Unauthorized Authentic Louis Vuitton: Authentic or Fake?

While searching for a preloved Louis Vuitton on local websites like craiglist.com, you may come across listings that show a new or preloved bag that is marked as ‘unauthorized authentic’ in its description.

Read this story that one of my friends told me:

'There’s a local person selling obviously fake LV on Facebook market place but she said something to me I hadn’t heard of before (I’ll copy & paste it down below) I’m pretty sure that Louis Vuitton doesn’t hire any ‘factories’ to produce their items to a certain quota. Please let me know your thoughts'.

Me:

'$650 for a fake purse with fake receipts?'

Seller:

‘So this how it works. when Gucci or Luis Vuitton or any other name brands ask a factory to make a certain quota of merchandise, the factory will make tons extra to replace flawed items. When the original company gets their quota matched the factory will then sell the overstock to other wholesalers. The overstock items don’t get verified or quality checked by the brand's company which is why the price is so great for the same items sold in official stores. Now my vendors and myself do our own quality check so I can assure you the bag is perfect and yes they have the code inside all of my products hun.’

Here's an explanation given by another Chinese seller:

‘Product is UA, which means 'unauthorized authentic'. This bag is literally made in the same factory, by the same people, and with the same materials as the ones bought from the store. The only difference is the bags I sell never made it to the store due to the company meeting their quota and moving on to the next factory. All of the extra bags that were made get left behind which allows resellers like myself to sell these beautiful bags at such great and affordable prices😊’

The sellers might also claim that they take the item from the same factory where the original bags are produced. There are different variations of this story. Someone who knows someone who is working on the Louis Vuitton Factory told them to take several bags out in the night Or a car with many authentic bags got into an accident and a lot of bags fell out from the car.

Long story short, unauthorized authentic Louis Vuitton means FAKE or replica.

People selling replica purses usually use such words as AAA+, 1:1, LUX in the item's description to indicate that the purse is not an authentic purse but a replica.

Louis Vuitton and other high-end retailers will actually be against letting go of their items for cheaper price because it cheapens the brand. This is why they destroy defective items instead of selling for cheaper. Louis Vuitton doesn’t sell their stock to anyone, they actually burn all their unsold merchandise at the end of each year.

People believe in stories. Sometimes they do believe stories that they can’t verify. The chance that you get a $2,000 bag for just $500 and it's identical does blow away your mind and judgment.

In this case, you’ll never be able to tell what was the factory and is it even possible that a brand sells their overstock items. The people who sell Unauthorized Authentic items are called 'scam artists' for a reason. They like to create stories that sell.

Don't be fooled. You deserve to get a real deal for your money. Stay away from scams like this.

If you're interested in learning more on authentication and on how good fakes can be, read out other articles like this Neverfull MM fake-real comparison.

If you want to be sure you're purchasing an authentic bag, please don't forget to authenticate (our authentication is only $10 for the peace of mind) or learn how to verify Louis Vuitton yourself in our Louis Vuitton Authentication Course.

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