A Melbourne real estate agent who spent almost $30,000 on sneakers he suspects are counterfeit is not entitled to a refund because he knowingly bought them off a 17-year-old student.
The man took the student and his father to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) after he came to suspect that the Dior X Air Jordan’s he bought in 2020 were high-end counterfeits.
The limited-edition sneakers were released in a fixed quantity of 8,500 low tops and 4,700 high tops, each individually numbered, in 2020. They were only sold via a raffle system, which allowed one pair per customer.
The man said the teenager, who is now an adult, claimed at the time to have “a system with some international associates” who entered raffles across the world and sent the sneakers to him.
He paid the boy $3,800 for a pair of the Dior X Air Jordan sneakers, and then went on to purchase three more pairs for $4,800, $6,700 and $10,000. He also paid $2,690 each for three pairs of Air Jordan 1, in the Bred, Chicago and Royal colour schemes.
But when the sneakers arrived, he noticed “defects” and came to believe they were “unauthentic”, Vcat heard.
When he couldn’t get in touch with the student, he contacted his father, whom he claimed agreed to accompany him to get them authenticated.
According to the buyer, the father said if they were found to be counterfeits he would accept responsibility and “sort it out”. This was disputed by the father during a hearing at Vcat in October.
The duo took the shoes to a sneaker store, whose authenticator reported that all of the sneakers were counterfeit. The father, however, said the sneaker store was not an “authorised authenticator”.
According to man, the authenticator’s “face completely dropped” on hearing the name of the student and said that he “was a fraudster and a scam artist who had been blacklisted”, Vcat heard.
He claimed the father offered $10,000 in compensation, which he rejected, and he pursued the matter through Vcat.
But Vcat member Katherine Metcalf found he was not entitled to a refund, given the agreement was made with a 17-year-old, who due to his age did “not have full capacity to enter into contracts”.
She said the buyer was aware of the student’s age “at all times”, and even sent him a text in May 2021 “wishing him a belated happy 18th birthday”.
“Had the agreement been entered into when [the student] was 18 years old the result might have been different,” Metcalf wrote in her reasons on 22 December.
“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.”
His father had told Vcat his son had researched sneakers as part of his business management studies and had helped his classmates secure limited-edition and hard-to-source sneakers.
While he made a commission from these transactions that he used to buy his own sneakers, the father had “no idea of the extent of his son’s dealings”.
“[The father’s] evidence was that he only became involved after [his son] stopped all forms of communication with the applicant, and the situation had deteriorated to the point where [the son] was being chased through a shopping centre (allegedly by other disgruntled customers) and threats were being made to [the son’s] mother at her place of work,” Metcalf wrote.
She said once the father became involved he “put some time and effort into working out what had gone on”.
Metcalf said while the father tried to resolve the matter, “that does not … amount to [him] accepting responsibility for the repercussions of an agreement to which he was not a party and of which he had no knowledge”.
She also dismissed the claim against the father.
The buyer still has the sneakers.
