A lot of fakes and scams give themselves away before the bag ever arrives, right there in the listing. You do not need to be an authenticator to catch the obvious ones. You need to know what to flag, and what to do instead.
A price too good to be true
The oldest rule still works. A bag listing for a fraction of its going rate is usually a fake, a scam, or a problem the photos are hiding. If the price feels too lucky, treat it as a warning, not a win.
The authenticity-card tell
A counterintuitive one: some brands never issue authenticity cards at all. Louis Vuitton is the clearest example. So a listing that brags about including a card is waving a flag, not handing you a credential. Know which brands do and do not include paperwork before you read a card as reassurance.
What the seller will not show you
A genuine seller can photograph the details: the stamp or date code, the engraving on the hardware, the interior tag, the stitching at the seams. A listing with only glossy, stock-style photos, or a seller who dodges your request for specific close-ups, is telling you something. Ask for the shots, and watch how they respond.
Where you buy matters most
Buy where authentication is built in. On eBay and Poshmark, items sold over $500 are checked by an independent authenticator before they reach you. Dedicated resale companies verify everything they sell. A private, off-platform sale with none of that is where most of the risk lives, so weigh the discount against what you are giving up.
Pressure is itself a red flag
"Someone else is about to buy it." "Only available today." Urgency is a sales tactic, and it exists to stop you from doing the very checks this guide describes. A real bag will still be real tomorrow, so give yourself the time to look.
When in doubt
Run the markers for the brand, and we have guides for several, ask for the photos, and for anything costly, send it to a professional authenticator. These are red flags to weigh, not a verdict, and a clean listing is never proof on its own. The safest check is always a human expert with the bag in hand.
Sources
Drawn from general authentication and marketplace guidance and our own brand-specific guides, plus the published authentication policies of eBay and Poshmark.
