London Aura - cheap dress/ refusal to refund

[palepinkmermaid]

I bought a pale pink party frock on impulse one evening scrolling.
It was £500 reduced to £99. Bargain I thought.

But what eventually arrived looked nothing like the picture and seemed to be a very cheap import from china. See pictures. Original dress looks a paler good quality fabric and the stones seem to be silver not a garish pink.

So I went to return as per their '14 day no quibble return' but reading the policy more closely they said you could not return if you didn't like the item. It wasn't their fault if your computer displayed the incorrect colour. I tried anyway and got no response.

So I raised a dispute with Mastercard who credited me back.

Now that has happened they are in contact with me asking how they can make things better. But not offering or responding to my requests to return this hideous item.

Surely this is a scam?

Am I being unreasonable to want to return this?

Send them a link to distance selling rules

If bought online you are entitled to return for any reason within 14 days I believe. I'll see if I can find the legislation.

They actually even say it on their own website:

https://london-aura.co.uk/policies/refund-policy

This is on money saving expert:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange/#buyingfromhome

If you have got your money back I would tell the company that they can either send you a prepaid label to return the item or that it will be available for them to collect for five days starting on Friday, and if they don’t contact you within thirty days you will be donating the item to a local charity shop.

I'm having the exact same issue!! They have said they will accept my return if I send it to China, at my own expense (£20?!). I have disputed the claim with Amex and now they're trying to offer me a partial refund and I can keep the items - except the items are of awful quality and nothing like those pictured online. If you've got all your money back via Mastercard then great, I'd donate the dress to charity.

I firmly believe we shouldn't be left out of pocket for returning items that we've been mis-sold!

This is true...

But I also think OP there is a lesson perhaps inherent in this sentence you typed:

" It was £500 reduced to £99. Bargain I thought."

This is marketing.

They took good pictures (or used good pictures that were supplied to them). They gave it a plausible "luxury" price, then discounted it to a heavily overpriced profit for what it is.

It's caveat emptor in terms of you initially making the mistake.

However I agree with others, distance selling regs mean you should be able to return.

however in my next post I'll show why I think this 'business' will be closed by the end of the year.

So as per my previous post, what I'm more concerned about is the business history.

Domain name is registered on 5 August 2024. It is bought through One.com.

Nothing wrong with that as such.

Yet they claim on their website to have been trading "for decades". Have they only just discovered online shopping?

Best of all, they have a weird claim to have "authenticated safety by Gov.uk" (?!!) at the footer of their site.

Click on it, and you're redirected to Shopify.

as I said, nothing inherently 'wrong' in any of this. But as someone who works heavily with online marketing , this all doesn't look 'right' and feels like a front for a dropshipping business or wholesaler based somewhere else entirely, outside of the UK, saying the right things but having no interest in returns or anything else customer focused.

Yeah they 'say it on their own website' @Ineffable23 but that doesn't mean anything

I actually read the link you posted.

They said this:

The returns are straight to our factory overseas due to we are clearing our whole store

And they also said this

The customer is responsible for all costs regarding returns

So from my perspective, that means if I'm sending back to China lets say, I'm going to be charged £20 by my local courier or post office.

Fair enough if some people are happy paying that, but I wouldn't be. I'd rather stick with my known names , where I can return for free etc and know they have a registered business address and comply with distance selling regs in the UK etc.

They are in breach of distance selling regs, so they have to offer the option to return, which they did not.

That's a really dodgy site! The dress pictured is £5,500 in self ridges....

You’ve got your money back @palepinkmermaid, what’s the problem?

Maybe posts like these help consumers, @BIossomtoes ?

Another person on this thread has already stated they had the same issue. Some people pay with debit cards and wouldn't be as protected.

I think this is a fine post, I don't see what the problem is with OP posting this.

I also add that upon reverse image searching the two items that I ordered:

• one has used images of a £500 dress and the dress I received is a clearly a knock-off of this
• second item (even more dodgy) is being sold on a bunch of other websites that look almost identical to the London Aura one