Chinese woman wants refund for S$18,064 LV bag, says she was misled by staff on bag's rarity

A woman from Jiangsu, China, is seeking a refund after her boyfriend spent CN¥94,500 (S$18,064) on a Louis Vuitton ostrich skin bag at a Hangzhou boutique, only for her to discover what she believes was an uneven colour on the bag.

According to HK01, she later suspected the bag was not brand new at all, but a display piece that had been passed around LV stores in different cities, handled and tried on by numerous customers before she bought it.

HK01 reported that the couple were on holiday in Hangzhou on Jun. 8 when they walked into an LV store.

How the sale unfolded

The woman, surnamed Zhang, told Zhejiang satellite TV programme 1818 Golden Eye that a sales associate zeroed in on her and trailed her around the store the moment she walked in.

According to HK01, when Zhang showed interest in handbags, the associate pushed a particular ostrich skin bag, telling her it was the latest style and that there were only two in the entire country.

Zhang said she had just bought a bag two months earlier in Chengdu and didn't really need another one, but the associate kept pressing: "Who doesn't want beautiful things?"

Zhang recalled:

"Once the sales associate heard my boyfriend was going to pay, she immediately found three male staff to surround us. My boyfriend is soft-spoken... He felt that money could solve the problem and didn't want to drag things out. Plus, he wanted to give me a birthday present, so he just paid."

It was only after the purchase that Zhang learnt that staff had engraved her boyfriend's initials onto the dust bag label. The store cited this engraving as the reason they could not process a refund, per HK01.

Colour inconsistency discovered back at the hotel

Back at the hotel, Zhang was filming a video to share with friends when she noticed an area on the side of the bag where the colour appeared noticeably uneven compared to the rest.

She immediately photographed it and messaged the store that evening. Staff initially said the bag could be exchanged, explaining the variation was the natural texture of ostrich skin and not a defect.

Another bag of the same style was brought in from another store as a replacement.

However, Zhang no longer wanted an exchange. According to HK01, she had searched for the bag on social media platform Xiaohongshu and discovered posts from as far back as December last year showing the same bag appearing at LV counters across different cities, with various customers photographed trying it on.

She said:

"It's clearly a display item that many people have touched and tried. I spent nearly CN¥100,000 (S$19,000) because I wanted a brand new, one-of-a-kind bag, not a display item."

Zhang said the store had failed to properly inform her of the bag's status and may have misled her as a consumer.

When Zhang returned to the store, the duty manager said they had no authority to answer questions and asked for written queries to be passed to the relevant department. Zhang went in to negotiate again but left without a resolution.

Her position:

"I just want a refund. I don't want to exchange for something of equal value, and I don't want to continue spending in your store."

According to HK01, the store's final offer was for Zhang to exchange the bag for another LV product of equal or greater value than CN¥94,500 (S$18,064).

LV has not publicly responded to media queries. The bag has since been sent to LV's company for assessment to determine whether the colour variation constitutes a defect.