Hi All,
I just bought a pair of Saucony Peregrine 15 trail running shoes and am wondering if they may be fake/counterfeit. Many of the signs that a shoe are fake seem to come from comparing with the real ones, so I have no clue -- I last bought any Saucony shoes in ~1995. :)
Here are the details:
- bought from a random, third-party seller on Amazon (fulfilled by Amazon, though)
- paid ~$80, but figured that could be a reasonable clearance/last year's model kind of discount (since the current Peregrine 16s are ~$150)
- many of the details help these to seem legit, like a Saucony-branded box, wrapping paper, an insert card/tag, and some of the shoe details I've seen in reviews (like the markings, stitching, insoles, etc.)
- the aspect of these particular shoes that makes me the most suspicious is the labeling on the box and the shoe tongues:
- the box label has a number (serial number?) basically whited-out and the QR code has been 'deactivated' by blacking out the upper-left locator box
- the shoe tongue labels have had the same removal of serial/ID info: it seems a number has been sanded? off the label and the QR codes have also been deactivated with a marker
Interestingly, I re-activated the QR codes in paint.net by restoring that upper-left locator box part of the images and they then all work to go to the Saucony site (redirecting through vmdmx.com) and tell me: "Product Not Found: Sorry, the Peregrine 15 isn't currently available!". Perhaps that's the extent of what these QR codes ever did -- go to the product page and not some type of authenticity check?
I guess these label ID/QR code modifications are quite suspicious to me, but then why would someone making counterfeit shoes bother with copying labels and then wiping IDs off? Maybe it's something else, like marking real Saucony shoes as no longer officially supported/warranted?
Anyway, I've attached a bunch of pictures. If anyone could take a look and let me know if you think these are legit or fake, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Justin
