Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsReal or fake, I didn’t want to risk it.
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2018
So I ended up returning these mostly out of fear of them being fake. The reviews from just this month (which you had to find because the reviews that show up first are so outdated) were saying that they were fake/falling apart/defective. I have foot issues and I was not about to pay full Birkenstock price for fake shoes. So I went to a Birkenstock store and bought a pair to compare. Upon first comparison they look basically identical. The ones from amazon did show up in a beat up box but inside they were nice, had the tags attached etc. They had a few extra serial code numbers on varying straps that the in store purchased ones didn't have. I got the dark brown ones in the store and comparing the leathers it really felt like the black ones were more synthetic. They were almost slick on the backside of the strap instead of having that textured suede feel. Maybe something to do with black versus brown leather. I don't know...Also I got nervous because the store I went to didn't sell them in black, the actual Birkenstock.com store was out of stock in black so it made me curious that amazon had them fully in stock. Which would normally be fine except there are also several articles saying that Birkenstock will no longer put their products on Amazon because there was no way to regulate the knock offs. I couldn’t add th link below but there are a lot more out there. So I basically didn't want to risk it because some people were saying they were the best shoes ever while others were saying they were fake so I just didn't want to take the risk. This was my first pair so I don't know true birkenstock quality so I couldn't compare them to anything. I hope this review helps someone out because looking at the most recent reviews definitely made me nervous to purchase this shoe
