updated May 19, 2018

by Barbara Nevins Taylor

This story started out as a cautionary tale about buying counterfeit anything from China. But we added a happy ending, because that’s the way it turned out. So we hope you’ll read through.

The elegant doctor walked in carrying a Balenciaga graffiti handbag and Lee Lee Brown fell in lust. “I just had to have one,” she said.  But when she looked on the Balenciaga website she found it cost $2,190 and she groaned. “That’s a month and half for my co-op maintenance payments. Clearly, I have champagne taste with beer pockets.”

So Lee Lee, a 51-year-old receptionist in a doctor’s office, began to look online for a cheaper alternative. Another doctor said, “You’d be crazy to spend that much. Get a fake.” He sent her a link to a global marketplace site that linked to a company selling counterfeit handbags in Guangzhou, in Guangdong Province, China. 

“I found a counterfeit handbag for $544 and tried to buy it immediately. But Chase wouldn’t transfer the money to China,” she said.

It turns out that Guangzhou and Guangdong Province are at the center of Chinese counterfeiting, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2017 list of Notorious Markets for counterfeits.

Counterfeit goods from China add up to about 12 percent of Chinese exports, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Designer rip-offs are lumped into the massive intellectual property theft that includes trade secrets, technology and software that costs the United States an estimated $600 billion a year. The Trump administration says China is responsible for 80 percent of it. 

The threats of sanctions and a trade war by Trump and the Chinese government also highlight the problem of counterfeits from Guangzhou. The seemingly innocent purchase of a counterfeit handbag falls smack in the middle of it.

If you’re like Lee Lee and desperate for a designer handbag you can afford, international commerce and protection of intellectual property may not matter to you. 

But when you consider buying Chinese counterfeits, you might think about what happens during the sale and whether you’ll get what you paid for. The Chinese counterfeiters site Lee Lee used did not accept PayPal payments. The website says, “. . . unfortunately PayPal doesn’t work with replica sellers.”

That’s a warning. PayPal offers protection by putting a hold on money when there is a dispute. With PayPal you also may qualify for purchase protection. But when you buy counterfeits, you fall into a consumer protection black hole.

The seller of Chinese counterfeits suggested that Lee Lee use Western Union. That meant he would get the money up front and he might or might not send the counterfeit Balenciaga handbag.

Still Lee Lee wanted the handbag. But when she learned it would cost her at least an additional $80 dollars for the Western Union fee, she slowed down and put off the purchase.

She could consider that a wise decision. Even if the seller proved honest, agents with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (USCBP) might have confiscated her package when it arrived in the U.S.

The agency says it’s on the lookout for counterfeit handbags and wallets, which account for 10 percent of counterfeits entering the U.S. It warns that if agents find you importing counterfeits, you could face fines or a prison sentence.

The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) cautions that you put yourself at risk when you visit websites that offer counterfeit handbags. 

In a statement, the IACC told ConsumerMojo.com, “Downloading or streaming from illegal websites could put you at risk for malware – which can steal your personal or credit card information.” The group also stresses that counterfeiting steals money from legitimate manufacturers and causes people to lose jobs.

The IACC points out that money from counterfeiting operations may support terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking.

But when you want something as desperately as Lee Lee wanted the Balenciaga handbag, you have to remind yourself about the potential danger of buying counterfeits.

Even after we talked about it, Lee Lee still tried to get the handbag. She said, “I went back to Western Union and they wouldn’t allow me to send the money. So I just forgot about it.” And then on Mother’s Day, her fiancé Robert, better known as DJ Knuckles for his work with the rapper Fatman Scoop, gave her the real thing as a gift.

 

“He went to Saks and bought it for me,” she said, laughing as she shared the happy ending.