Image courtesy Birthday Shoes
It isn’t just ebook scammers you have to watch for on the internet! If you’ve been paying attention to Judie and Larry’s Couch to 5k Series, you may have caught that Judie runs in Vibram Five Finger Sprints. Recently I picked up a pair of Vibram Five Finger KSO’s at my local EMS, and I think Larry has a pair too…so we’re clearly big fans of toe-shoes here at Gear Diary.
Now, if you’ve looked into ordering VFF’s recently, you may have noticed many sizes and styles are backordered. Vibram has had a hard time keeping up with demand! And like all things that become popular, knockoffs have begun appearing online!
Birthdayshoes, a VFF fan site, has an excellent post outlining why these fakes are such an issue. There’s quality control issues, brand dilution, and if you find a really unscrupulous site, the risk that you may end up the victim of credit card theft. Worst of all, if you’re not terribly savvy, you may not even realize you’re ordering a knockoff, or that the website you’ve visited is a fake. Be sure to check BirthdayShoes, the site founder Justin has amassed an incredible resource to make sure the shoes you’re buying are legit!
This is something that happens with all sorts of products, not just VFF’s. But it’s a good object lesson in just using your head. If you see any product for MSRP on five legitimate sites, and a site you’ve never heard of offers the same product for 50% off, it’s probably too good to be true. Whether it’s an iPad, shoes, or handbags, these scammers feed on our gullibility and greed. So be safe!