A DHgate shopper took a $15 Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet dupe to a jeweler who told her it could be real 18K gold.
Mia (@fartwaw) posted a storytime video on TikTok that has reached over 1.3 million views and 157,000 likes. She captioned her video, “When the jeweler brought out the magnifying glass I was SWEATING.”
To begin her video Mia explains that she bought a fake Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet from DHgate for $15. “Say what you will about me, OK, the rest of my jewelry is real,” she adds.
The bracelet Mia bought from DHgate is a dupe of the Van Cleef & Arpels Vintage Alhambra bracelet in 18k white gold, sold for $6,100.
“I don’t have six grand to spare on a little four-leaf clover… bracelet,” Mia says.
Although she says she bought a dupe of the bracelet, she adds, “It’s so nice, you can’t even tell.”
Mia puts the bracelet on her wrist in her video and shows that it’s way too big on her and had to take it to a jeweler.
Once she arrived, “The jeweler looks at me and he’s like, oh wow, like what a nice piece you brought in,” Mia says.
Next she says the jeweler brings out a magnifying glass and begins inspecting the bracelet. Mia pauses and laughs and says, “I know it’s fake.”
She holds the bracelet to the camera and shows that the links are engraved the same way as the real Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets.
“Is this gold,” she says the jeweler asks her. “Is this 18k gold?”
“I don’t know,” Mia laughs and says she responds telling him she got it as a gift.
Mia says the jeweler responds, “Well, it says that it’s 18k gold and you know like this is a really nice piece.”
“I just really want like you to shorten the links,” Mia persists.
Then she says the jeweler asks her, “Is this authentic? I’m not sure.”
“I got it as a gift,” Mia says she quickly responds.
“You know!” Mia exclaims to the camera, “if this was 18k gold it’d be really heavy.”
Mia says the jeweler offered to take the links out of the bracelet for her and still insisted, “I think it’s 18k gold.”
“This might be difficult,” she says the jeweler continues, “It’s a $240 charge to remove everything, honestly I’m not sure if that’s something you wanna pay…especially like for a gift.”
“I think he knew,” Mia says, “but he was still really nice to me.”
@fartwaw When the jewler brought out the magnifying glass out i was SWEATING LMFAOOOOO #jewelrytiktok #vancleefarpels #vancleef #dupe ♬ original sound – Mia
A comment with over 15,000 likes under Mia’s video told her, “Girl I got a Gucci off DH Gate and took it to Gucci and it was real LOL. Sometimes you just never know.”
Although another comment told her, “I work in jewelry, when we don’t want to embarrass someone we just say an astronomical price so they say no.”
Mia told the Daily Dot via direct message that she would “like to reiterate that I strongly believe this bracelet is a fake, and I only believe the jewelry was trying to save me from embarrassment.”
In recent headlines, a Saks customer thinks she was sold fake Chanel sandals from DHgate.