-For years, Amazon has touted its efforts
to eliminate counterfeits, but they're still easy to find.
Sellers trafficking in fakes
often evade Amazon's automated detection
by using shorthand for brand names,
such as "LV" rather than Louis Vuitton.
Many of the top luxury brands
don't sell products directly to Amazon,
so the online retailer accounts on third-party merchants
to stock and sell the items.
There are plenty of fakes on the site
that pilfer luxury brands' signature styles and even logos.
Sometimes buyers are deceived.
In this case, a buyer of a watch wondered
if the purchase was a dupe saying,
"This is unlikely to be a genuine piece"
and describing the purchase as "a horrible experience."
Often, buyers are in on the deception,
even discussing the quality of the forgery in reviews.
So we thought, why not just buy a few of these things
and see if they're real or fake?
And, for $164, we were able to bring in a nice-sized haul.
Oh, this is a belt.
So we'll see if this is really Gucci or not.
Oh, yeah.
So this is a Louis Vuitton-style bag.
This is the Hermès bangle bracelet.
Now, if you get really close, you actually see it says
"Hermès" right in there.
We're going to visit The Real Real here in San Francisco,
an online luxury consignment store,
to meet with their senior expert authenticator
for the products they sell.
First, a quick disclaimer -- Amazon Chief Executive Jeff
Bezos owns The Washington Post.
Now let's take a look.
-So, Jay, here I have a Louis Vuitton Demier Ebene
Neverfull MM Tote.
So, we would probably list the item for around $1,320
to about $1,400. -Perfect.
So, I got this on Amazon.
-All right. Tell me what you think about it.
-Hmm. I think just, right off the bat,
we could tell that the colors are definitely,
you know, slightly different from one another.
The authentic piece definitely seems like it
has a much browner hue to it.
The construction varies entirely, as well.
This one as two interior pockets
followed with a zip interior pocket,
whereas the Louis Vuitton Neverfull
is notorious for having a single flap pocket on the inside,
which, once you lift up the piece should reveal
a factory production code.
-It was pretty easy to determine the bag that resembled the one
from Louis Vuitton was fake, but how about this $24.
99 bracelet that looks a lot like a $640 model from Hermès.
So, I purchased this on Amazon.
-There we go.
-Tell me what you think about it.
It's very lightweight off the bat, very different.
This one has much more a weight to it,
when you feel that one out.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah.
-Each Hermès click-clack bangle should have the brand stamp,
Sans Serif, which this one does, however,
the font itself does vary.
It's a little bit too large
and less proportionate to the size of the bangle itself.
-Fake or real?
-It is absolutely is counterfeit.
-That's two fakes.
So how about a belt we purchased
that uses Gucci's well-known logo with two G's that overlap?
-So, here I have a Gucci Marmont belt.
What do you have for me?
-You tell me. -Oh.
We can say there's a running GG motif on a belt
that is covered in plastic.
For the Marmont belt in particular,
we typically would not find something
so shiny and lacquered,
but, rather, it should have an antiqued brass finish to it.
And, also, if we want to look at the orientation of the belt,
the right G should be overlapping the left G,
whereas, on the counterfeit piece,
the left G is overlapping the right G.
-Let me ask about one other thing
I noticed about this one. -Yeah.
-Does Gucci make a belt that you can cut to fit?
-That's reversible?
Um, in particular for the Marmont style, it does not.
-So that would also be
a giveaway, maybe. -Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
This style probably did not exist whatsoever.
-So the verdict on this one? -Absolutely counterfeit.
-Right.
Yep, that Gucci belt was counterfeit, too.
Amazon acknowledges that unscrupulous
third-party merchants sell fakes on its site.
In fact, Amazon has removed the listings
for all the products we bought, but the company says it goes
well beyond its legal obligations
to sniff out counterfeits in its marketplace,
and for every bad listing reported by a brand,
the company says it's blocked or removed more than 100 others
through automated systems and machine learning.
Still, counterfeits persist on Amazon.
Sometimes shoppers know they're fakes.
Sometimes shoppers are duped.
But, either way, Amazon generates a sale.