There is no low they won’t go and in the world of Donald Trump, there definitely is no bottom. I knew that before I read this story about designer knock off bags being sold at Mar-a-Lago during the puppy auction, but the fact that Trump turns out to be in that racket is something else altogether, because it’s a scam I actually know something about.
First of all, in Trump’s case, this was not the first time it had happened. The knock off bags had been sold at Mar-a-Lago the previous year — and the vendor had been asked to leave. Fashion aficionado Coco Cha posted this on Instagram: “OMG this was embarrassing for them to sell knockoff bags at Mar-a-Lago ☠️.”
Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of this industry and of course Trump is on the lowest end of it. There are the used luxury bags and there’s a market for that. Now that market, I can tell you from personal experience, is fraught with peril. Just this past January I attempted to buy no less than four handbags from a well known company that specializes in brokering used luxury merchandise. I sent the money and then was told that there was a problem authenticating the bag.
I asked the obvious, “If there’s an authentication issue, why is it in your catalog to begin with?” The broker’s answer: Silence. The answer I figured out on my own: The Float. In other words, if I send $300 for a purse and it turns out not to be authentic, then I get my money back, which is the good news, but I don’t get it back instantaneously. It takes a few weeks. So multiply that by “x” number of thousands and you see how people can make a profit off of literally playing on the internet, posting photos of things they don’t actually have in stock — but convincing enough people that they do, to make a decent little side hustle with it.
So that’s one branch of this business, the real luxury item, just at a discount. Then there is a second branch, the knock off luxury handbags. And that goes one of two ways: 1. The knock offs that are advertised as knock offs and 2. the knock offs that are advertised as the real thing.
Now the knock offs which are admittedly that look a lot like the real luxury bags, but they would never get past somebody with a seasoned eye. And that may be okay for a lot of people. If you just want a good looking bag, that’s got the logo and you figure it will fool everybody (and to some extent you’re right, it fools most people) then it’s worth it.
However, the knock offs which are advertised as the real thing and for which the full price for a luxury item is charged, is a vicious racket. Now which end of this business does Trump participate? Yes, the knockoffs advertised as the real thing. Or, at least that is what I get from reading the article. I can’t see Trump selling a Hermes or a Gucci bag at Mar-a-Lago and advertising it as a fake. Remember, this is the guy who supposedly gave Charlie Sheen a pair of Harry Winston diamond cufflinks, which turned out to be “pewter on their best day and zircon.”
During the video, Coco Cha can then be heard referring to them as “fake bags” and wrote over another video containing counterfeit bags with designs from Balenciaga, Hermès, Celine, Bulgari, and others:
“Please… do not sell knockoffs at a charity event. Seriously!”
The 2023 video also contained a comparison between a Hermès “Kelly” bag versus a fake one on sell at Mar-a-Lago’s Big Dog Ranch Rescue charity event. Coco Cha tagged the Big Dog Ranch Rescue charity and urged them to “not admit” the owner of “Amber Shane Bags” as a vendor again.
It looks like that request, or at least the desire to stop the sale of counterfeit bags from being sold at Mar-a-Lago, had fallen by the wayside as knockoff bags were again discovered for sale at Trump’s home for this year.
Trump, who is wrapped up in various fraud trials, has allowed vendors to sell fake bags to his guests for at least two years in a row.
And again, I make the assumption that the shocking part here, that the fashionista picked up on, is that these bags were being touted as the real thing and asking people for full price. If they were advertised as knock offs and were going for $100, that would be something else, and you know Trump won’t do something like that. He’s going to be selling something for $1,500, $3,000 — when it may be worth $50, if you figure out the cost of mass produced materials with a designer logo stuck on it.
Also, don’t forget that just a few weeks ago Trump committed a copyright infringement with the red soles on his golden sneakers. Christian Louboutin holds the copyright on red soles and so, if Trump intends to actually continue to manufacture and sell those sneakers, he’s likely to be sued for copyright infringement, enjoined from producing them at the very least. So Trump doesn’t really care all that much about infringing on copyrights and logos, it would seem.
The truly shocking part of all this is that in any kind of a normal world, this story and this one alone, would be making major headlines. In the world we live now? Barely a ripple in the pond from a small pebble. And that makes sense. He’s hosting Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago on Friday and the two of them are going to discuss taking over the world, so definitely, what’s ripping off a few dummies for thousands of dollars for fake purses? I get it. Believe me, I get it. That’s the sad part, is how depraved and jaded the American political scene has become in the past eight years.
Trump and MORE fraud?
I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.
Another way to launder money?
It’s a way for rich, or at least very well-off financially Trump supporters to get around the individual limit on campaign contributions.
Ursula how can you have a “depraved and jaded political scene” without having those qualities as a culture? If we had valued social justice and truth from the beginning instead of money, power, and conformity, I doubt we’d be facing fascism in millions of our fellow citizens. I saw 64% of the gop here in NC STILL believe Biden didn’t win. A true lunatic just got their nomination for governor calling everyone not a christo-fascist “filth”, and that democrats are half reptilian. Beyonce is a Satan worshiper. OK that last one makes some sense…if I were the Lord of Darkness, and had my pick of babes, she would be on my short list. All frivolity aside, our generation has seen more unimaginable shit go down just so the 1% can control the flow of money into their pockets. Their greed will destroy us all if we don’t step up to vote.
So they’re fake and probably illegal
It’s TRUMP for crying out loud – what did you expect?
Vendor is liable or the manufacturer .
Truly, why would we be shocked at this? tRump ignores all laws, believes he’s above them, they don’t apply to him, never EVER even considers whether something is unlawful before he does it. His only consideration before doing something is what can it do for him, how much is he going to get out of it. The legal details are left to others to work out (lie about). He’s totally devoid of anything positive. What’s frightening is how quickly our systems have fallen to him, how quickly the repugs have given up any semblance of decency and honor in order to fall at his feet. We have to be on our ‘A’ game in order to defeat this shambling nightmare at the ballot box, and even then, we are going to have to fight to make sure they don’t make an end run around us by manipulating and undermining the system. They aren’t going to give up easily. Look how they still bray about ‘stolen election’ to this day. They are already plotting on how to undermine the voting rolls, getting ‘their’ people into election offices, and we can count on Moses Mike to not certify the election. We have our work cut out for us people. Good luck to us!
As for the ugly as sneakers, he has their non-refundable payments, so what does he care if they never get made. Sue to get a refund and spend the next decade in court.