Latest news with #Walkup
Mint
12-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Inside the shadowy, lucrative business of ‘superfake' luxury handbags
Sandor Walkup was waiting for a table at an expensive restaurant in Charlotte, N.C., when he noticed a woman checking out his Himalayan Birkin. It is a rare crocodile-skin handbag that maker Hermès charges tens of thousands of dollars for and only sells to top clients. 'As I was walking through the restaurant she stopped me and said, 'I love your bag, it's the perfect size. It probably cost you a fortune.'" When the woman asked if he would consider an offer for it, Walkup, a TikTok influencer, leveled with her: 'Ma'am, the bag is a fake." The woman was surprised at how convincing the Birkin was and asked where she could buy one for herself. So he gave her the details of a private dealer who sells top-notch fakes. Counterfeiters have perfected the knockoff handbag—and it is disrupting the economics of the luxury industry. Fake purses have always been around, but they were the cheap and plasticky kind that could be picked up for a few bucks from a sidewalk seller. A new generation of 'superfakes," as they are known in the industry, look as good as the real thing and cost anywhere from $500 to $5,000. Counterfeiters take your order through encrypted services such as WhatsApp or Telegram, give real-time customer service and deliver the goods straight to your door in a branded box. They pay social-media influencers to promote illicit goods directly to American and European consumers. The technique is proving so good at sanitizing counterfeiters' shady image that the language used to talk about the bags is changing. The word 'fake" isn't used anymore. Instead, fans call the purses replicas, mirror bags, superclones or 1:1s ('one to ones"). In a red flag for luxury brands, young shoppers are embracing the superfakes. A social-media storm erupted in April when Chinese counterfeiters posted videos claiming that major luxury brands are secretly manufacturing their handbags for next to nothing in China. In most cases, the claims made in the videos are bogus. But the posts reinforced doubts in the minds of Gen Z consumers about the industry's steep markups and whether people who buy genuine luxury goods are getting a raw deal. Popular handbags such as a Lady Dior sell for up to 15 times what they cost to manufacture, according to Bernstein, a brokerage. Buying a replica is becoming a way 'to give big brands the middle finger," says Marian Makkar, a luxury marketing expert based in Australia who has researched the superfake phenomenon. There are early signs that young shoppers' cooling attitude toward authentic luxury is hitting the industry's top line. Last year, Gen Z shoppers spent roughly $5 billion less on luxury brands than they did in 2023, data from consulting firm Bain & Co. shows. This might simply be a sign they are feeling pinched by rising bills, or that they are defecting to fakes in high numbers. The attitude shift about superfakes is a gift to counterfeiters who now market their goods as a financially savvy alternative to overpriced luxury brands: Why pay $11,000 for an authentic Chanel classic flap purse when you can get a near-identical $600 replica from a Chinese factory that claims to source its leather from the same European supplier as the Parisian brand? People in the secondhand-luxury business first noticed a new strain of counterfeits around five years ago. Some of the superfake handbags were so good that they couldn't be spotted with the naked eye. Luxury resale website Fashionphile has a counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbag on display alongside a real one at its New York flagship store—an 'authenticity challenge" to see if shoppers can spot the real from the fake. The company's founder Sarah Davis says people who work as sales assistants for top luxury brands haven't been able to tell the bags apart. Rival reseller The RealReal had to invest in XRF technology to test the metal composition of handbags' buckles to spot the new fakes. The company also bought X-ray machines to examine their innards. Counterfeiters have perfected the outside of the bags, but might still leave a trace on the inside, according to Hunter Thompson, director of authentication at The RealReal. 