
I did follow the eBay return policy. I filed a return, stated the reason and the seller refunded the money thru the eBay case. I was then instructed per eBay to wait for the seller to provide a return label. If it was a local item then I wouldn't mind spending $20 to send it via priority mail but since it's international the price is much more.
contact ebay. i just did a return for a small item and the seller sent the return label within 1 day. my instructions in the email were to contact ebay if the seller did not send the label, so contact ebay in order to reprint the label. it's a confusing process and maybe she didn't do it right, or can do it again.
 
You did nothing wrong. It wasn't your mistake nor your fault that the SELLER did the refund before receiving the item back! (Why are you being blamed?!?!?)

Because the seller isn't in the US, I don't think she's able to send you a return shipping label so my suggestion is to calculate the shipping cost by priority mail and tell her to forward a paypal payment for that amount. If she's not willing to do it, you aren't obligated to return it but I do get that you don't want to keep it either.

If the seller is smart, she'll just tell you to discard the bag. She can't resell it nor can you. (And please don't donate; it'll end up back on ebay for another buyer to be scammed.)
 
if she refunded your money you should send her back her item, whether fake or not. she is entitled to her item back if you got refunded. you didn't do the ebay return process the correct way or you would not have had to pay for shipping. ebay has a method you need to follow, and if you follow it correctly then the seller pays for return shipping. it sounds like you did the return process wrong. you might want to post your issue in the ebay forum for help, but if she gave you back your money you have no right to keep her item or gift it to goodwill

What most likely happened is that the seller choose the refund buyer option instead of the return for refund option. This option does not require the buyer to return the item.
You have to be very careful as Ebay (deliberately IMO) sets sellers up with their confusing wording and built in preferences.
If the seller wants the item back she should provide the funds to purchase the postage.
 
I'm doubt that international seller from Georgia can generate eBay shipping label. They can direct to USPS website and pay with paypal but is too complicated.
Ask your seller to send you in advance the money for the shipping with PayPal gift option.
 
What the seller does with an item returned to them shouldn't matter. How many times have we seen this being offered as an excuse from a scamming buyer to keep the bag and the money?
I am not saying that this is the case here, but the underlying principle is still the same.
Yes, it is the sellers responsibility to take the appropriate steps to verify that what they sell is authentic. But that doesn't let buyers off the hook in doing their due diligence (prior to purchase ideally). Perhaps the seller used a service like AF and got bad info. Perhaps they were bamboozled by a flash sale site and would like to have the item back so that they could pursue a refund.
I just went through this myself with a Japanese seller. I asked for the funds to return the fake bag. It was less than $300 though----nowhere near $3k+
 
You did nothing wrong. It wasn't your mistake nor your fault that the SELLER did the refund before receiving the item back! (Why are you being blamed?!?!?)

Because the seller isn't in the US, I don't think she's able to send you a return shipping label so my suggestion is to calculate the shipping cost by priority mail and tell her to forward a paypal payment for that amount. If she's not willing to do it, you aren't obligated to return it but I do get that you don't want to keep it either.

If the seller is smart, she'll just tell you to discard the bag. She can't resell it nor can you. (And please don't donate; it'll end up back on ebay for another buyer to be scammed.)
thank you that's a great idea. I'll ask her to send me the funds for the return and i'll use that to pay for the return shipping. Also a good call on not donating...i hadn't thought about another person trying to resell it.
 
contact ebay. i just did a return for a small item and the seller sent the return label within 1 day. my instructions in the email were to contact ebay if the seller did not send the label, so contact ebay in order to reprint the label. it's a confusing process and maybe she didn't do it right, or can do it again.
I did exactly as you did, I waited until 1/20 to contact eBay (the date they said the seller had until to send me the return label) and they advised me that there's nothing they can do. Once it's refunded then it's between me and the seller to figure out the return costs.
 
I'm doubt that international seller from Georgia can generate eBay shipping label. They can direct to USPS website and pay with paypal but is too complicated.
Ask your seller to send you in advance the money for the shipping with PayPal gift option.
that's a great idea, i'm going to send her a message now. thanks!
 
What the seller does with an item returned to them shouldn't matter. How many times have we seen this being offered as an excuse from a scamming buyer to keep the bag and the money?
I am not saying that this is the case here, but the underlying principle is still the same.
Yes, it is the sellers responsibility to take the appropriate steps to verify that what they sell is authentic. But that doesn't let buyers off the hook in doing their due diligence (prior to purchase ideally). Perhaps the seller used a service like AF and got bad info. Perhaps they were bamboozled by a flash sale site and would like to have the item back so that they could pursue a refund.
I just went through this myself with a Japanese seller. I asked for the funds to return the fake bag. It was less than $300 though----nowhere near $3k+
I agree, I've seen a couple other cases on TPF with similar scenarios when I was looking for advice on this issue... Believe me, like I said in the original post- I'm more than happy to return the bag if the seller pays for the shipping.

**On a side note: i ran a search of the seller's name: jean.gaultier and there were other fakes sold by them on eBay. I'm not going to assume that you were accusing me of anything (even if you say "the underlying principle is still the same"). But there is definitely a pattern here.
 
I agree, I've seen a couple other cases on TPF with similar scenarios when I was looking for advice on this issue... Believe me, like I said in the original post- I'm more than happy to return the bag if the seller pays for the shipping.

**On a side note: i ran a search of the seller's name: jean.gaultier and there were other fakes sold by them on eBay. I'm not going to assume that you were accusing me of anything (even if you say "the underlying principle is still the same"). But there is definitely a pattern here.

I stated that I wasn't accusing you of that. I was referring to the remark in your OP that you were tempted to just give it away to Goodwill rather than give it back to the seller so she can sell to another innocent buyer. Obviously if you already had the refund that wasn't the case.
Upon looking at the sellers fb all those private transactions are a huge red flag, aren't they? :shocked: Imagine the problems if you had taken the transaction off Ebay
As it is unless she sends you the funds for a label you don't have to do a thing
 
Upon looking at the sellers fb all those private transactions are a huge red flag, aren't they? :shocked: Imagine the problems if you had taken the transaction off Ebay
And how does a seller with such relatively low feedback numbers (just 34 as a seller) get to list so many highly faked brands?!?