Fake Brady Jersey

Another lesson learnt.

I’ve been after a authentic Brady away jersey for like ages but money and new babies have always meant 'now' was never the right time.

So last Xmas (2008) the wife took it upon herself to treat me to the holy grail and purchased what she thought was a authentic jersey from a site advertised via ebay sponsored links call americansportsstar.

Anyway the shirt was quite clearly a fake; I didn't even take it out of the wrapper.

In an attempt to get our money back approx £40 sent them an email. No response, even the website had disappeared.

Eventually went through Paypal and got a response to this email I sent:

]Dear Sirs,

With regards to a Tom Brady, New England Patriots jersey, purchased via yourselves and Paypal (Transaction Number 70D42966VY009431V)

My wife purchased the aforementioned item from yourselves due to many of the statements made within your website such as

“Our mission is to bring you high quality authentic merchandise for all the top franchises…”

“All our merchandise is authentic, NFL licensed and of the highest quality. We have many satisfied customers, lots of whom have returned to make further purchases. Beware the floods of poor quality replica gear available on the web. We value your custom and want you to return time and time again…”

Having also visited your ‘buying authentic NFL apparel’ link, she felt comfortable that the item purchased would be authentic and of a high quality, as seen in previous shirts bought via Reebok.

However, having received this gift and compared to shirts already owned, the quality is extremely poor and I doubt very much this is an authentic product in any way.

The following areas were of great concern (please also see attached pictures).

The patriots logo sewn onto both sleeves was a very poor representation, the stars are not symmetrical and barley represent a star

On original shirts the collar colours are split 50% - 50% between grey and blue, on this shirt 70% - 20%

The NFL logo on the collar is very poor quality along with the Patriots logo below

The material used to form the numbers has not been cut straight and much of the stitching is frayed despite not even being removed form the packaging.

All previously bought shirts have come in Reebok packaging and not clear packaging as this is.

Unfortunately because the shirt is yet to be removed from the original packaging I cannot continue with my comparison.

I was very disappointed to receive such a poor quality shirt and was distressed and embarrassed to tell my wife the present she had spent our hard earned money on was highly unlikely an authentic product.

I would therefore appreciate your comments on the above as well as details on how we might receive a FULL REFUND.

Please excuse any untrue facts above, this was a year ago and I quickly ascertained some facts, right or wrong, in an attempt to get some money back.

The seller responded with:

Sorry for your dissatisfaction, we sell many jerseys to many happy customers and this is the first complaint of this nature.
Please return your shirt to us upon which we will refund you fully.

We sent the jersey back and never heard anymore despite numerous attempts.

Paypal were not interested as the purchase was not via ebay (or so my memory tells me).

To be honest this really put me of trying to find that illusive bargain and it’s only just now, some 12 months later, that my interest has been rekindled (sites like this obviously helping)

Anyway another lesson learnt and one I hope educates or makes weary an innocent party.

Hopefully I’ll be posting a nice authentic Brady shirt soon as the wife learnt her lesson and gave me money instead this year .




PS sorry the pictures don't show the tags etc, these were taken a year ago

Thanks for posting this graze, as it highlights the problems we can occur when buying jerseys, especially away from ebay. Paypal won't help and if the seller fails to refund the money after sending the jersey back you are stuck and out of pocket the money you could have spent when you find the real thing.

sorry to hear that mate i have had this happen to me in the past,however recently when this happened the seller was told to immediately refund my money and paypal was informed,my money was paid back straight away,i even got to keep the monsrosity of a so called authentic.

yeah i was really frustrted, but all part of starting out, i guess.

I rekon i'll get my authetic jersey from nfl.com because, as i say this is my holy grail, i'll then have another go at the thrill of finding a bargin on ebay knowing you guys are about to help when called upon...plus its the only way i'll increase my collection as the wife won't let me spend that kind of money on a jersey any time soon...i like to let her think shes the boss