'It could be a tiny detail such as how a nail head is hammered in." Anticounterfeit professionals have theories about how the fakes got so good. One is industrial theft. Luxury brands store the instructions about how to make authentic handbags on digital templates known as tech packs. These master manuals contain an excel spreadsheet with the purse's exact measurements, a technical drawing, details of the threads, trimmings and leather used, and even the precise number of stitches per seam. If a brand's tech pack falls into the wrong hands, counterfeiters can easily make a carbon copy. The risk that this information leaks out of a factory has risen as brands outsource more production. Counterfeiters also try to poach workers from genuine factories to get inside knowledge. People who stitch luxury handbags for a living earn a decent but not extravagant wage, so might have their head turned by an offer from an illicit manufacturer. Hermès pays its France-based handbag artisans the equivalent of $40,000 a year including bonus payouts, based on Glass Door salary reviews. That is less than what the brand charges its U.S. customers for a single crocodile Birkin handbag. Some of the company's former employees were convicted in 2020 for running a counterfeit ring outside their day job. Most fakes are still made the old-fashioned way: A counterfeiter buys an authentic bag, rips it apart to see how it's made and then reverse engineers a fake. The best superfake purses are often produced in factories in China that run legitimate businesses for mass-market fashion retailers during the day, according to James Godefroy, a Guangzhou-based investigator with brand-protection agency Rouse. By night, a ghost shift produces knockoffs. Counterfeiters boost demand by paying social-media personalities to review fake handbags. The feed of one Instagram account, @davidslifestyle, is full of videos of counterfeit unboxings. Followers can click a link to the influencer's page, where they will find affiliate links to more than 150 fake goods including Louis Vuitton Neverfull totes and Hermès Birkin bags. The links lead to a Hong Kong-based website called Save Bullet. The influencer earns 10% from any sale his videos generate, based on information about Save Bullet's affiliate program. So in the case of a $789 fake yellow Hermès Birkin, the influencer pockets nearly $80 for every bag his followers order. @davidslifestyle said that he reviewed real as well as replica luxury goods on his channel, and bought authentic products until a year-and-a-half ago, when he felt the quality went down. Counterfeiters' new online-distribution model is a nightmare for luxury brands. Fake handbags once arrived at customs ports in big shipments, making them easier to intercept. Now that counterfeiters sell directly to consumers, a tide of individual packages is overwhelming customs authorities and slipping past checks. Luxury brands pay private investigators to gather information about what counterfeiters are up to. They open fake accounts on online forums where counterfeiters do business and go undercover in factories. Investigators like to watch a freewheeling Reddit community called RepladiesDesigner that has over 200,000 members. Fans of the fake bags share China or Hong Kong-based WhatsApp numbers for recommended sellers and post photos of their latest purchases. Reddit said in a statement that it may ban any subreddit where it is clear the community is 'dedicated to violative content." Counterfeiters are moving to private Instagram or invite-only Telegram groups that are harder for luxury brands to track. 'It is like joining a golf club now," says Jak Cluness, vice president of intelligence and investigations at brand-protection company Corsearch. 'You have to be recommended by another member to get in." He is tracking a WhatsApp group that uses a subscription-based model charging members $98 a month to get access to the best-quality fakes. A counterfeit dealer who goes by Heidi said in a text interview that she works for several factories that each specialize in a different brand. A fake Hermès Birkin 25 in Togo leather from a place she called the Hidden Star factory will set you back $1,800. Prices for counterfeit Birkins in exotic skins such as crocodile start at $4,000 compared with more than $50,000 for the genuine bag. For a counterfeit Chanel classic flap purse, the seller recommended the 187 Factory. Its $575 fakes have proven so popular that there are even 'fake" 187 superfakes. Rival counterfeiters pose as the factory but send an inferior knockoff. Online sellers are usually freelance operators who reel in customers with details such as the accuracy of the stitching and whether the seams line up properly, according to Cluness. They even send quality-control videos of the counterfeits to make sure the shopper is satisfied with their bag before it ships. A busy freelance seller can make anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 a month in commission. Counterfeit factories also make fat profits. A top-quality fake costs around $150 to produce in China, including labor and materials. Operating margins can be 50% or higher if the factory handles its own sales directly. Genuine luxury brands are lucky to make a 40% operating margin on handbags, as they have to spend on fancy stores, living wages and multibillion-dollar advertising budgets. A Guangzhou-based counterfeit factory owner who goes by the surname Li says he makes a profit of $450 per fake Hermès bag, and sells roughly three hundred a month. He recently spent more than $70,000 to acquire three genuine purses as templates—a Birkin 30 bag, a Mini Kelly II, and a Himalayan Birkin 25. He is disassembling them on a cutting table to create patterns for fakes. He calls people who pay full price for genuine luxury goods 'stupid and vain." His own customers can be high-maintenance. 