Do not buy from 'Made By Jessica'!

[AgentPidge]

I bought two dresses online (£39 each) from what I thought was a UK-based boutique after a recommendation on a thread on MN. The website shows a pregnant woman, and says that 'Jessica' is closing her boutique due to the imminent arrival of her baby and is selling off stock at half price. The OP said about how much she loved the shop, etc.
Alarm bells should have rung when they ask for £4.99 insurance (to send a parcel from Surrey?). Also because there was no description of the fabric content given, only that it was a 'light and airy summer fabric'. They took a long time to arrive (direct from China?) and came today. The material is almost plastic, and they are a heavy weight, huge, shoddily made, with no labels (fabric content, washing instructions, brand) apart from 'Medium'.
Looking at Trustpilot, lots of people have the same story. They are Hong Kong based. There does not seem to be a UK store. 'Made by Jessica' my arse. They promise easy returns and refunds, but I don't hold out much hope, and it will cost a fortune to send them back to China. But will update.

I got caught out by a website which offered free returns very prominently so I didn’t think of checking the small print, or Trustpilot. They delivered what was actually a nice pair of shoes, but no return details on the website and when I tried to exchange them for a smaller size they REALLY didn’t want to. Weird emails asking me to take photos of the shoes, offered me to keep the shoes and they would send a voucher for 50% of the value…
Luckily I’d paid with PayPal and when I raised a claim there magically the company was able to issue a full refund and give me an address to send the shoes back to.

The other scam on FB etc is that you order a product but what arrives is a cheap scarf with no paperwork. When you question the lack of delivery they simply refer to the ‘item’ that was delivered.
Only buy online now from Amazon so no quibble.

This was in Which magazine, delivered yesterday!

Sorry, awful picture. Hope this one is better.

My daughter at university is always sending me links from those sites. She has ordered a ball dress recently from ‘aurelienneparis’ which has lots of red flags to me. 3.7 on trustpilot. We shall see…ugh.

I fell for the beautiful items shown on MN by something like 'Buddha Stone', the clothes look beautiful, nothing like the cheap material, badly made tat that arrived from China.

The same thing happened to me last year, with a different company. I raised a dispute on my banking app and the money was back with me within an hour, and I didn't have to return anything, I just put the stuff in the bin.

Has anyone actually recommended this brand or were they replying to yet another,
" another wedding guest one" and just googling for suitable matches?
I post a lot on the fashion threads but always check Trustpilot first and so should any potential buyers.
"This is unfolded " is another company to avoid . These fake kitchen sink sites are designed to pull on the heart strings but are in fact unethical.

They are. I subscribe to Which? and their scam alert service and they have highlighted this as a popular scam.

They always sound so plausible and I'm sorry you were taken in @AgentPidge

Some of the feeds on my Facebook feed are genuine. I get loads of adverts for Halara, but as so many different mumsnetters recommended them I tried them and now have two pairs of perfectly fitting jeans.

I really think Mumsnet should vet the adverts they have on the site. It gives the scammers authenticity. I bought a clock from an advert on here claiming to be British made London craftsmen etc. it took weeks to arrive and is basically balsa wood with 50ps worth of electronics behind it.

Push for a refund as faulty and not as described they will offer a % keep on they will agree a return which you will have to pay for and after 30 days will refund Refuse to pay and keep on for the refund you will get it

Yes no coherent style is the first thing I spot. I'm neurodivergent so I'm very eagle eyed.

@NotSpaced My boss's 16 year old daughter and her friend ordered prom dresses from one of these ads as seen on Instagram. When they arrived they looked like nighties as worn by Mildred Roper. Enough static to give you a free perm.

Bad luck OP. There seem to be endless numbers of similar companies, or perhaps just one with many names. Fabulous photos of gorgeous clothes which may be stolen from other websites or AI generated, and the actual clothes are rubbish, and you can't return them. Sometimes there's talk of a closing down sale. I was caught out once with two summer dresses and only buy online now from companies I know first hand.

Here

Trading Standards and Action Fraud are completely pointless. They can deal with UK businesses only and these tat-merchants are never based in the UK. The Chinese authorities give not one shit about these businesses.

The two key things you must do when seeing a too good to be true site pop up online is search Trustpilot or other reviews, and reverse image search.

I have also seen people on here recommend brands which even my virus checker flags as a suspicious link before clicking on it.

I now swear by reverse image searching - many of the pictures have been stolen from the real manufacturer's sites. And on Facebook, if anyone's comments are firstly 'just received mine, it's fantastic' (or similar) and followed by at least three which all say 'brilliant' or 'wonderful' - they are usually scams. I ordered a T shirt for my DD the other day from a Facebook ad and then spent the next week kicking myself for my stupidity - it was EXACTLY right for her and I ordered on impulse. Luckily the shirt arrived and was decent quality, but that's a week of worry that I won't get back.

Here's a link to the Which article:

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-bogus-boutiques-ripping-off-shoppers-aqruM5i1zJLH

I expect just random googling and then posting. I don't reply to any "what shall I wear" threads unless I already have an answer. I only post links to brands and sites I know about.

The thing is that even if you haven't heard of that particular brand, it may still be genuine. Nobody will have heard of every brand. I think the key is that unless it's a name which is really well know (Boden, John Lewis, Nobody's Child) you take 2 seconds to reverse image and trustpilot. It's usually very obvious if it's a fake after some quick research.

Trust pilot is your friend here. Especially if the prices seem too good to be true or if you can't easily find what the products are made of or there are vague descriptions. Also no impulse purchasing ever! Usually once you leave the site and keep looking at other places the original site somehow naturally loses its appeal as the rational brain kicks in.

I very much disapprove of Shein and Temu and other shitey businesses which churn out endless tat and use slave labour. But they are at least more transparent about what they are - you know you are getting a cheaply made, 100% polyester item with wonky seams and which is not designed to last. And you pay a fiver for it or whatever. These fake boutiques are adding in an extra level of deception by pretending to be British (wonder if they are doing the same for other European countries?) and whacking a huge amount extra onto the purchase price.

I think AI is a big part of the problem. In the last the websites would have looked very basic and full of spelling mistake / poor English. Now AI can generate a plausible shop font image and convincing text so it's easy to get sucked in.

I don’t trust trustpilot anymore. The one time I fell for a British made product (on Etsy…) the trustpilot reviews looked fine.

I got very suspicious when the international parcel tracking (not the one on Etsy, actually) showed that it was shipped from china. I found the disgruntled and critical reviews on Reddit, not trustpilot.

I sent the parcel back, parcel got „lost“, received about 2/3 of the price due to shipping insurance…

I try to buy from brick and mortar stores whenever possible, tbh.

I agree. Temu and Shein don’t pretend to be anything other than online marketing services selling cheap tat from China. The adverts claiming to be UK firms, family run businesses etc are fraudulent.