Edna Moss / 23 April 2025 / Categories: Opinions, Internet, Online Retail, Useful Guides

I Got Conned On EBay Buying Designer Trainers

My tips for shopping safely online

Have you been conned or ripped off online? Here’s a picture of my Balenciaga Triple S fakes purchased on EBay.

Everyone has a story. It’s happened to most of us in some way or another. Frauds, scams, cons are everywhere from “you’ve been involved in an accident” calls to much more sophisticated schemes robbing people of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands.

It happened to me on EBay. I wanted a pair of the Balenciaga triple S trainers they were way too expensive to buy new so I decided to look for a pair recycled secondhand.

At the time I had no idea how many good quality fake trainers there were in the market. Or how many people were prepared to bear face lie about the history or origins of the items they are selling.

On eBay they try to give reassurance from a sellers history and feedback but I have been duped by someone with great feedback. I think I got conned by someone who was a shopper on EBay not a seller especially.

I asked all the right questions about my fear of ending up with fake trainers, then my friend pointed out if someone is ripping you off asking questions won’t help you, of course the person will lie. To exactly what extent and how for they will go, I was surprised.

When my Balenciaga Triple S trainers arrived the first clue was they were too big. I’d tried them on in store to make sure I purchased the correct size. On reflection this was not the best behaviour, using the store to get the size correct and then shopping online to find the item cheaper. Yeah I’ll own that.

Anyway it didn’t work the shoes were fakes but how do I prove it without offending the seller and accusing her of ripping me off. It was very awkward. In the end I told her I didn’t believe her story, purchased at Selfridges, worn a few times and decided she wanted something different. She said she could sell them cheaper as they were a gift to her.

At this point all I wanted was my money back but she said she could prove they were authentic as she had the Selfridges purchased receipt and would dig it out and send it over.

When the receipt came over I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it, I felt so bad and thought, oh well I have to keep them now so I apologised and let it drop until my friend, inspector cluso looked at the receipt under a microscope and immediately told me the Selfridges receipt was counterfeit.

I was furious not so much about the trainers, I knew I could get my money back from EBay although FYI here, something not fitting on EBay is NOT a valid reason for a refund only if the item is NOT as described, i.e. fake Balenciaga Triple S sneakers will EBay automatically side with the buyer.

No surprise as soon as I began communicating the game was up I didn’t hear another word from the seller until I packed up the trainers with a prepaid EBay shipping label and the seller had to email me to ask where the trainers had been returned to as she had moved and hadn’t updated her EBay account.

In some small way the outcome, the con person losing the money and the trainers, Karma maybe, did lessen the blow of being duped on EBay by someone selling fakes.

The things I found out to look for when identifying a fake pair of Balenciaga Triple S trainers is the evenness of the stitching of the Balenciaga name. If you zoom in on the picture you can see even though the trainers look convincing the stitching is not even.