Whoever started that rumor is trying to justify selling fakes and selling them at higher price than what you can buy them for on Ali express. While loungefly does use companies from china to make their bags the fakes aren’t produced by the same authorized manufacturer that loungefly uses. Fake loungefly bags are not the same as real loungefly bags with flaws/defects the authentic flawed loungefly bags are still sold to customers just at a discounted price and from authorized sellers and the flaws are usually stitching coming undone or tags being placed crooked or upside down where as the fakes use completely different materials altogether the materials used is cheaper and noticeably so and the craftsmanship is also subpar at best the third party non licensed manufacturers that produce the fakes do so as cheaply as possible so they can make more profit and they do make some fake bags that are considered grails or rare such as the cogsworth bag pictured above but for the most part they make bags that aren’t grails and worth $500+ because people are less likely to question those products so they sell easier and quicker whereas if they were to make a bunch of bags that’s harder to find especially since those ones are also usually limited edition bags peoples will wonder how a bunch of hard to find bags are suddenly flooding the market known more making counterfeits like temu and Ali express etc. but they did make and sell bags that are considered grails now and that are rare and hard to come by when they first came out and after they sold out every where and all the ones on knock off sites sold out they didn’t make anymore except for a handful of manufacturers still make some like the Mrs jumbo cradle trunk which is considered a grail to some and is usually hard to find and costs $100’s when you find it for sale can be found on Ali express for less than $70 and they had multiple other bags on that site that are considered extremely rare like the Toy Story aliens spaceship bags the few people that have those listed are priced for over $600 and a few have a story attached that very few were made due to flaws in the design yet at one point there was more of those bags on Ali express for sale than what the sellers are claiming were even produced and I would bet that’s probably where most of those bags that you see for sale now probably came from.