Suspect a fake? What you can do now

It usually starts with a small twinge. The knife has arrived, and something is not right. The bee looks flatter than in the photos, the marking on the blade is blurred, or you have seen the same model online for a fraction of the price. Perhaps a friend simply asked, in passing, whether it really came from France.

From that moment on, you are unsure. This article was written for exactly that moment.

First of all: what actually is a fake?

The word is used quickly, but it is not always accurate. For your next steps, the difference matters.

In practice, we come across three cases:

• A knife in the Laguiole shape with no promise of origin. Inexpensive, industrially made, honestly offered. That is not a fake, it is simply not French craftsmanship.
• A knife with a false statement of origin. The description says "handmade in France", but it comes from somewhere else. You have been misled about a quality you paid for.
• A knife bearing another cutlery's mark. The blade or spring carries the name of a real cutlery that has never seen this knife. That is a fake in the true sense.

How blurred these lines can be is described in What does Laguiole Made in France mean? and in the case Bought in Thiers, made elsewhere.

First steps: what to do straight away

Before you write to the seller or leave a review, secure everything you might need later. It takes half an hour and can save you a great deal of trouble in a dispute.

1. Save the listing. Take screenshots of the listing with its description, photos and price. Listings often disappear quickly, especially when the seller senses trouble.
2. Keep all records. Invoice, proof of payment, messages with the seller, shipping receipt and the packaging.
3. Do not alter the knife. Do not sharpen it, polish it or have anything engraved. Any change may later be used against you.
4. Take good photos. The open blade with its marking, the bee from above, the handle from both sides and the spring. In daylight and in focus. You will need these photos anyway, whether for the seller, the platform or us.
5. Keep an eye on the deadlines. Buyer protection, withdrawal and returns all have deadlines, usually counted from the purchase, the payment or the delivery. So do not wait for weeks.

Your rights as a buyer

Which rights you have depends above all on whom you bought from. The following points give you guidance for purchases within the European Union. They do not replace legal advice. If a lot of money is at stake or the seller refuses to cooperate, a consumer advice centre or a lawyer is the right place to turn to. Outside the EU, other rules may apply.

Bought from a business

Consumers who buy from a commercial seller are well protected. If you ordered online, you can as a rule withdraw from the purchase within 14 days of receipt without giving any reason. That is often the simplest route: knife back, money back, with no discussion at all about authenticity.

Once that period has passed, the statutory warranty still applies, at least two years in the EU. If you were sold a knife described as French, handmade or from a specific cutlery and that is not true, it lacks an agreed quality. That is a defect, and you can require the seller to remedy it, which for a false origin will in practice only be possible by taking the knife back.

Bought from a private seller

Private sellers usually exclude any warranty, and they are entitled to do so. This exclusion has its limits, however. Anyone who expressly states an origin in their listing or knowingly gives false information cannot hide behind "private sale, no returns". What matters then is exactly what the listing said. That is why the screenshot from step one is so important.

Bought through a platform or paid with PayPal

Platforms such as eBay and payment services such as PayPal have their own buyer protection programmes. They apply when an item differs significantly from its description, which is the case with a false origin. The advantage: you do not have to argue with the seller yourself, the platform decides. Each provider sets its own conditions and deadlines, so check them early. If you paid by credit card, your bank may also be able to help.

If you were deceived

If someone knowingly sold a knife bearing another cutlery's mark or a false origin, this is not just a matter of reversing the sale. You can report it to the police, and where a specific brand has been faked, the cutlery concerned will also want to know. Many fakes only come to light because a buyer had the courage to ask.

How to get certainty

For all these steps you need an answer to one question: does the knife come from the cutlery whose name it bears, or not? With a Laguiole, a layperson can hardly judge that. That is exactly what our examination is for.

You submit the knife via Submit a knife: upload photos, name the cutlery and tell us where and when you bought it. The examination costs 10.00 euros per knife. You do not need to create an account beforehand.

A person decides, not a machine

We look at every submission personally, and we decide on it personally. There is no automated process and no artificial intelligence that passes judgement.

We study your photos very carefully and compare them with knives we know from this cutlery and with our experience of many years. There is a whole range of features we check: the shape and finish of the bee, the spring, the plates, the blade marking and the cutlery's mark. Together they tell us whether a knife is genuine and which cutlery it belongs to.

When in doubt, we ask the cutlery

If there is even the slightest doubt, we ask the cutlery itself. That way we get a second opinion from the people who would have had to make the knife. The case A logo that did not fit the picture shows how such an enquiry can turn out: the mark looked altered, yet the cutlery confirmed the knife.

If questions still remain after that, we contact you and ask for more photos or documents. If, in the end, not every doubt can be cleared up, we decline the certification.

A cutlery we do not know

Sometimes a knife is submitted from a cutlery or knifemaker we do not yet know. We then convene the OL Round Table. It includes all cutleries that already take part in the A.I.P.C.L. They are contacted and vote on whether the new cutlery should be admitted. The majority decides.

If one of the cutleries has concrete but confidential information that the workshop in question sources parts from abroad, or even has its knives made abroad and merely puts its name on the blade, we do not certify that workshop's knives. That an honest knife can also fail at this hurdle when its origin can no longer be proven is described in A cutlery nobody knows.

If the result is negative, you get your money back

If we cannot certify your knife, we refund the examination fee in full. So you only pay if you actually receive a certificate in the end. We do not want to earn money from your disappointment.

If your knife is genuine, we register it with its cutlery in the A.I.P.C.L. It receives its own number and a certificate page that you can pass on if you sell it later. The suspicion then becomes proof, and that is the most valuable thing a future buyer can find with a pre-owned Laguiole.

What our result means for your dispute

Our result is a well-founded assessment that you can rely on when talking to the seller or a platform. It is not a court-appointed expert report. If a case really does go to court, the court decides what evidence it requires. In the vast majority of cases, however, it is enough to explain calmly to the seller why the knife is not what it was sold as.