News Now! | Abercrombie & Fitch Fake Store in Kuwait...

WRITTEN BY CAMERON, TSOF CONTRIBUTOR

The latest fake A&F "store" to open.

         TAKING ADVANTAGE OF the great word-of-mouth that Abercrombie & Fitch is coming to the region, a store has recently opened up in the Middle East's Kuwait proclaiming itself to be an all-new A&F store. With its ridiculous storefront and totally off interior, the shop, found inside the Olympia Mall, is comically named "Abercrombie & Fitch stores" (with Arabic transliteration) and one can honestly hope that even the common layman with a small sliver of knowledge of A&F can discern this as totally fake. Looks nothing like an Abercrombie store, not even in the slightest.

Merchandise within the fake shop is purportedly comprised of Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie and Hollister wares. From observation from outside, it cannot be determined whether the merchandise itself sold in this store is counterfeit or not...though can't put it past them. Funnily, what is said is about this awful fake shop is that the prices are actually much higher than buying off of A&F Family authentic retail and online stores.

If you are unsure of whether a store is real or not, check out the store locator on each of the brand's official websites (abercrombie.com; abercrombiekids.com; hollisterco.com; and gillyhicks.com). It's your only source for all official A&F Family stores around the world. And to emphasize, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. only sells its products directly via its official retail and online stores.

Have you spotted a fake A&F store? If you have photos and or happen to pass by one, be sure to share them with us by using #THEHOTTESTBLOG hashtag on Instagram!

Do remember to report counterfeits and fake, illegal operations infringing on A&F Co. to the brand protection department at BP_tips@abercrombie.com. Check out what you need to know about A&F Brand Protection (here).

Stay FIERCE!

Follow @TheSitchonFitch

Cameron in Scotland! | Staying FIERCE Without Fakes...

Hey Dudes and Bettys! How are you all this week?

In this post, I'm going to help you spot the fake A&F websites from the real ones. As you all probably know, there are tonnes of fake Chinese websites offering counterfeit goods from all 4 Abercrombie and Fitch brands. I'm going to show you some of the most 'popular' sites.

Abercrombie and Fitch Trading Co. are super tight on brand protection, hence them having the distribution centres at their Home Office, New Albany, Ohio. These can be seen in the picture below.

The 2 Distribution Centres (Image from Google Maps)

So let's get started. These were the first 4 results that came up on Google when I simply typed in 'Abercrombie and Fitch'.

1) http://www.abercrombieukcol.me.uk/

This classes itself as an 'Abercrombie Outlet'. It sells Abercrombie & Fitch (Mens & Womens), Hollister (Mens & Womens) and Ruehl No.925 (Womens) as well.

If it wasn't advertising A&F products, the website is actually quite good, yet simple. The biggest giveaway about this website is that it is white, something the genuine Abercrombie websites lack.

The prices are hilarious! The RRP of one Hollister tee was apparently £53.99 ($87), now I don't know about you, but personally I have only ever seen Hollister tees go up to a maximum price of £30. This website is selling tees around the £24 mark, which on average is £4 more than what you would pay for a genuine HCo tee over here! I would much prefer a genuine item over a more expensive fake item any day.

£4.15 more expensive than a genuine Hollister Tee!

2) http://www.afsale2013.co.uk/

This site sells counterfeit Abercrombie & Fitch (Mens and Womens) and Hollister (Dudes and Bettys).


One Abercrombie & Fitch Hoodie (see image below) was on sale for £39.60. The RRP was stated as £124.76! Another fake RRP. They usually sell in the UK for £80/£90, but less in the USA. So £39.60 is about half the usual A&F price for a Men's hoodie. Although there might be a saving, these items are not genuine A&F and are usually seized by Customs and/or Border Control. They are typically of exceptionally low quality as well.

 

3) www.abercromsfitchdessoldes.com

Yep, you guessed it. This site also sells Abercrombie & Fitch (Mens and Womens) and also Hollister (Dudes & Bettys). The two most popular and copied A&F brands.

This website doesn't look too bad, being a student of web design, it ticks all of the boxes except from spelling and copyright (obviously). Also, it shows the Bettys sizing on the Dudes clothing (see bottom picture).

One of the Hollister hoodies for Dudes, retails for £28.85. It states that you are saving 62%, which makes the RRP £76.78. A fake RRP again... The price for this item was only £40 when it was on sale at Hollister Braehead, Glasgow. That was without any promotions, discounts or any sort of sale.

 

4) www.abercrombieoutletsale2013.co.uk

Deary me... This is seriously the worst website I've ever seen. "Abercrombie & Fitch Mens Slippers"?? I think you'll find that they are actually Flip-Flops..."slippers", honestly!

