Beware of online fraud: how to protect yourself from buying fake luxury perfumes

The development of e-commerce is a global trend that received a powerful impetus during the COVID epidemic. And the full-scale war has finally changed the distribution between offline and online commerce in favor of the latter.

This would not be a bad thing if online fraud did not flourish alongside the growth of online sales. We've written about this problem many times before, but unfortunately, it remains a pressing issue. We propose to revisit the list of "safety rules" for online shopping on the example of luxury perfumes, which are particularly "popular" among fraudsters. BROCARD experts, who know all the pitfalls of the domestic perfume and cosmetics market, helped to compile this list.

Rule 1: Choose a reliable online store. You should look for branded products where they have the right to be: on the brands' online platforms and on the websites of official representatives. Therefore, choose well-known and reputable sellers – those who usually have physical stores where you can go to see the bottle of your dream perfume "live". Take it in your hands. Feel how the fragrance "sounds" on your skin.

Rule 2: Do not fall for "unique offers"! Social media feeds often contain extremely attractive offers. "Final sale in connection with the liquidation of the warehouse", "90% discount on all perfumes", "Elite perfumes at a single price of 299 UAH". Such ads should be taken as red flags. Global brands never sell their unique products at the price of dishwashing detergent.

For 10-15 euros, you can only buy a fake made by local "perfume experts" in an underground workshop. Videos of such productions can be found on YouTube, but you are unlikely to get any aesthetic pleasure from watching them.

Rule 3: "Watch your hands" – check the resource. Super discount ads "for everything at once" are usually found on mysterious online sites whose name tells you nothing. Be sure to follow the link to the ad that promises Gucci for 299 hryvnias. Is it the brand's official website or the website of a seller authorized to sell this brand in Ukraine? Does the name of this site match the one in the advertisement? Fraudsters can disguise themselves as a well-known brand like BROCARD. What country and domain is the store's website registered in? Remember that the official websites of Ukrainian companies have the address "companyname.ua".

Rule 4. Do not buy perfume on tap or by the glass. You can read more about these sales schemes here. The Internet and Instagram actively offer perfumes of well-known world brands by the glass. Argument: why would you buy a 100 ml bottle? First, it is very expensive. Secondly, if the scent is unfamiliar, you may not like it very much. It is better to buy several fragrances of 2-3 ml each to test different compositions.

Does it make sense? It seems so. But questions arise. What technology is used in the distillation process? Do they follow basic sanitary standards? Is the flavor original? It is impossible to check this.

As for the bottling of "expensive perfume" from liter containers somewhere in the crosswalk, did you seriously think that the owners of the Dior, Armani, and Gucci brands would give away their perfume masterpieces in "barrels", literally like beer? If you are interested in such an "attractive" offer, you will buy a cheap fake that can cause health problems.

Conclusion: "Playing roulette" with online fraudsters who are constantly honing their "professionalism" is a dangerous and hopeless business. It is impossible to identify a fake from the photo on the screen. Therefore, the only reasonable way out is to buy luxury perfumes from authorized sellers: offline or online. As for the price, you can find discounts on official websites. For example, BROCARD.UA periodically offers discounts of up to 70%, and here you are guaranteed to buy the original.