I found recently that YOOX no longer charges UK customers vat&duties. That was great news for me as I've been a loyal customer for close to 20 years. Only bad side had been their poor customer service. Which I hope have improved. As I have made some considerate shopping the past month I was rewarded ÂŁ100 for this month to spend on one article that's not on discount and greater than the value of the voucher. I was happy to finally purchase a pair of Valentino shades I had on my dream box for some time. These had disappeared from my dream box before but reappeared some time later. I believe they had been purchased of someone and returned as I've seen this happen before. So I purchased them from the original price of ÂŁ265- I paid ÂŁ165.
They arrived today and I was very excited. The box were carefully and beautifully wrapped in paper. I opened the luxurious cover and took them out. My immediate feeling before looking at them properly or opening them up, was they're not genuine. They were unusually light and felt and looked flimsy. Now I had tried these on in a renowned departments store. They were in no way similar to the once I've just received from Yoox. I have a dozen of expensive designer shades. I would notice miles away if they were counterfeit. Even the golden surrounding ring covering the lens on the back were so poorly fitted, the left lens were not in coordination with the right. The printings of the letters, the earpiece and temple-tip were not fitted properly of both sides. All these things are typical give aways for fakes. I have posted pictures of the glasses I received and the three last pictures are of the genuine glasses they have on their website. You can see easily there are big differences.
1) Look at the detail between the earpiece with metal and plastic meet.
2) The metal bridge between the lenses is round on the ones I received. But on the originals it is straight.
I didn't have to compare much to understand what I received were fake. As soon as I picked them up, I noticed. They weighed nothing. Such as cheap ÂŁ5 glasses one finds in markets.
I contacted yoox and told them of the findings. They of course denied they would send a fake item. I've sent them back. Once they have them I've asked them to compare them with a pair from a Valentino shop. I would very much like the authentic pair sent to me or my ÂŁ100 voucher to use on another item to the same specifications. As I'm not OK with to be sold fake designer pieces and my hard earned voucher to be stolen away in the process. We are in correspondence but I don't have high thoughts of them as I've seen on the web customers been ripped off before.
I posted this as I've seen this for some time during the past years. A couple of years ago I ordered a pair of Sergio Rossi boots that too were fake. I know because I tried the authentic once at store. I had a children's Burberry coat that too wasn't of the same high quality I'm used to see from the brand. With these designers I wouldn't believe for a moment YOOX would sell fake items as I've been very happy and loyal customer for almost 20 years. I've purchased many designers pieces that I've been very happy with and never believed were fake. So I buried my worries that they are not guilty and deceiving their customers. Instead I though the reason could be the designers themselves has started to cut corners with poor quality to make profit. I've seen this before and stopped buying from theses designers. I have then stopped buying from Sergio Rossi and Burberry because of what happened.
But as this happened one more time. I don't believe this is a coincidence anymore. I believe YOOX knows what they are doing. They are very much in the know of this. They have been selling counterfeit articles for some time now. Deceiving customers that they are purchasing authentic designer items.