GIT ordered from FragranceNet same as the the one ordered from Newman Marcus.

This thread, and the links contained therein, may help to answer your questions.

In short, it sounds like the FragranceNet is grey market and the markings have been removed to conceal the original source, as it has been diverted. Typically grey market products are purchased in countries where they can be obtained relatively cheaply and then sold in markets where they are typically expensive; the grey marketer can undercut the official distribution channels and still make money.

If you're getting it at a discount, it's grey market lol, so don't expect it to be the same fragrance that you pay $200 at Neiman Marcus lol

FragranceNet makes the claim all their merchandise is authentic. What I have seen from them has been original untampered packaging and unmodified bottles. Grey market does not mean counterfeit. There seems to be a motivation to cover the tracks in the case of the high-end Creed, and others?

yeah its true the git is just as divine.

arabic writing doesn't mean a damn thing.

the bottle of git i got from fragrancenet was filed but they didn't do a great job on it and with careful inspection the numbers 07 can still be made out at the end of the string.

so far i haven't gotten untampered boxes/bottles from fragrancenet but i have from scentiments.

some say its because of creeds own lax policies on distribution that this stuff happens, some say creed can sell more product this way by reaching more price points and therefore markets and they will still make plenty of money on every bottle they sell.

makes sense to me.

i have found that going to neimans is nice for the service you get (if the creed rep is a good one like mine.. and they pay him well) and their business is set up in a way to cater to people willing to pay good prices for things of high quality in a relatively low volume-per-store setting and neimans has a lot of people on the payroll. people who buy here may not know online discounters even have creed and they may think its exclusive to those who pay full price others may know and just choose to support the local store and get the extra service.

fragrancenet is a different monster and is more of a warehouse that does less personal one on one service and sells large volumes from a smaller footprint. seems to me that whether they are getting the creed merchandise through questionable methods that creed would be angry about (say they are getting cheaper prices from suppliers in asia or the middle east) or not (they pay pretty much the same on the price/volume purchase scale as neimans) they could still get away with selling for less. and they hit another market of people more into getting good deals on things.

fragrancenet and scentiments are two online stores that seem to do enough business to have new stock coming in regularly and i haven't had to worry about much dealing with them.

the newest bottles arriving from creed, both at neimans and online stores like fragrancenet and scentiments are coming without any dates on the bottles.

its all very confusing but once you look hard into it you'll find its all mostly a big waste of time to get worked up over it. if you buy from a good place and not somewhere like ebay where they really do have abundances of fake bottles or turned bottles for sale for super cheap prices you should be alright. if the juice is completely off it doesn't matter where it came from go ahead and return it thats the only important thing.

That's what I'm saying, they're grey market, not counterfeit. But don't be shocked when the box turns up beat up or with stuff cut out, or if it's been sitting in a hot steamy warehouse for several years and the scent has changed. You get what you pay for, it's hit or miss with grey market Creeds, and you can't expect the same product as Neiman's. That being said, I would never pay full retail price for a Creed, those freakin swindlers.