You can maybe see the 'Up to 70% Off Selected Wines' banner on image here below. I wasn't aware that Abercrombie sold wine!? [sarcasm]

Also, can you spot the 'Join us and you will get £3 cupon' writing? (Top of both pictures) I'm not exactly sure what a £3 Cupon is? ;)

Apparently these "slippers" (see image below) retailed at £96.17 in Abercrombie! Fake. The most expensive flip flops I have ever seen in Abercrombie were only £48. I must admit, £16.13 for a pair of flip-flops isn't bad, but would you buy from someone who couldn't spell the word 'coupon' or know the difference between slippers and flip-flops? Neither would I.

All of those URLs have something in common: they all contain 'A&F', 'Abercrombie' or 'Fitch'. But check this out: the next site came to my attention when C.E.R (Editor-in-Chief) mentioned it to me after a friend had brought it to his awareness. And since I've handled counterfeit topics on the blog, C.E.R. referred this site to me to report: http://www.euafer.com. Weirdly, the site doesn't mention anything about Abercrombie in the URL web address. Although it states that it is an Abercrombie & Fitch Outlet, they have copied the Hollister web design! It's not only the clothes that are dodgy. ;)

It is actually the first website I have seen that has copied the A&F All-Season Weather Warrior Jacket. It is seriously my favourite jacket... ever! Apparently the RRP is £171.49, which is false. Currently on the A&F website, the jacket costs £120. So this website is selling it at £63.84 for pretty much more than half price. Still far too expensive for a fake jacket. I would advise you all never to buy an fakes! I have bought a few in the past to check them out, and they are the worst quality.

So there you have it guys. A sample of the ultimate sites to stay away from! Remember that if you buy fakes, you are hurting A&F's business and supporting fake sellers. You are also wasting money if you care about quality (although if you're buying fakes, then again you prob don't care), as the color washes out quickly and the fabric is super thin!

The only websites for you to buy genuine A&F goods from

are the OFFICIAL online stores, of course!

abercrombie.com

abercrombiekids.com

hollisterco.com

gillyhicks.com

Always report A&F Family fakes! Brand Protection: Abercrombie & Fitch (see here); abercrombie (see here); Hollister Co (see here); and Gilly Hicks (see here).

Until next Tuesday,
Stay FIERCE!

~Cameron

A HCo Dude In Scotland! | Counterfeit Goods: They're Not Cool!

Hey dudes and Bettys! How is everyone this week?

So this week I'm going to speak about fake Hollister and Abercrombie goods. As you all probably know, you can get fake designer goods; and since Abercrombie & Fitch brands have got really popular, you can also buy A&F fakes nearly anywhere! From market stalls to Chinese 'outlets', the world is full of them.

The latest retailer to sell counterfeit goods is SportsDirect.com, one of the UK's biggest sports retailer. They have recently launched a 'Fashion Outlet' which contains 'designer brands'. They sell Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister, but the truth is that they are all counterfeit goods. I recently bought some zip-up hoodies to see the quality for my self. I have included some pictures at the bottom of this post. Some of the hoodies are too big for me (some of them are XXL, I am usually only an XL in an A&F zip-up hoodie). Anyways, the RRP on these hoodies are £95 ($149) each, I bought these for £20 ($32) each, that's a saving of £150 ($235)! I know, it's too good to believe. Anyways, I ordered 3 A&F hoodies, a navy one and 2 grey ones. The quality of them is okay. On the grey one with Abercrombie written on the sleeve, there is a wee bit of stitching at the bottom not there, but other than that, it's alright. The labels vary on each one, and the inside labels vary as well. Anyways, there's some photos at the bottom of this post so you can judge for yourself! haha

Also, I recently went to the Glasgow Barras (Glasgow Barrowlands), a weekend market. It's a really rough part of Glasgow, so if you take photos you may get your phone or camera snatched off of you! So, I went for a look and found at least 5 different market stalls with fake Hollister items and 4 different market stalls with fake Abercrombie & Fitch items on them. They were mostly just tees for sale, prices ranged from £10 ($16) to £25 ($40) just for tees and flipflops! So I "inspected" a couple of tees and the quality was terrible! The stitching was just about falling apart and the lettering on the tees was stuck on with glue.

I contacted A&F about the SportsDirect.com situation, I received this email:

"Dear Cameron, we have checked the pictures that you supplied us with, and we can confirm you have bought counterfeit Abercrombie and Fitch items, we can also confirm that Abercrombie and Fitch has not authorized SportsDirect.com/SportsDirect/sportsdirectplc to sell any of our items. We will be looking into this situation as we only sell our products in our official stores, and on our websites: www.abercrombie.com/ www.hollisterco.com/ www.gillyhicks.com/ www.abercrombiekids.com.

Thank-you for bringing this to our attention,
- A&F Brand Protection Group"

Personally, I wouldn't recommend buying fakes, of course, or trying to get Abercrombie brands for cheaper than what the prices on the official websites and the authentic stores are.

Have you ever bought any fakes? (Hopefully not)! Drop me a comment below and tell me about your experience, or just what you think!

Anyways, until next Tuesday, Stay Fierce!

~Cameron