Does this look like a face of a woman who can be fooled?

Neiman Marcus. That’s right, Neiman Marcus….you made me make that face, along with a half hours worth of obscenities which included R rated finger gestures.  Yes, this was the face I made when I opened the shipping box of my “new” Christian Louboutin shoes.

I’ve heard of several stories where people ordered Louboutins from Saks Fifth Avenue and they were shipped fakes.  How do the fakes get into the hands of the stores?  It’s like this: someone buys a real pair of Louboutins from the department store, then purchases a fake pair online.  They then keep the real pair, put the fake pair in the box, and return the fake pair to the store and get their money back.  In some cases, they even return the fake box with the fake pair.  It’s a very ugly thing to do, especially when people spend thousands of dollars for what they think are authentic shoes and don’t know they purchased the fake pair that was returned to the store.

Thankfully for me, I do all my homework, but some people aren’t so lucky.  This is where my frustration with Neiman Marcus comes in.  As a retailer of authentic Louboutin shoes, it’s their responsibility to figure out if the shoe being returned is fake, not the consumer who wouldn’t even think to check.  It’s Neiman Marcus, for pete’s sake, why would you have to inspect your shoes?!  This should NEVER happen, but unfortunately it does.

Truthfully, the pair I received was a very obvious pair of fakes, and it disappoints me that they didn’t bother to double-check for authenticity.  All they had to do was check the website picture with the actual shoes (which I did – pictures are at the end of the post to prove my point) and they would have known immediately that they were impostors.  I also have to point out that, while the sales rep who I spoke with by phone was very gracious, she wasn’t much help.

Now, with all that said, let’s get down to the dirty details of how I knew these were fakes, along with some tips for you to spot your fakes should this happen to you.

I’m a Pisces, so naturally I have a strong intuition and I can usually feel when something just isn’t right, so it’s no surprise that I smelled something fishy right away, and I hadn’t even opened the shoe box yet.

Exhibit A: this is what I found when I opened the shipping box:

 

The box is all wrong!  Why is this fishy?  Because these are seriously expensive shoes, people! You don’t pay full price for shoes from to find a box that is flawed and has the information on the shoe/size/description missing.  The shoe information, or at the very least the price tag from where they were purchased, should always be on the box.

The box on the left shows how they should be when you get them.  The box on the right…hmmmmm a little shady…

At this point, my intuition was telling me that I was about to open a box of big fat impostors, this is what I found:

Exhibit B: not only was the dust cloth an impostor, but this is how the shoes were presented:

Left: Impostor  Right: Real – The material of the real one is thicker and the fabric is of a much better quality. Also, the printing on the bag is clearer.  On the impostor, the writing is not clear (look at the b-0-u) and it appears that the font of the Paris is different, or perhaps bolder.

Top:  Fakes     Bottom: Real

 

My heart dropped when I saw that the shoes were not packaged properly. When you get authentic Louboutins, they should be packaged like the bottom box.  Once you open the box, thick tissue paper is neatly folded over the shoes. There is also plastic with tissue shoe forms inside the shoe to keep the shape of the shoes. They also take great care by adding a divider that’s hard to bend (cardboard wrapped with tissue) so that each shoe had it’s own compartment.  They also come with a red mini dust bag that contains extra heel tabs.

My fakes also came with heel tabs, but they were not the correct tabs.  In fact, inside the fake box was an extra baby zip lock bag with the word GUCCI on it, and heel tabs in there that were of no use to me.   They weren’t wrapped nicely, no divider, and no shoe forms. At this point, I’m starting to question the entire human race!! (sorry for the dramatics, but this was such a reality check as to how dishonest people can be.  That, and I REALLLLLLY wanted those shoes.  Again, my pic giving stink eye…)

Moving right along to the shoes.  Not only did they arrive with the packaging all wrong, the shoes were a horrible mess of flaws and horrible awfulness!

Since Louboutins are handmade in Italy, with each craftsman having a specific job, there should be no flaws to the visible eye.  Which brings me to Exhibit C:  Pictures of the flaws on the impostors:

 Chipped red bottom

 Red paint not in a straight line

Shoe form is not as stiff as it should be

 Platform is dented, leather is buckled and scratched

 Dented platform

 Platform imperfections

 Platform imperfections

Shoe pad not properly attached.

Scratches, dents, uneven paint lines…this was a catastrophe!

