The internet is full of conflicting information and I'm confused.
How Do You Tell Genuine Converse Shoes from Fakes?
bargain huntress on 20/05/2023 - 19:42
Comments
Sorry i thought you were joking but apparently it is a thing. I apologise for doubting you
…smell the shoe….
you have to lick the shoe
…lick the shoe….
do a shoey from it
you have to be the shoe
Yes some people pay hundreds to be stepped on
…be the shoe….
This is internet.
It is. So much for all of human knowledge at our fingertips.
It's more your lack of ability to harness it via a search engine, so you post here instead expecting others to do the work for you.
As i said in my post, i have searched, and every piece of advice contradicts with another piece of advice.
I also can not find an official page from Converse explaining. I can only assume they dont want to make it easier for counterfeiters. But it is very unhelpful.
Look out for the 6 pointed star.
price and where u get them
alibaba for 2 bucks real
myer for 100 fake
ebay 50 cent real
iconic 130 fake
David jones 1k …. shut up and take my moneeeeyyyBeing spelt Konverse is normally a dead giveaway
Since nobody wants to actually help, I'll throw out some advice. Honestly it can be really difficult to tell good fakes apart from real shoes. I'd say the biggest giveaway is where you bought them. Actual retail store or online version of a retail store you would know is real. But something like eBay, Amazon, Kogan, Catch, you can never guarantee it's real. eBay maybe if its the store front of an actual store, but even officially sold by Amazon Au or Amazon.com I wouldn't trust 100%. Third part eBay sellers I would say 90% fake, especially if it says "Genuine". People have been known to return fakes and receive them repackaged.
Look around the shoe for obvious defects, and overall build quality. If you can go to a retail store and compare directly that would show any mistakes. Another area to look at is the box, if you type up the numbers in the barcode, it should show your shoe model and colour along with the size. If it shows another shoe colour or model then it's a fake box and probably fake shoe. Otherwise, you can try look up guides online comparing real and fake shoes but they won't work for newer counterfeits which are almost perfect at this point. At this point, for shoe verification services, they use the smell test a lot of the time which works well for new shoes. Counterfeit shoes have a very strong chemical/plastic smell out of the box which is a dead giveaway, but this decreases over time.
THANK YOU!
These particular ones I got at Kogan directly from Kogan not 3rd party marketplace.
Funnily enough, I also bought two pairs of Converse chucks from Kogan official warehouse store. I also thought they might be fake and looked around and came across the same issues with the qr code and whatnot. Sorry but I can't help much on that end. One of my pairs I don't really see anything that would give away that it's fake, but the other pair has one sole that is slightly different to the other shoe (slightly different pattern), which is off because it's a matching pair with same batch number or serial number or whatever. That's the only clue that that pair might be a fake. I still don't really know for sure, but no bad smell from those pairs. If it's not fake, it could also be a grey import or something from another country. Kogan does grey imports for a lot of stuff. In the end, even if it's a perfect counterfeit, then it shouldn't be that big of a deal anyway. If you paid big resale for shoes and then got a fake then that would be something worth getting upset over.
So investigation so far:
One thing is the QR codes go to this domain: vmdmx.com
When i search for it there are heaps of people saying that means they are real.
but my logical question is why dont they go to a Converse domain?
Serial numbers are different on each shoe and box.
When I search I find;
people saying that means they are real,
and others saying that means they are fake!Likewise;
people saying all serial numbers should match,
and other people saying that would mean they are fake!At this point, for shoe verification services, they use the smell test a lot of the time which works well for new shoes. Counterfeit shoes have a very strong chemical/plastic smell out of the box which is a dead giveaway, but this decreases over time.
So im very sensitive to smell, so all new shoes smell a lot to me, and even old shoes smell chemically to me.
Hmm…So i did some smelling experiments:
I opened a package of the suspect Converse i hadnt opened yet, and it didnt smell any worse than how i would expect any new shoe.
I havent ever opened a 100% sure Converse though so i cant compare it.
Comparisons i can do:
Suspect Converse i opened a couple days ago smell the same or maybe very slightly better.
Kmart version i got months ago, and havent worn yet, that have been airing out in walkin wardrobe, now smell maybe half as strong as suss Converse.
Rivers version i got a decade ago and have worn a lot and cleaned, almost dont smell at all. (Also why did you stop making them Rivers they are awesome!!!?! (Maybe they got sued?))
