So, I'm afraid I've become a member of the club nobody wants to belong to. It turns out I was sold a fake Peekaboo by Neiman Marcus. This is going to be a long story, and I want to preface this by saying that my reason for sharing it is, first, as a cautionary tale. I was always a little skeptical of these stories and felt it was safe to rely on purchasing handbags from major retailers like Neiman Marcus - and, of course, I'm now feeling quite burned by this whole experience. However, I'm also very interested in speaking with any tPFer who has gone through something similar. I would love to hear about your experiences by comment below or by DM if you are willing to share. Please do contact me!
I would like to stress at the outset that no-one disputes that the Fendi Peekaboo at issue is a fake. Both I and Neiman Marcus agree the bag is a fake. The point we disagree on is that I know that this is the very same bag that Neiman Marcus sold me, but Neiman Marcus alleges that the bag is not the one they sold me, that it has been switched out. The general facts of the case are as follows.
This Peekaboo, a PF2016 Purple Regular Whipstitch Peekaboo, was my first really major luxury handbag purchase. I had purchased a few other bags prior to this, but this one was the first in its price bracket. I bought it by telephone from the Chicago Neiman Marcus store and had it shipped to my house. It arrived on May 11, 2017. At the time, I had an issue in that the bag was missing it's manufacturer's card. I used to call this the authenticity card but have been assured by Fendi during the course of this dispute that their bags don't come with such an indicia of authenticity. The card I'm speaking about is the one that identifies the bag, the bag's materials and the year of manufacture. Anyway, the day I received the bag, I started this thread on tPF: https://forum.purseblog.com/threads...ndi-did-not-have-an-authenticity-card.965674/ You will note that there is a nice, big photo of the Peekaboo, date-stamped on May 11, 2017 - the day I received the bag - on the thread.
I also tried to work with Neiman Marcus to address this issue. I had trouble getting anyone at the Chicago Neiman Marcus store to address this issue, so I ended up calling the Flagship store in Dallas, instead. After speaking to an SA in the Handbag section, I was ultimately connected to one of the Assistant Managers. She requested that I text her a photo of the bag and a copy of my receipt, so she could look into the matter. This is the second date-stamped photo of the Peekaboo that I have, from the day I received it in the mail. Because I'm terrible about deleting anything from my iPhone, I still have this text message.
The Flagship store ultimately told me that they had the Neiman Marcus Buyer contact Fendi and Fendi had told them that they no longer issue these cards. Bearing in mind that I was a real newbie back then (every single bag I bought from Fendi subsequent to this date - including three other Peekaboos - came with this same card intact) I believed Neiman Marcus' finding and decided to keep the bag.
Fast forward to 2019. By February of this year, I was no longer carrying the bag as much and had also decided that I really preferred the Selleria Peekaboos. I decided to submit a quote to Fashionphile to see if it would be worth considering to sell the Peekaboo and use the money to buy another Selleria one instead. Much to my surprise, Fashionphile declined to purchase the bag. I called them up and explained to CS that I bought the bag directly from Neiman Marcus, and she told me to go ahead and email a copy of the receipt to their authentication team. The response I received back from the team was troubling. It stated that their “authenticator noticed inconsistencies with the designer ID and overall construction.” Further, Fashionphile stated that “[w]e understand that you have purchased the item from Neimans and appreciate you have submitted the receipt. however we still can not accept this item.” When I asked for further clarification on the problems they noted with the bag, I received the reply that “[w]e found inconsistencies with both the serial number and RFID tag.”
At this point, I was convinced that Fashionphile had made a mistake. I decided to submit the bag for Authentication on tPF: https://forum.purseblog.com/threads/authenticate-this-fendi.820058/page-580#post-32927185.
