Source: Edward Berthelot / Getty
Few things hurt sneakerheads more than when they realize they got played.
An Australian man recently felt that pain when he got tricked by a teenager who sold him a pair of the grail status Dior x Air Jordan 1 alongside other popular Jordan 1 colorways, including “Bred,” “Chicago” and “Royal.”
For the small collection of Jordan 1s and several other pairs, the man coughed up 20,000 Australian dollars- roughly $20,000- only to find out they were fake, according to Hypebeast.
He took his claim to court to get his money back, but the state legal authorities ruled that he was not liable for a refund because he knew the boy was only 17 at the time of the sale.
He knew something was off after receiving the shoes, noting they had “defects,” and immediately contacted the seller to get a refund but was ignored.
The teen and his father are disputing the claims, saying they went to authenticators who verified that the shoes were legit. Despite the father accompanying his son through much of the sneaker-selling process, he’s not at fault, so the buyer is out of luck, and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) legally can’t do much else, so they dismissed the complaint.
“Had the agreement been entered into when [the seller] was 18 years old the result might have been different,” Vcat member Katherine Metcalf told BBC upon the ruling. “Whilst the law generally protects minors from the consequences of their own actions, it could be argued that in the present circumstances it is not the minor who needs protection, but rather the people with whom he chose to do business.”
