Fake Fridays: HypedStreetGear
Fuck a Fake Friday is back!
While taking a break from the series exposing scammers and fake sellers, we started getting tons of messages about a certain “more legit-looking” fake store. That store is none other than HypedStreetGear – one of the most requested stores we have ever seen. Let’s get into it!
First impressions of the store are that they have a smaller following than past stores (around 7k) but still enough to make serious damage. What makes HypedStreetGear different is the way they present their “business”. They even have an online store with their catalogue of fakes. Each photo is clean and appears to be taken by the owner. Each picture is tagged showing the logo of the page in the background, ensuring the customer knows the pairs are in-hand and not stolen photos from another page. This can definitely trick lots of people as HypedStreetGear mimic the aesthetic of a legit reseller page you might see on IG. In past articles, we have even warned against a lack of tagged pics being a red flag that items were fake - so HypedStreetGear do this to pass that test.
Each post also features a tag line stating all products are “100% authentic and verified through an authentic guide.” This blatant lie is added to almost every sales post and really attempts to convey that there is no doubt the product is legit. But why would HypedStreetGear have blocked us if they were selling legit products? Any negative comments are clearly deleted too (though we found some they missed). Unlike some fake pages in the past that disable comments, that is too obvious for HypedStreetGear so they opt to rather clean out the comments manually. Any post with comments seems to disappear when you view the post - a sign they have been deleted. Some comments on posts not yet deleted are warning future customers to stay away.
The next big aspect that has tricked a lot of people are the store’s prices for their higher quality fakes. They feature DM for the price on their Instagram page (maybe to reduce being called out), but they do display prices on their website. The store intentionally prices their fakes closer to the market value of the authentic pairs, but not accurate enough to make you go look elsewhere. They are aware that most people these days know that a Jordan 1 Bred selling for R2k is a bit sus. So they price them at R4000 instead of the market value of R6k, for example. A Jordan 1 x Off-White Chicago costs about R75k today on StockX but Hyped slap a fake tag onto a faker sneaker and charge you R10k. And a full size curve of rare sneakers? Always a red flag. If these were authentic, they would sell for more. Simple. That’s not to say that people don’t get tricked by it though. And when they do fall for it, they fall for it badly – losing R6k in the process. See an example below.
That brings us on to another big aspect of this scam - StockX Verified tags. For those who don’t know, all legit pairs sold through the StockX platform are shipped with a holographic StockX tag - ensuring the money you just dropped isn’t on some fugazi. People have however started to blindly trust the green tag and any shoe it's attached to. We have seen local reports of fake tags (bought in bulk from China) being attached to fake sneakers with the aim of making them legit. The stores that export the fake StockX tags will even go as far as to photoshop a fake StockX receipt to match the fake green tag.
And it's been reported that this is exactly what HypedStreetGear do. They import StockX tags and attach them to their pairs (usually higher quality fakes) in the hopes of making them legit. They are hoping you might be less attentive to the fake details if you see a StockX tag hanging on the side. Some items are just laughable too. Off-White x Bart Simpson or Van Gogh is proudly promoted as authentic even though Virgil would never create these. And a quick google search will lead you HypedStreetGear’s real plug – Aliexpress and similar stores. Other obvious fakes are the Supreme Boxer Briefs and bizzare KAWS tee designs featured below.
It's been reported to us that while the store says they have a refund and exchange policy – it’s not something they stand by at all. Any requests for a refund get delayed and delayed until eventually the seller blocks you completely, or you simply give up as HypedStreetGear has already put you through so much. There really seems to be no winning once you give the store your hard-earned cash. They are even running a R100 an entry raffle at the moment for any sneaker they sell. They state limited entries but not how many. If you can’t trust the store’s word, do not trust their raffles either. No doubt this raffle is as fake as the product they sell.