In the meantime, I contacted the Chicago Neiman Marcus store which agreed to investigate the matter. I became concerned that the RFID tag seemed open on one side and empty which did not match the way the RFID tag on my other Fendi bags looked. I was still waiting to hear back from the tPF authenticators, but I decided not to wait and hired a third party authenticator, Meme's Treasures, to take a look at the bag for me. Meme's Treasures found the bag to be counterfeit, and they sent me a letter of non-authenticity. Following this, I was unsuccessful in getting through to my contact at the Chicago Neiman Marcus about the authenticator's findings. After some additional research, I contacted one of the Assistant General Managers of the store instead, who agreed to send the bag in for in-house authentication. She told me over the phone that if the authenticators found that the bag is fake, then I would receive a refund. (In the meantime, I also received a text back from my original contact at the store who told me that she remembered the bag and that "it is authentic.") Ultimately I submitted the bag to the store for authentication after 5pm on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
On Monday, February 25, 2019, the first business day after I submitted the handbag to the Chicago store, Neiman Marcus wrote me a letter stating that "a productive customer-merchant relationship does not exist" between myself and Neiman Marcus. In future, I will be allowed to purchase items from Neiman Marcus but not return or exchange them. The timing of this letter continues to really bother me, as I cannot believe the Neiman Marcus authenticators could have examined the bag by the date this was written. It really suggests to me that Neiman Marcus had already decided what the outcome of the investigation would be and was circling the wagons.
Sure enough, no one called me back from the store by the end of the week. I followed up by telephone on Friday, March 1, 2019 and left a message. I got through to the Assistant General Manager on the following day, March 2, 2019. She told me at that time that her news was "mixed". On the one hand, Neiman Marcus was "unable to verify the authenticity" of the Peekaboo. On the other hand, Neiman Marcus had determined that the Peekaboo was not the same bag that Neiman Marcus had sold me, and there was nothing more they could do. Although I learned much later, on May 23rd, that the bag was still in Chicago, I was firmly referred to Neiman Marcus' Fraud Director in Dallas to arrange for return of the handbag, and the conversation was terminated.
This was not the end of the matter for me. For the past four months I have been battling with Neiman Marcus over this issue. I have requested more information on their allegations that the bag isn't the same bag that they sold me. I have requested information regarding whether the bag was previously sold and returned, when the bag was received by Neiman Marcus, whether it was out on the sales floor for a long time or where the bag was kept. I have also requested that they compare the bag, which is still in Neiman Marcus' possession to the two photos taken on the day I received it. It's still my position that these photos demonstrate that it is the same bag, BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME BAG. Neiman Marcus' response has been quite consistent that the bag is not the one they sold me and has steadfastly refused to provide any other material response to this issue.
Oh, and also, I forgot to mention that the tPF authenticator got back to me asking which department store I had purchased the bag from. @accio sacculus I am extremely sorry for taking so long to respond to your message, but here's your answer.
So that's where things stand for me right now. It's been a pretty difficult few months. If you've stuck around to the end here, thanks for reading and letting me share my experience with you. Once again, if you have experienced something similar, I would really LOVE to hear from you. Thank you so much.
I would like to stress at the outset that no-one disputes that the Fendi Peekaboo at issue is a fake. Both I and Neiman Marcus agree the bag is a fake. The point we disagree on is that I know that this is the very same bag that Neiman Marcus sold me, but Neiman Marcus alleges that the bag is not the one they sold me, that it has been switched out. The general facts of the case are as follows.
This Peekaboo, a PF2016 Purple Regular Whipstitch Peekaboo, was my first really major luxury handbag purchase. I had purchased a few other bags prior to this, but this one was the first in its price bracket. I bought it by telephone from the Chicago Neiman Marcus store and had it shipped to my house. It arrived on May 11, 2017. At the time, I had an issue in that the bag was missing it's manufacturer's card. I used to call this the authenticity card but have been assured by Fendi during the course of this dispute that their bags don't come with such an indicia of authenticity. The card I'm speaking about is the one that identifies the bag, the bag's materials and the year of manufacture. Anyway, the day I received the bag, I started this thread on tPF: https://forum.purseblog.com/threads...ndi-did-not-have-an-authenticity-card.965674/ You will note that there is a nice, big photo of the Peekaboo, date-stamped on May 11, 2017 - the day I received the bag - on the thread.
I also tried to work with Neiman Marcus to address this issue. I had trouble getting anyone at the Chicago Neiman Marcus store to address this issue, so I ended up calling the Flagship store in Dallas, instead. After speaking to an SA in the Handbag section, I was ultimately connected to one of the Assistant Managers. She requested that I text her a photo of the bag and a copy of my receipt, so she could look into the matter. This is the second date-stamped photo of the Peekaboo that I have, from the day I received it in the mail. Because I'm terrible about deleting anything from my iPhone, I still have this text message.
The Flagship store ultimately told me that they had the Neiman Marcus Buyer contact Fendi and Fendi had told them that they no longer issue these cards. Bearing in mind that I was a real newbie back then (every single bag I bought from Fendi subsequent to this date - including three other Peekaboos - came with this same card intact) I believed Neiman Marcus' finding and decided to keep the bag.