'A person who buys a knockoff is often very thin-skinned and very nitpicky," he said. Brands sometimes see counterfeits as a gateway drug that will eventually lead shoppers to buy the genuine article. Briege Elder, a London-based PR manager with Hunt & Gather agency who used to work as a sales assistant at Louis Vuitton and Gucci, said people regularly came to the brands' stores carrying fake handbags. It was an unspoken rule not to call out a knockoff. 'We would never address a fake product, ever. Not if it was the worst fake in the world or the best." People carrying a fake were treated as aspiring customers. 'They have a counterfeit today, but they might become a customer in future," Elder says. Brands' relatively small anticounterfeit budgets suggest they aren't yet seriously worried about the superfake phenomenon. LVMH, the biggest luxury company in the world, spent more than $11 billion on advertising last year but only $45 million on anticounterfeit efforts. That seems skimpy. Superfakes counterfeiters are becoming real competitors. Write to Carol Ryan at Produced by Alexandra Citrin-Safadi
Business Wire
08-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
EvenUp Announces AI Playbooks and Voice Agent to Redefine Case Analysis and Client Communication
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- EvenUp, the category leader in AI for personal injury (PI) law, today announced two new products that push the boundaries of legal technology: AI Playbooks and Voice Agent, alongside major enhancements to its rapidly growing AI Drafts™ product suite. 'AI Playbooks is a powerful tool that is transforming how we analyze cases by proactively surfacing the exact criteria we need to assess and compare large inventories of cases." - Max Schuver, Sr. Mass Torts Counsel, Walkup Trusted by over 1,500 of the nation's most successful PI firms—including Omega Law Group and Sweet James —and powered by the industry's largest personal injury dataset, EvenUp's innovative AI products streamline case analysis and client communication, ensuring no important detail is missed, freeing up case managers to focus on strategic work, and enabling firms to move faster from intake to resolution. With these releases, EvenUp is setting a new standard for how PI firms operate—streamlining casework, generating over $7B in claims, and unlocking hundreds of millions in missed value. AI Playbooks: Put Case Analysis on Autopilot at Every Stage of the Case Now part of The Claims Intelligence Platform™, AI Playbooks reads your case files and pulls out the insights you need every time you upload new documents—equipping firms to make faster, smarter decisions across their entire caseload. With staff often juggling 80+ cases each, AI Playbooks uses EvenUp's system of specialized AI models, Piai™, to scan records, spot patterns, and highlight facts that matter most to firms. It replaces hours of manual file review with up-to-date case analysis. AI Playbooks helps firms: Drive proactive case decisions by automatically flagging issues that could compromise case value, such as liability, prior injuries, or conflicting testimony. Identify high-value opportunities with AI that proactively flags cases with TBI indicators, commercial defendants, and DUI indicators so you can staff and prioritize accordingly. Standardize case evaluation with automated analysis to consistently apply firm policies. Whether firms are evaluating a case at intake, preparing for negotiation, or handing off a case to litigation, AI Playbooks makes it easier to manage critical workflow processes and protect value at every stage. 