How more and more people are scamming luxury marketplaces

The phenomenon of counterfeiting in online luxury is taking on increasingly sophisticated forms. If in the past the main risk was limited to purchases on peer-to-peer resale platforms, today a less visible but very insidious threat is emerging: return fraud. According to Business of Fashion, a growing share of losses in luxury e-commerce comes from customers who buy authentic items and return fake replicas, indistinguishable from the originals even to the eyes of an expert operator. This scheme may explain cases like that of influencer Tiffany Kimm, who in January reported on TikTok having received from Ssense a supposedly counterfeit version of a The Row bag worth over a thousand dollars. In a second video, Kimm said she received a refund and a discount, but without any definitive confirmation about the nature of the item. A few weeks later, another user, Jennielyn, shared a similar experience with a Gimaguas bag also bought from Ssense. Another girl, again on TikTok, spoke about a strange incident involving a pair of Prada sunglasses that arrived with damaged packaging and the wrong model, which according to Ssense Customer Service, were not even in inventory. And while there is no conclusive evidence, similar isolated incidents have been mentioned on TikTok about Farfetch (by a creator named @littlemissdhg, frequently referenced but whose original channel is now unreachable) and several involving Saks Fifth Avenue, about bags, jackets, and even a 2023 case of a woman who received the correct box only to find a can of tuna inside. In these cases, it’s likely that the retailers were not selling counterfeit goods, but were rather the indirect victims of a growing phenomenon: the return of fake products in place of authentic ones.

As BoF explains, by taking advantage of more lenient return policies introduced during the pandemic to encourage online shopping — which many retailers have since tried, with mixed results, to limit — some unscrupulous consumers return fakes, often of very high quality, managing to reintroduce them into the sales cycle. And although the story isn’t entirely new (recall the 2022 case in which a Louis Vuitton boutique in China received fake merchandise), the economic consequences are enormous. According to Riskified, a fraud prevention software provider also cited by BoF, in 2024 alone losses due to return-related fraud exceeded $104 billion in the U.S. — a figure four times higher than in 2020. And even if only a small percentage of users carry out this type of scam, the impact is disproportionate: a single customer can cause millions of dollars in damage over the course of a year. Making matters worse is the increasing sophistication of replicas. The article cites data from Entrupy, a luxury item authentication platform, which found that the percentage of fakes detected among billions of dollars worth of goods rose from 8.3% in 2021 to 8.7% in 2023. And while secondhand marketplaces like Vestiaire Collective invest in professional authenticators and specialized hubs, traditional retailers don’t have the same infrastructure, nor are they equipped to inspect every single return with meticulous care. Vinted has also recently implemented an authentication system which, due to the sophistication of fakes, involves human examination of every item during the sale process.

Nonetheless, emerging technological solutions exist. One of the most promising is the adoption of seals with embedded QR codes, which are difficult to remove without damaging the product. If the seal is broken or missing at the time of return, the system can automatically block the return or trigger more thorough checks. Other solutions include fraud prevention software that can identify suspicious profiles and restrict their access to immediate refunds or flexible return policies. Recently, several anti-fake apps have emerged, though their foolproof effectiveness remains uncertain.  

For some time now, brands have also started using NFC chips to authenticate their products, although the average user tends not to know how they work or have the tools to verify authenticity themselves — in fact, during our interview with a Vinted authenticator a few months ago, we were told that counterfeiters now even create fake QR codes and branded landing pages to reassure scammed buyers.  For e-commerce, however, the issue is more tangible: there has long been debate over return policies, which have become unregulated and costly, responsible for cumulative losses in the billions. But now that we’re talking about the risk of fake products re-entering retailers’ warehouses and being resold to unsuspecting new customers, the stakes are entirely different — it would require authenticating both outgoing and returned items, posing serious logistical challenges for services that seem automated to customers but actually require a huge number of people behind the scenes.

The problem is that the number of returns is so high (according to Eurithech, fashion return rates in 2025 are at 25%) that the lines inevitably blur, opening the door to scammers of all kinds who, as suspected, may have started sending back counterfeit products without being caught. These newer scams, along with other forms of “return abuse”, are part of the reason why fashion brands have been trying for years to strike the right balance between direct-to-consumer and multi-brand channels — the issue isn’t just image control but also the fear that their products might end up lost in a sea of shipments and online sales where a package can disappear or reappear in counterfeit form. Perhaps this is why Prada announced its global partnership with MyTheresa yesterday, signaling to current and future customers that this is the preferred multi-brand e-commerce channel for purchasing its products. All the more relevant considering MyTheresa is finalizing the acquisition of Yoox Net-a-Porter, making it one of the giants of global luxury e-commerce. Could authentication services be the next booming sector for fashion and luxury e-commerce?