Fast forward to 2019. By February of this year, I was no longer carrying the bag as much and had also decided that I really preferred the Selleria Peekaboos. I decided to submit a quote to Fashionphile to see if it would be worth considering to sell the Peekaboo and use the money to buy another Selleria one instead. Much to my surprise, Fashionphile declined to purchase the bag. I called them up and explained to CS that I bought the bag directly from Neiman Marcus, and she told me to go ahead and email a copy of the receipt to their authentication team. The response I received back from the team was troubling. It stated that their “authenticator noticed inconsistencies with the designer ID and overall construction.” Further, Fashionphile stated that “[w]e understand that you have purchased the item from Neimans and appreciate you have submitted the receipt. however we still can not accept this item.” When I asked for further clarification on the problems they noted with the bag, I received the reply that “[w]e found inconsistencies with both the serial number and RFID tag.”
At this point, I was convinced that Fashionphile had made a mistake. I decided to submit the bag for Authentication on tPF: https://forum.purseblog.com/threads/authenticate-this-fendi.820058/page-580#post-32927185.
In the meantime, I contacted the Chicago Neiman Marcus store which agreed to investigate the matter. I became concerned that the RFID tag seemed open on one side and empty which did not match the way the RFID tag on my other Fendi bags looked. I was still waiting to hear back from the tPF authenticators, but I decided not to wait and hired a third party authenticator, Meme's Treasures, to take a look at the bag for me. Meme's Treasures found the bag to be counterfeit, and they sent me a letter of non-authenticity. Following this, I was unsuccessful in getting through to my contact at the Chicago Neiman Marcus about the authenticator's findings. After some additional research, I contacted one of the Assistant General Managers of the store instead, who agreed to send the bag in for in-house authentication. She told me over the phone that if the authenticators found that the bag is fake, then I would receive a refund. (In the meantime, I also received a text back from my original contact at the store who told me that she remembered the bag and that "it is authentic.") Ultimately I submitted the bag to the store for authentication after 5pm on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
On Monday, February 25, 2019, the first business day after I submitted the handbag to the Chicago store, Neiman Marcus wrote me a letter stating that "a productive customer-merchant relationship does not exist" between myself and Neiman Marcus. In future, I will be allowed to purchase items from Neiman Marcus but not return or exchange them. The timing of this letter continues to really bother me, as I cannot believe the Neiman Marcus authenticators could have examined the bag by the date this was written. It really suggests to me that Neiman Marcus had already decided what the outcome of the investigation would be and was circling the wagons.
Sure enough, no one called me back from the store by the end of the week. I followed up by telephone on Friday, March 1, 2019 and left a message. I got through to the Assistant General Manager on the following day, March 2, 2019. She told me at that time that her news was "mixed". On the one hand, Neiman Marcus was "unable to verify the authenticity" of the Peekaboo. On the other hand, Neiman Marcus had determined that the Peekaboo was not the same bag that Neiman Marcus had sold me, and there was nothing more they could do. Although I learned much later, on May 23rd, that the bag was still in Chicago, I was firmly referred to Neiman Marcus' Fraud Director in Dallas to arrange for return of the handbag, and the conversation was terminated.
This was not the end of the matter for me. For the past four months I have been battling with Neiman Marcus over this issue. I have requested more information on their allegations that the bag isn't the same bag that they sold me. I have requested information regarding whether the bag was previously sold and returned, when the bag was received by Neiman Marcus, whether it was out on the sales floor for a long time or where the bag was kept. I have also requested that they compare the bag, which is still in Neiman Marcus' possession to the two photos taken on the day I received it. It's still my position that these photos demonstrate that it is the same bag, BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME BAG. Neiman Marcus' response has been quite consistent that the bag is not the one they sold me and has steadfastly refused to provide any other material response to this issue.
Oh, and also, I forgot to mention that the tPF authenticator got back to me asking which department store I had purchased the bag from. @accio sacculus I am extremely sorry for taking so long to respond to your message, but here's your answer.
So that's where things stand for me right now. It's been a pretty difficult few months. If you've stuck around to the end here, thanks for reading and letting me share my experience with you. Once again, if you have experienced something similar, I would really LOVE to hear from you. Thank you so much.