'AI Playbooks is a powerful tool that is transforming how we analyze cases by proactively surfacing the exact criteria we need to assess and compare large inventories of cases. EvenUp reviews vast volumes of documents with striking speed and nuance, backing every finding with clear citations our team can trust. They are delivering the speed, precision, and scale we need to stay ahead." - Max Schuver, Sr. Mass Torts Counsel, Walkup Voice Agent: Gathering and Validating Case Data Around the Clock Now in Early Access, Voice Agent is a first-of-its-kind conversational AI built to support PI firms across the entire case lifecycle, starting with care management. Developed with leading firms and already in use by select customers, EvenUp's Voice Agent augments staff capacity by handling high-volume, time-consuming client outreach. It doesn't just check in—it listens. Voice Agent helps firms understand how clients are feeling, assess satisfaction with care, and surface any outstanding issues to case managers that may require follow-up. At least 17% of cases may show signs of treatment gaps, according to EvenUp's data. Voice Agent helps law firms stay ahead of potential gaps with timely, structured outreach—ensuring no case falls through the cracks. Where other AI legal voice tools clock out at intake, EvenUp's Voice Agent supports firms across the entire case lifecycle: "The AI voice assistant has seamlessly integrated into our workflow — reaching out to clients, managing appointments, and identifying follow-ups. Many clients don't even realize they're speaking with an AI, and it's already catching details that could have slipped through the cracks. It's exactly the kind of technology we need to scale personalized support without adding to our team's workload.' - Jack Bazerkanian, Managing Partner, C&B Law Group With Voice Agent, PI firms gain a strategic edge by staying closer to the client throughout their recovery. Interested firms can join the Early Access waitlist. AI Drafts: Why Top Firms Are All In After Latest Updates Just six weeks after launching AI Drafts in May, EvenUp is rolling out new features fueled by rapid firm adoption. With one-click regeneration, firms can now instantly update complaints, medical summaries, responses to interrogatories, and more as new records or evidence are added—eliminating manual rewrites and keeping cases moving. In the coming weeks, firms will also be able to upload and regenerate documents based on simply uploading prior examples, without needing to craft a new prompt each time. Additionally, Enhanced Exhibit Management now brings the essential functionality of Microsoft Word and Adobe into a single, streamlined experience within The Claims Intelligence Platform. With precise, page-level control, firms can reorder, extract, and organize exhibit pages with simple drag-and-drop actions. By removing the need for external editing software, this flexibility saves time and accelerates preparation for negotiation, mediation, and trial. About EvenUp EvenUp is on a mission to close the justice gap through technology and AI, empowering personal injury lawyers and victims to get the justice they deserve. EvenUp applies machine learning and its system of AI models known as Piai, to reduce manual effort and maximize case outcomes across the personal injury value chain. The Claims Intelligence Platform provides rich business insights, AI workflow automation, and best-in-class document creation for injury law firms. EvenUp is the trusted partner of personal injury law firms. Backed by top VCs, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Lightspeed, SignalFire, NFX, DCM, and more, EvenUp's customers range from top trial attorneys to America's largest personal injury firms. EvenUp was founded in late 2019 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Learn more at
New York Post
21-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Rents jump shocking 15% after NYC ditches broker fees
The city ditched broker fees last week in a supposed win for tenants, but landlords had the last laugh — wasting little time sending rents skyrocketing in an effort to recoup their anticipated losses. Rents shot up a shocking 15% in the week since the controversial FARE Act took effect, with the average rental in the Big Apple jumping from $4,750 to $5,500, according to an analysis by real estate analytics firm UrbanDigs. 6 New Yorkers have been sharing conversations with brokers like this one since the FARE Act was enacted on June 11. Reddit Advertisement 'The Manhattan rental market has seen a sharp reaction,' said John Walkup, UrbanDigs' co-founder. The FARE Act, which prohibits agents representing property owners from charging renters a 'broker fee,' also requires that all fees a tenant owes be included in rental agreements and real estate listings. But the rising rents 'suggests that landlords may be attempting to incorporate broker fees into the rent, which would transfer the cost to renters in a less direct, but very real way,' added Walkup. Advertisement 6 Walkup said the market reacted 'sharply' to the FARE Act. UrbanDigs The law change has created what insiders tell The Post is a 'shadow market' — apartments that aren't listed so landlords can still get tenants to cover the fee. 'We're going to be looking for apartments again like it's 1999 … where you have to know who to call and when to call,' said Jason Haber, co-founder of the American Real Estate Association and a broker at Compass. 