There were issues going on at work, some personal stuff I had to deal with, and now I found out that I got scammed. Luckily, eBay has a good buyer protection policy so thank heavens for that (I'm not religious...long story).
Long story short, I bought this SK-II Pitera Essence off eBay for $24.99, which at the time seemed pretty normal since for whatever reason, most others were around that price. Somehow, something didn't click that even though I KNEW the actual price of this was like $100 on SK-II's actual website, I still thought it was okay.
Oh, I know why. I actually initiated a return for the item because I couldn't FREAKING contact the seller and I had already thrown away the original packaging because I'd figured it was fine. UH, NO. So, that was initially why I wanted to contact the seller.
I bought this in early January, strangely enough a day before my birthday. I'm not sure why exactly or what was going through my head and why I ultimately decided to buy this.
The biggest red flag for me was that it smelled like roses (okay, sure) AND alcohol, which isn't very common in skincare, especially Japanese skincare, and I posted a question on Influenster asking if it had a strong fragrance and surprisingly, it didn't. It was only supposed to have a very light scent (like most Asian skincare products).
Let me show you some pictures. It might put it into perspective.
Here's one I found online comparing the fake to the real.
Now, mine looks VERY SIMILAR to the fake (darker text, more obvious text), but again, something didn't click in my head that this was obviously a fake.
Here's the two side by side:
See, darker text, more obvious text in the back.
I finally decided to call eBay and get it sorted out since I literally COULD NOT GET A HOLD of the seller. His account had been deactivated or some sort on eBay. After about ten minutes on the phone with them, I finally was refunded back.
Maybe he or she was afraid I'd report him, since he or she did have one more negative review on a very similar situation.
eBay did refund my original payment, so LUCKILY I bought it from there and they have a buyer protection policy. Unfortunately, I had a similar situation where the seller never responded and I was basically sort-of-scammed because the item either didn't work or it was the wrong product.
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I ended up buying the Missha Time Revolution First Treatment Essence (try saying that five times fast) anyways because it's a fraction of the price and I had tried a few samples a long time ago. Plusm I'd had my eye on it ever since it was dubbed a very good dupe for the SK-II. I bought it from a reputable site (not saying eBay isn't; the sellers are hit or miss) like StyleKorean or Stylevana.
This isn't even the first time buying "fake" products. You'd think I'd learn after a few times.
TL;DR Buy items from reputable websites and reputable sellers. If it's too good to be true, chances are it is.
