Just wanted to share my Vestiaire Dilemma has been solved.
They agreed that I could return my item and that I would get a full refund!
I've been so presistent and wrote them every single day for a week explainig every single detail of the issue providing numerous photos as proof!
Thank you so much for your tips an advice!
@SchnukiDeluxe I am very happy for you, this is what should have happened in the first place. My guess is that their strategy is to see whether you will give up quickly because not all people are able to just keep going with VC "customer support" (LOL). But if you really insist and don't give up, then something may work out.
@Pixie Dust I've been thinking quite a lot about this and also given the issue described above - there are two aspects of the authentication and quality control that I can think of which actually makes me quite puzzled on why it happens with Vestiaire.
1) Actual Authentication: whether the item is authentic and was produced by the brand. In the case above: whether it is a real LV shawl produced by LV and not by some China factory. This is where you need an LV expert who knows LV goods and limited editions etc. I know about fake Chanel bags which were soooooo damn good but the only flaw was that the bag did not correspond to the production year stated in the hologram. This is where you need an expert like the one we used to have in "Authenticate this Chanel" thread.
I just want to share a photo of the supporting docs I sent with my item to Vestiaire just last Saturday. I told a story here before about my necklace which I had to break deliberately (nothing serious, I just loosened one of the metal rings and voila) in order to get servicing documents because Vestiaire freaked out when I uploaded an item with an oval tag. An expert would have known that even on modern Chanel items oval tags DO HAPPEN, especially in Asian market. A real expert would have had a look at the quality of workmanship which was clearly shown in the photos. In the end I did not mind doing this to the necklace as even if it got sold elsewhere I would have been asked same questions. But still. Don't call yourself experts, dudes. Even with these docs the necklace was refused to be placed online as they said it was a fake. For Chanel, it was not fake. For Vestiaire, it was. I am still waiting on the result of the physical "authentication".
Here is the pic (bottom printouts are pics taken at the Chanel boutique while I personally collected the necklace back):
You basically have to spoon feed them, otherwise they just don't know what to do and how to authenticate. Which raises a question: who the hell do they hire?...
2) Quality Control: whether item condition corresponds to the description, whether there are any flaws, packaging missing etc. And here is where you DON'T NEED at expert - just a normal regular person with a bit of a common sense. And this is what I see gets wrong quite often with Vestiaire as well and my question is why??? For this, you don't need any special skill!
What I am trying to say I guess is that the business idea they've got is brilliant. This is what people need - a reliable third party in the luxury market transactions.
And this is where you need a skill! And receipt which everyone is asking for like mad people is not a problem solver: I can give you 101 scenarios where I can send you a counterfeit and a beautiful original receipt. Also, these receipts can be forged quite easily. For Cartier, their authenticity certificates are a joke and also can be replicated quite well. VCA these days is good with their hologram approach but still, I can go and sell "authentic" VCA with the "original" receipt. This 24 grand obviously fake VCA set is still online. So you really need an expert in a product, not just an idiot who checks that there's receipt provided and passes the item as authentic. Or vice versa: rejects an authentic item as a counterfeit. Both scenarios suck because they demonstrate disgusting incompetency of the "experts".
@Pixie Dust my advice to you and to the other people in a similar situation:
1) don't ask them questions why etc. They will not answer. Why would you sell fakes if you run a business is not something they can or bother to answer and this is not what you want to discuss with them, right?
2) send them emails every day through the form on the website, don't use the chat. If asked to stop, say you can't and won't until your situation is resolved in a fair way.
3) assemble evidence why your item is authentic. Typically I make collages using my photos and photos taken from other places/brand website etc and clearly showing key quality factors on why my item is authentic. For Chanel earrings, I took lots of pics + links from
Fashionphile (so far they are one of the best authenticators and most hassle free IMHO), tRR and other sources where items are pre-authenticated. I included a write up on the year, type of engraving and highlighted key quality aspects. This has to be sent in those every day emails.
For your case, I would have gone even as far as contacting a brand and getting some sort of confirmation that this type of bag was produced. If VC is saying it was never produced, then bingo - you have an email or something from the brand stating the opposite. It should not be too hard to get as this is not authentication per se, just a confirmation of the existence of a specific model.
4) be very clear in what you actually want from VC. When I got really upset about the case with my earrings, I started demanding to get a full refund from them as they missed all the chances of working with me on a different resolution (relisting and keeping the item in the workshop). No need to ask questions, just write clearly and concisely point by point stating what you want from them given the fact that they failed to do their duty as a third party authenticator.
5) make it public: write on Trustpilot, Sitejabber (including screenshots and photos), instagram, facebook. Here
I truly believe though, that a business should not operate like this. I totally understand that when you run a big platform, hiccups will happen and this is fine - we are human beings after all. But with Vestiaire, the complaints are growing and growing which is a bad sign. When you read reviews on TrustPilot, you can easily see which ones are real and which are posted by bots trying to fix the rating somehow. It won't help though because if you don't do your job properly, collapse can't be avoided.
