Men, except those of you who shop for your wives and/or girlfriends, you may want to stop reading now, unless you want to discourage any woman in your life from bargain shopping.
Well, okay, so maybe you want to read on.
While not all women care about designer totebags and purses, others love the look of an expensive bag. Whether it’s the logo or the style or both.
But with these designer bags easily pricing into the four figures, many women also love the idea of saving the money for more critical things like rent and food.
Which brings us to the “knock-offs.” From the streets of New York, to the markets of China, to alleyways all over Europe, fake bags have long been on many travelers’ shopping lists.
While these bags in the past may have been sold relatively casually, in recent years as designers have tried harder to keep control of their trademarks, the whole sales process has gotten much more clandestine.
In China a few years ago, while many bags were out on display in the Silk and Pearl Markets, nothing looked like a designer model. Only after several minutes of conversation would the salespeople bring such a bag out for inspection.
In Hong Kong, again, no serious designer-looking bags were for sale in any market stall, though vendors would sometimes approach asking if we were looking for a “nice purse,” in the same tone that you might expect someone to use to sell a little “ganga” in Jamaica.
I have heard similar reports from clients all over the world, but most of the stories center on how worried the vendors were.
Now it looks like buyers too, should beware. In a resort area near Venice last week, a tourist from Austria was fined €1,000 (US$1,200) for purchasing a fake Louis Vuitton purse from a street vendor on a beach.
The Italians, who you might not expect to be the most vigilant on rules, are nonetheless cracking down on counterfeit goods.
The threat of a crackdown has been going down for years, and certainly Italy has enough high-end designers: Fendi, Ferragamo, Prada, Versace, to name just a few.
Now, however, at least in Venice, the police are serious. According to the London Telegraph, the tourist in question was a 65 year old retiree, who paid €7 (US$11.50) for her bag. (Curiously enough, local hotel owners, worried about losing business, are pitching in to help pay her fine.)
The issue is complicated. At one point in 2000 the Italian Supreme Court ruled that something was not a counterfeit if the buyer didn’t reasonably expect it to be real. It’s hard to imagine anyone would really think a €7 euro purse, or a €20 (US$24) euro Rolex for that matter, would be genuine.
But designers claim such knockoffs cost them billions. In addition, street vendors almost certainly do not collect Value Added Taxes nor pay taxes themselves. And the Mayor of Venice says tourists have complained about being harassed by the vendors.
Plus, let’s be realistic. A €1,000 (US$1,200) fine is a nice addition to any cash-strapped city’s coffers.
Whatever side you’re on on this issue, however, it seems certain that increasingly you’ll need to be careful, to stay on the right side of the law.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