I knew I was in possession of a fake pair of Louboutins, shipped directly from Neiman Marcus online, but I needed further proof.  So, I compared them to my real ones, and this comparison, my dear shoe lovers, was dreadful.

See Exhibit D below:

Notice the stitching –  top shoe: (real) the seam and stitching at edge of shoe should be barely visible.  Bottom shoe: (fake) stitching is visible, not as delicate, and not as close to the edge as the real ones.

The heel – Left (fake) heel is not covered completely like the right pair (real).

The Louboutin stamp:  Left (real) you can clearly see it, and the stamp is very deep.  In fact, on many of the real ones, they are stamped so deeply that you may see some leather peeking through (Look closely at the left pair “Christian” and “Made in Italy”).   The fakes (right) are not stamped deeply enough and are not as sharp as the stamp on the left (real)

The famous red bottom: This is a big clue to look for –  Left (real): red edge comes up slightly all around the  perimeter of the red bottom.  In other words,  when you step on the pavement, the very edges do not touch the pavement, as it is not flush with the flat bottom.  The fakes (right) are completely flat on the bottom.  (look closely at the perimeter of the left red bottom!)

Craftsmanship:  This is self-explanatory.  You can see the pad of the shoe coming up on the fake pair (right) and also the peep toe does not hold its shape like the real pair (left).  The real ones do not “collapse” right out of the box.

Now that we’ve established that the shoes are NOT the real deal, lets compare the silhouette of the real shoe and fake shoe.  The photo of the real shoe (right or bottom) is taken from the Neiman Marcus website, and the fake ones (left or top) is my photo, which is a sling back version.

Not only is the shape of the silhouette off, but the platform on the real shoe does not extend past the shoe like the fake one does.

It made me want an ice cream sundae from McDonald’s with double fudge after I realized that I spent $1000 on fake shoes.  So, I ate a bag of ruffles and called customer service.  The 800 number had me on hold for 15 minutes, and my blood pressure was slowly rising.  I got chip dip, took a deep breath, and sat down and called my local Neiman Marcus store and asked to speak to the shoe department.  I explained what had happened and that I couldn’t get anyone on the phone from the 800 customer service number.  The woman on the phone was super helpful, she took my name and said she’d have someone call me right away.

Within minutes, my phone rang and I explained the entire situation. She apologized and gave me the option of keeping the shoes at a discount.  WHAT?  Uh, if I wanted fakes, I would’ve purchased fakes, but I didn’t. And since that seems a little sketchy to me, and perhaps not the smartest idea to sell the fakes as an option, that’s probably not something they should suggest ever ever ever again! After I politely declined the offer of purchasing the impostor pair at a discount,  she apologized again for the situation, told me to box them back up and send them back to where they were shipped from, thank you and have a nice day!

Wow.  That’s a pretty big f#ck up to take that lightly.  I asked her if they were going to do some sort of investigation into why the quality control department has no quality control and I never got an answer, she just said she was sorry and that should never have happened.  I have to agree, I know it’s not their fault that some people are sinister so Neiman Marcus actually got scammed before I got scammed. Why? Because they were returned to the warehouse and not the store, thus making it hard  for anyone to detect any tom-foolery.

It makes me angry when people get scammed, but what makes me angrier is when people don’t know they are being scammed.  I would suggest anyone who purchases a pair of Louboutins from any retail store online (Saks, Neimans, Nordstom, etc) to inspect them like you’re inspecting for head lice on a little kid.  Put on glasses, use good lighting, compare them to pictures online, whatever you have to do – just make sure you got what you paid for.  If you can’t figure it out,  take them to a store that carries them near you, and compare them to the display pair.

Now that my shoes returned to the land the unknown, I’m on the prowl a new pair…but real ones, only this time I will not purchase them online.  Ever.

UPDATE: I spoke with the Dallas Texas Neiman Marcus store, where their headquarters are located, and they could confirm that my shoes were shipped from the warehouse. She explained that all store employees were trained to detect fake merchandise, however the employees in the warehouse are not properly trained as their job is to just ship things out. Her advice was to order directly from another store, through an associate at my local store, and have them shipped to my local store for pickup.  I appreciate the advice and I love Neiman Marcus so this was hard for me to write because I don’t feel this happens too often, it just happened to be me that it happened to and boy am I the wrong person to fool!

♥