Doctor sues Hamptons shop for selling her fake Birkin bag

While the following article from the NY Post is full of inaccuracies it is nonetheless interesting.

By Julia Marsh
A prominent Manhattan doctor says the steal of a deal she got on a supposed Birkin bag from a tony Hamptons consignment shop was actual theft.
Gynecologist Tara Allmen is suing the owner of Southampton shop Collette, saying she bought the pricey bag — which sells for $20,000 new — for $3,425 at the vintage store in 2005, with assurances from store clerks that it was authentic.
But Allmen learned she had been duped, her Manhattan Supreme Court suit claims, when she brought the orange Jean Paul Gaultier-designed shoulder bag to the ­Hermès store on Madison Avenue for a cleaning in 2013.
After a “humiliating, quick dismissal” by a clerk at the posh store, she was shocked to learn the bag t was a fake worth no more than $75, her suit says.
The status bags are favorite accessories of celebs such as Katie Holmes, Oprah Winfrey and Nicky Hilton, and were even the subject of an episode of “Sex and the City.”
“This woman is a crook,” Allmen, who lives on the Upper West Side, said of shopkeeper Tisha Collette, who owns five branches of her shops in Manhattan and the Hamptons.
A frequent guest on television programs like “The Dr. Oz Show,” Allmen, 49, said she popped into Collette’s Main Street store in Southampton when she saw “a beautiful orange Birkin in the window.”
“I love Chanel handbags, and I have come to love authentic Birkin bags — once I learned what authentic really was,” Allmen said. She favors Birkins because they are produced in limited qualities and appreciate in value.
Her suit claims a Collette saleswoman promised the purse was an original after the doctor questioned its authenticity — with the clerk pointing to a “Made in Paris” stamp and palladium buckle.
But the real Hermès Birkin bags are made from such high-quality leather that they never bulge or lose their upright silhouette, according to the suit.
Yet the doctor’s phony purse “collapses when it sits, evidencing that it was not made with authentic Hermès leather,” the suit says. It is also missing an artisan’s ID and the word “Hermès” on the zipper.
She learned from a former Collette clerk that the shopkeeper tells her sales staff to lie about the authenticity of such bags, the suit also claims.
“This practice has got to stop!” huffed Allmen’s attorney Joseph Vitulli.
But Collette staunchly defended her merchandise.
“There isn’t a single fake on my floor,” she insisted.
Asked about Allmen’s suit, she said, “I have been in business for 14 years. I have nothing to hide.”
She explained that the former saleswoman mentioned in Allmen’s suit is a disgruntled employee who left to open her own store in Florida.
Allmen is seeking her money back for the bag plus $50,000 in punitive damages.

http://nypost.com/2014/08/06/doctor-sues-consignment-shop-for-selling-her-fake-birkin-bag/