I would qualify myself as moderate risk. My philosophy on luxury and/or tangible big purchase items in general is that if I cannot easily afford to purchase it twice (ie, in the event it becomes lost/stolen/something bad happens), then I should not buy it in the first place. Just a personal preference in approach.
In 2023, I did the reseller route on:
— JPG Birkin from
TRR in the exact combo I wanted (Havane GHW) at a very good price; it was heavily used/loved, so off to the H spa it went; at drop off, the SAs warned me that if the bag was not authentic, that H could/would destroy it; it came back from SF (spa) recently, so in-house authentication simultaneously done and successful
— B30 Bambou PHW Ghillies; not currently available in boutique; I was able to negotiate the price to $1000 over retail which I deem as a win (some of you are aware of my bambou saga/obsession these past several years); prior to buying from a Japanese eBay reseller via PayPal/credit card, bababebi confirmed it was a trusted seller but needed a few more pics to be comfortable confirming authenticity; I took the risk, bought the bag, imported it into the USA, and it looked almost brand new with stickers still on the hardware (so no H spa needed); I own lots of H items in various old/new leathers and feel pretty pretty confident in their touch/feel and this did feel authentic, but being such a large purchase, I still took all remaining photos for bababebi and utilized her services; bababebi confirmed authenticity and that it was made in 2016
So yeah, moderate risk — I do take a risk with H spa on my heavily used items with the potential confiscation by H, but I don’t worry too much. Of course, I would try to get my money back if an item was deemed fake, but if it’s all lost at the end of the day, I’m at least not in financial ruin given my cardinal rule above.