'It's going to be an odyssey.' Advertisement 6 Ricciotti said tenants have been asking if they can just pay the broker fee instead of the higher rent, which works out to more money over the long-term. BOND New York Real Estate And listings dried up overnight with an estimated 2,000 vanishing from website StreetEasy on June 11 — the day the FARE Act took effect — while UrbanDigs found available apartments dropped by an eye popping 30%. 6 A renter posted this screenshot of the two different asking prices. Reddit Renters meanwhile have been sharing horror stories online, with receipts — like screenshots of conversations with brokers flat out telling them they get one price if they pay the broker fee and another, much higher rate, if they don't. Advertisement One New Yorker, for instance, was told by an agent the rent was going up $700. 6 Kebenae Tadesse said agents have still been trying to get tenants to pay the fee. Helayne Seidman Another said a landlord was asking $6,800 for a 3-bedroom with a broker fee — or $8,000 with no fee, which is illegal to advertise under the new law. 'We've been inundated with prospective tenants who have asked our agents for the option to pay our brokerage commission, directly and maintain the benefit of the lower pre-Fare Act rental terms, which unfortunately, we have to tell them is now illegal,' said Bruno Ricciotti, principal at Bond New York. 'It's so frustrating,' said Kebenae Tadesse, who had been trying to find a Brooklyn studio. 'Brokers have repeatedly said, 'Well, if I don't charge you this fee, the landlord is just going to put it into your rent,' she told The Post. 'It's discouraging.' 6 Rents went up by 15% on average since the FARE act went into effect. goodmanphoto – Advertisement When Tadesse called out a broker for trying to pass on the fee to her, the agent took down the listing, marking it as 'temporarily off market' on StreetEasy since June 11.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Autism rates climb to 1 in 31 in kids; Experts debate causes and solutions
At a press conference on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited research he says documents up to a 400% increase in autism cases over the last several decades. As more children and families are impacted and the cost of care is rising, he wants more resources devoted to autism studies. While those who care for children on the autism spectrum welcome the additional focus, they want to make sure the lens is pointed in the right direction. More Coverage: WGN's Medical Watch Kennedy says the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence rate in eight-year-olds is now 1 in 31. The threat is even greater in boys. 'Overall, autism is increasing at an alarming rate,' Kennedy said. 'The risk for boys of getting an autism diagnosis in this country is now one in 20.' There is more awareness about autism and diagnosis criteria has changed, but according to Kennedy, better recognition does not account for rising rates. 'It was not expected that autism prevalence would increase. Other childhood disabilities and neurologic disorders do not increase or change over time,' Walter Zahorodny, clinical psychologist and autism researcher, said. Kennedy ordered more research but locally, Dr. John Walkup, the head of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, says based on years of research, the autism picture is more complicated. 'There's been a lot of study looking at this, and there are a lot of autism experts who have maybe opinions that disagree with the secretary,' Dr. Walkup said. 'It's not a simple genetic problem, but I think it's hard for people who are in the business to kind of say that genetics doesn't play a role.' Whatever the root cause, as an expert who cares for children on the spectrum, Dr. Walkup believes the diagnosis is critical to get those in need early interventions that can make a difference in their lives. 'The other aspect is the availability of services. There are more now than ever before, but we are still nowhere near having a system that's in place that actually can provide services for these kids,' Dr. Walkup said. Having autism in the spotlight may help. Secretary Kennedy wants autism studied under the Administration for a Healthy America's new chronic disease division. Are the cases due to toxins, rising maternal and paternal age? He hopes to have results on more definitive autism causes by September. Experts we spoke with say that may be optimistic. Sign up for our Medical Watch newsletter. This daily update includes important information from WGN's Dina Bair and the Med Watch team, including, the latest updates from health organizations, in-depth reporting on advancements in medical technology and treatments, as well as personal features related to people in the medical field. Sign up here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
