It’s frustrating to find a dress you love on social media, only to click on it and find it’s out of stock.
This for me recently.
One of my favorite fashion influencers, Yasmin Devonport, showed off a striking blue dress on her TikTok account.
For £120 at Asos, it wasn’t reasonable, but perhaps justified it for a special occasion.
Unfortunately, as with fashion items that go viral, when I clicked on Asos, they were sold out.
A few days later, I saw an ad with the video of Yasmin dressed in the dress, with a logo called Like My Choice.
I hadn’t heard of it, but she describes its offerings as “the newest bohemian clothing and accessories. “
To my surprise, I discovered the blue dress on the site, the same photos as Asos only with the model’s head curiously cut off.
But this dress costs £42 and is in stock in my size.
Surely he is too smart to be true?
My suspicions arose through niche pricing.
They also had very little data about the brand.
I had to order the dress anyway, but when it came time to provide payment details, the currency was changed to dollars, bringing the price up to $54, plus $6. 09 for shipping costs.
When I placed the order I informed that 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 length she had left, a six.
At first glance, the dresses looked similar, but look after look, the Asos dresses were much higher quality and a deeper blue.
The fabric of the cheaper dress is flimsy compared to the £120 dress.
That said, everything seemed fine, and when I asked my colleagues which one they thought was more expensive, not all of them chose the one from Asos.
However, morally it did not seem right to me.
I fell in love with the photos, obviously taken from the site, and from the influencer’s TikTok account. Array Array and I have very little confidence in my ability to put the dress back on.
Lynn Whiteside, 56, from Billingshurst, West Sussex, told me she found it in a coordinated set she bought at Like My Choice for £50. 40.
She found the curtains “cheap and unpleasant” and said: “I sent the company four emails asking how to get a full refund and got no response.
“Finally, in the fifth email, I told them that I had written a negative review on Trustpilot and they responded to me. Array Array »
But Lynn said they would send another size, with no refund.
She says, “People want to be warned to buy from this company. “
Other sites also take photographs of valid brands or videos of influencers and pass them off as their own.
Briselle UK claims to be a “French luxury dress logo” but seems to take its images from the British House of CB logo.
Some consumers who never get the product.
One Trustpilot review said: “I wish I had read the reviews. Looks like I wasted my money over emails and nothing.
Similarly, Beautley advertises huge discounts but turns out to take pictures of the Australian fashion Forever New logo.
One dress, the Amari Midi, sells for £82 at Forever New, called Amira Paradise in Beautley and costs £32. 95 (was £66), same images as Forever New.
James Bore, a licensed security professional, says: “The value you pay sometimes depends on the brand, not the production, and although counterfeiters use less expensive fabrics and production methods, they do so only to maximize profits.
“With a little work, most fakes are indistinguishable from authentic objects.
“The authentic brands themselves bet on the mole.
“With the difficulty of locating suppliers in many of those cases, brands are largely limited to simply looking to remove listings as temporarily as possible and trying to stay ahead. “
In short, if you don’t recognize the logo promoting the “sale” and it turns out to be too clever to be true, it is.
HELEN DEWDNEY, a customer at The Complaining Cow, explains how to spot a questionable site:
1 Too generous a reduction sounds the alarm. Companies will not offer 50-80% off the most in-demand products.
Dubious sites use these types of offers to elicit an emotional “buy now” response. If something turns out to be too clever to be true, step back and take some time to think.
2. Check reviews on independent review sites. There can be a number of bad reviews.
Exclusively very positive reviews with few comments can imply fake reviews: moderators review them to detect and minimize them.
3. Building in a hurry is not an unusual trick. This plays into human psychology, where a possible loss is greater than a possible gain.
A limited offer of a few hours to buy at a heavily discounted price convinces targets to act before becoming too suspicious.
4. Check the return policy and return address – is it legitimate?
5. Look for poor grammar and spelling and sites that look like they were founded in the UK when they really aren’t.
6. Ignore reviews or ratings posted on corporate websites, unless you can seamlessly connect with genuine people. Authentic reviews on the sites will also include photographs and videos.
7. Look for social media engagement. A fake profile is more likely to not interact with other people and have very few followers.
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