Timberlands i bought 2 years ago, and have cleaned, but havent worn, have also been airing in robe all this time, and smell nearly as bad as suss brand new Converse.
Shine gumboots which smelled horrifically when new, that i have worn, smell less than any of them now. Although the smell does drift more.
Im so confused.
Do the official Converse factories use different glue or air them out for 3 years or something?
According to some people on the rep subreddits, retail shoes are made in bulk and sit around for a while, counterfeits might be sold more quickly. So yeah, they get aired out I guess. I've bought rep shoes before and the smell was very immediately obvious. It's not really a new shoe smell like in a retail store, it's like a bad chemical smell. But if you can't immediately tell, I'd say the test isn't gonna be useful at this point. If you really care, best bet would be to compare to a shoe in store.
If a new counterfeit is almost perfect it may be worth buying.
I sort of agree.
It depends.
For example If the people making them are being treated equally badly why are we paying such high prices for genuine ones.
If ya put your left shoe on the wrong foot
you’ve put it on the right foot. If you put it on your left foot, its still the right foot.https://www.converse.com.au/allstores
head into one of these stores with your internet findings then confirm by trying a pair
do the serial match, check the legit shoe
does the qr code work, check the legit shoe
are the kogan ones real, bring it in store…..usually watching youtube clips of ebay authenticaing shoes u see them looking at the box, the sole, the smell, and the serial code
Its a sensible idea
Thank you
If it says Conperse instead of Converse
Started getting into Y3 and qasa's. Priced around $500 so lot's of fakes. Reddit has legit check posts. you have to post in a couple though. Pull up the official shoe on google or any official website. Compare the main parts and also the distance between things. Check the quality of stitching in each section. Also, look at the inside or hidden parts for defects.
People really pay 500 for shoes? wow.
yep, 30% of fat sale times. some of the rare nikes are in $1000s. People are able to resell and trade up to buy them.
Do you ever worry about being mugged wearing something so expensive?
@bargain huntress: 90% indoors cat… All mine are secondhand on ebay or depop under $120. After this, rather buy official vs saving a few dollars.
@Cave Fire: Good tips thank you.
Do you think you are more or less likely to get genuines when buying used?
@bargain huntress: Yeah, figured that sites like depop have the potential for people to sell reps sometimes. Have found at least one funny listing and no way to report.
Thank you!
If it's this hard to spot a fake, does it really matter as long a you got it at a good price?
Fakes are likely to be poorly made so they don't last very long.
I kind of agree
I definitely do not buy expensive shoes. However, there is obviously a need for some system to detect fakes. There is an ASX listed company called YPB , which is developing a smart phone scannable authentication device which ( apparently) would be embedded into the genuine article. The buyer would presumably scan the product for validation. I'm not sure whether this system is up and running yet, but the shares of the company trade at less than 1 cent per share so there are definitely some doubts.
Cool
They have qr codes but they dont seem thay hard to copy
one of my children wanted some converse a few years ago . i bought some from alibaba for $19 delivered. they were were indistinguishable from the original.
Do you mean aliexpress, did you buy 1000 of them, or do you have a trick i dont know to order single items on alibaba? Because id love to know if there is a trick.
Take your shoes to a major retailer and compare.
Just ignore if the staff might think you are some kind of Sicko .I have a pair of the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Low Top - they weigh a tonne & they're uncomfortable.
"they weigh a tonne & they're uncomfortable"
Definitely genuine then :)
Yes! They're still in the box after several goes at wearing them in with no luck & many blisters. I should drop them off at St Vinnies
Try poshmark or depop for a month then donate them
If you can't tell the difference, you've got to ask yourself if buying genuine matters.
If the fake is good enough, no point paying for brand unless you or those whose opinion you care about are pretentious.no point paying for brand unless you or those whose opinion you care about are pretentious
Who isn't pretentious tho? It's only a matter of degrees & often in the mind of the beholder. I don't think there is anything wrong with being pretentious unless you're living beyond your means.
I kind of agree
By how long they last.. I had dups for about month before they fell apart.
Was such a shame as they looked so cool and most compliments I’ve ever hadAll i can say is go for the Chuck 70s rather than the standard Chucks. Your feet will thank you for it.
you have to smell the shoe