I HATE FAKE PERFUME!: only the brave

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Before You Buy That Next Bottle of Perfume...

Protect yourself against buying fake perfume and cologne.

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If you are looking for the genuine perfume and cologne, my best advice is to buy them at major retailers, department stores and some boutiques. Many fakes can be found at the carts in the malls, flea markets, craigslist, street vendors, ebay, and other places.

I just found a very terrible fake MAC perfume, its in a black cat bottle and was never made by MAC, this crap is being peddled out of China--beware!

To help protect yourself from fakes, especially buying on ebay, BEFORE YOU EVEN PLACE A BID, always ask questions.

Understand that almost all major perfume companies DO NOT WHOLESALE ANYTHING, especially Chanel. The companies only distribute their products to authorized department stores and their own website. Any ebay or flea market seller who claims that they buy Chanel via wholesale is a liar and is probably buying fakes wholesale from China.

Also beware of anyone selling "factory seconds" - perfume companies do not sell "factory seconds" - all perfumes go thru very strict quality control to protect their reputation of offering only the best products, any perfume that doesn't make the cut - is destroyed by the company and NOT sold.

Be wary of sellers with low or zero feedback and tons of new perfumes listed at one time. Also I have read that fake perfume sellers will have extra accounts so that they can give themselves excellent feedback ratings, so keep this in mind too.

Beware of people claiming they are reselling the perfume, particularly on the Internet. They may say they got the perfume as a gift and don't want it. They could be looking for an easy victim, hoping to sell a counterfeit to someone who isn't familiar with the real perfume. Though this isn't always a sign of a seller of fake perfume, as some people do resell gifts that they received, especially around the holidays.

Be suspicious of "too good to be true" deals. In the case of online purchasing, sometimes sellers will sell a fake perfume at a super cheap price, but the shipping cost is exorbitant to make up their loss in sales.

If the seller is selling a tester bottle, ask them what the bottle is marked. Tester bottles should be marked or engraved with "tester/demonstration". Also testers do not come in a retail box, they come in plain white boxes and usually without a cap as they are not meant to be sold to the public. Coincidentally, it is against ebay's listing policies to sell "testers"!

Look at the seller's feedback, check to see if their negs or neutrals have anything to do with the seller offering fakes, not authentic, imitation, copy, fraudulent or suspicious fragrances. Also if a feedback says anything about leaking, weak, weird smelling, smells like alcohol, rancid smelling, watered down, spoiled, sour, rubbing alcohol, or "airplane altered the scent", "top broken", "sprayer doesn’t work" ---beware!

If the perfume is shown but its a blurry, dark or too far away picture, ask the seller for a better, clear, brighter photo, or if its a stock photo, ask the seller for a picture of the actual item they are selling. If the bottle is being sold as sealed, ask the seller to remove the item from the box and take a photo of it.

In the case of full size bottles with boxes, also ask for the serial numbers on the bottom of the bottle and the bottom back of the box -- if they don't match, that's a tipoff that the goods may not be the genuine article.

Is it real? Is it Fake?

Counterfeit perfumes are found everywhere, from online perfume stores, to flea markets, street vendors, ebay and even some perfume stores/kiosks at the mall. This website was created to help educate buyers and sellers so that they can prevent purchasing fakes.

I will address the various counterfeit/fake/knockoff perfumes one can find online or at various retailers.

There are several types of fake perfumes, those that are actual knockoffs and those that are actual replica/counterfeits. The counterfeit type are the ones that look nearly identical to the genuine ones. The knockoffs are the ones that have misspelled names or brands.

Photo comparisons will be available to show you differences in the bottles/boxes.

Also in this website is a list of ebay sellers who have been caught selling fakes.

The next time you sense that a woman is wearing Calvin Klein's Obsession perfume or a man is sporting Ralph Lauren's Polo, you might ask yourself, "Is it or isn't it?" Because "it" just might be a knockoff (also called an imposter, a version, a rendition or a reproduction) of a designer perfume, selling for a fraction of the designer price.

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