It’s frustrating to find a dress you love on social media, only to click through to the website and find it’s sold out.
It happened to me recently.
6
One of my favorite fashion influencers, Yasmin Devonport, showed off a beautiful blue dress on her TikTok account.
At £120 from Asos it wasn’t cheap but I could have justified it for a special occasion.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with fashion pieces that go viral, when I clicked on Asos it was sold out.
A few days later, I saw an ad with a video of Yasmin modeling the dress, from a brand called Like My Choice.
I hadn’t heard of it, but it describes its offerings as “the newest boho chic clothing and accessories.”
To my surprise, I found the blue dress on the website, using the same Asos photos but with the model’s head curiously cropped.
But this dress was £42 and was in stock in my size.
Surely this was too good to be true?
My suspicions were raised by the niche pricing.
The website also had very little information about the brand.
I decided to order the dress anyway, but when I entered the payment details, the currency was converted to dollars, making the price $54, plus $6.09 shipping.
When ordering, I was told it would arrive in six to ten days.
Ten days later it arrived.
To compare what was delivered, I ordered the original £120 dress from Asos in the only size left, a six.
At first glance the dresses looked similar, but side by side the Asos dress was much better quality and a deeper blue.
The dress’s cheaper material felt flimsy compared to the £120 dress.
That said, it looked good – and when I asked colleagues which one they thought was the most expensive, not everyone chose Asos.
6
6
However, morally, it didn’t feel right.
I fell in love with the photos, which were clearly taken from another website, and the influencer’s TikTok account. . . and I have very little confidence in being able to return the dress.
Lynn Whiteside, 56, from Billingshurst, West Sussex, told me she found it impossible to return a co-ord set she bought from Like My Choice for £50.40.
She found the material “cheap and unpleasant” and said: “I emailed the company four times asking how to get a full refund and received no response.
“Eventually, in the fifth email, I told them that I had written a negative review on Trustpilot and they responded. . . ”
But Lynn says they would just send a different size, not a refund.
She says “People need to be warned not to buy from this company.”
Other sites are also taking images from legitimate brands or videos from influencers and passing them off as their own.
‘TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE’
Briselle UK claims to be a “French luxury dress label” but appears to be taking its imagery from British brand House of CB.
Some customers complain about never receiving the product.
One Trustpilot review said: “I would like to read the reviews. Looks like I wasted my money as I sent several emails to pursue it and nothing.”
Similarly, Beautley advertises big discounts but appears to be taking shots at Australian fashion brand Forever New.
One dress, the Amari Midi, selling for £82 at Forever New, is called Amira Paradise at Beautley and £32.95 (discounted from £66) – using the same Forever New photos.
James Bore, an accredited security professional, says: “The price you pay is usually for the brand, not the manufacturing, and although counterfeiters often use cheaper materials and manufacturing methods, this is simply to maximize profit.
“With a little work, most fakes could be indistinguishable from the real thing.
“The genuine brands are playing whack-a-mole.
“With the difficulty of locating suppliers in many of these cases, brands are largely limited to simply trying to pull listings as quickly as possible and trying to stay ahead.”
In short, if you don’t recognize the brand selling the “bargain” and it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
- We asked Like My Choice, Beautley and Briselle UK for comment, but none of them responded.
HOW TO LOCATE A FAKE
HELEN DEWDNEY, consumer expert at The Complaining Cow, tells how to spot a dodgy website:
1 An overly generous discount should set off alarm bells. Companies will not offer 50% to 80% off high-demand products.
Shady websites use these offers to trigger an emotional “buy now” response. If something seems too good to be true, step away and take some time to think about it.
two. Check feedback on independent consumer review sites. There may be a lot of negative reviews.
Exclusively very positive reviews with few comments may indicate fake reviews – moderators try to identify and minimize them.
3. Building with a sense of urgency is a common trick. This plays into human psychology, where a potential loss is more important than a potential gain.
A limited offer of just a few hours to buy at a deep discount convinces targets to act before they become too suspicious.
4. Check the return policy and return address – is it legit?
5. Look for grammatical errors, spelling errors and sites that try to make it look like they are based in the UK when they are not..
6. Meignore reviews or star ratings displayed on companies’ own websites unless they can be easily traced back to real people. Genuine reviews on websites will also have photos and videos.
7. Look for engagement on social media. A fake profile is more likely to not interact with people and have few followers.
6
6
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23954511/acastro_STK459_13.jpg?w=300&resize=300,300&ssl=1 "Google Sheets adds a one-click way to easily create tables")
