Buyer Beware, 8 Online companies to stay away from


If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media than I’m sure you’ve come across those ads for discount fashion. Any time I pull up Facebook on my computer, my sidebar is full of ads for $12 dresses and swimsuits for $16.The stuff looks cute and for that price I admit I am intrigued.
Last summer I discovered
Sammydress.com. I fell in love with the site. They had such fun clothes for summer. There was a sailor tank I was convinced I had to have for an upcoming cruise and for prices like $6.99 and $9.99 why not throw in a few sundresses too? When it was time to check out, I was stunned to see that the shipping cost was way more than my total purchase. This gave me pause and I decided to let my purchase hang out in my virtual shopping cart for a while. Time passed and eventually I forgot about Sammydress.com.

Most recently I’ve been in the market for new swimwear. As luck would have it another Facebook ad lured me in. This time the ad was for a site called Dresslily.com. The site offered stylish swimwear for a fraction of what I would pay for it elsewhere. It also offered free shipping. What I was viewing seemed too good to be true so my investigative instincts kicked it.   What I found was appalling.

1. I found that Dresslily.com along with Sammydress and several other sites (RoseGal, RoseWholesale, Zaful, NastyDress, TwinkleDeals, and TrendsGal), are all tied to one public Chinese e-commerce company known as Global Egrow. These brands have a lot of unhappy customers and rightfully so.

2. Customers complained about waiting several weeks or even months to get their items, and some never received anything at all.
3. The Chinese clothing companies are accused of stealing pictures from other retailers, fashion bloggers, and Instagramers and then editing them in an effort to sell their poorly made knock off clothing on their own website. Do a search for any one of these companies and you will find a long list of negative customer reviews followed by evidence that what these customers ordered is clearly not what they received. I’ve seen these photos and the items are sized inappropriately, poorly made, and often made out of different fabric and are a different style than what was shown on the site.
Check it out. On the left is what the customer thought they were ordering. On the right is what they actually received.
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4. Customers who receive these horrendous items claim that it was very difficult to contact customer service to get a resolution. I could see where this would be an issue because there is no customer service or company phone number listed on the DressLily site. Your only method of communication is email or live chat with in their business hours which are not listed. As far as returns are concerned, I found this in small printed under the Shopping FAQ’s tab on their website.  All Women's Clothing are designated as OSRM (Other Special Regulated Materials) and once sold will not be returned or exchanged except for quality issues and mis-shipment.

5. Of course if you are lucky enough to resolve your issue with the companies, you are required to ship your item(s) back to China at your own expense.

I am so glad that I did my due diligence and researched these companies before falling for a possible scam. I will gladly order my clothing from a more reputable site even if it means I don’t get these great $6.99 deals.  I hope I may have saved one of you from falling victim to these sites as well. -M




                                             We are linking up with the gals from the Friday 5!

33 comments:

  1. Luckily I don't think we have any of these companies in the UK, but there are some proper scammers out there.

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  2. I've seen stories about these companies on the news. I like to try things on, so I'm not tempted!

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    1. That's great that it was on the news. It's a good thing people are getting the word out!

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  3. Ugh, I'm glad you didn't get ripped off. I don't buy a lot of clothes online, but you're right, if it's too good to be true, you're probably right!

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  4. As a general rule I don't buy anything online from companies I've never heard of. I hate shopping but if I need clothes I'd rather go to an actual store or stick to places like old navy and nordstrom rack for bargains.

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    1. I agree I've only ever ordered from bigger companies who have actual stores!

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  5. I saw a couple stories about this company on Facebook. I can't imagine. I don't like to purchase clothes over the internet because I am super picky and really enjoy shopping and trying on clothes in person. I used to buy stuff from Victoria's Secret online and I felt the same about some of their clothing, but no where near this bad. How terrible.

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    1. I found out that there are also facebook groups about these companies that are run by angry customers.

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  6. I have seen several listings of this type on ebay and I hate that they can get away with this!

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    1. Yea, that's not right that they show one thing and ship another.

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  7. I ordered one time through a site I thought was Abercrombie & fitch. I did receive my order but the sizes and colors were completely different than what I ordered. Now I pay extra attention !

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  8. i almost got sucked in, too! but i always try to research websites before i order from them, so i luckily found out about the scam. i wish i could find out where the original images came from, because some of the stuff is so cute!

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    1. I heard that some of their images came from Harper's Bizarre.

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  9. That's almost comical what is shown & what is sent... not so funny for those who spent money on it though, i'm sure.
    I am always so skeptical of trying new places just because of bad places like these.

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  10. Holy moly! I had no idea! I have never been to any of those sites but I, too, have been tempted by the cute pics and cheap prices. Thank you for posting this!

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  11. WOW!! I never even realized but will definitely be on the lookout now! Thanks for the heads up!

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  12. OMG. This is why I don't order stuff online unless it's from a legit retailer. The only "discount" stores I order from are Active GearUp and The Clymb. Lol!

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  13. Oh wow, I did fall into the trap of using SammyDress. Out of the pieces I bought 2/5 were acceptable. So in reality I got just what I paid for.
    I guess the morel of the story here is if it looks too good to be true it normally is!

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  14. I don't order from companies like this - items that are too cheap to be reality just screams "scam" at best and credit card stealing at worst. Glad you didn't buy anything!

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  15. This is really important, and I'm glad you posted about it. I've used NastyGal a few times and have had great experiences, though. I usually order multiple dresses at once; they arrive quickly and I return what I don't want without any hassle. I'm not sure about the others, but I have to say I was surprised to see NastyGal lumped in with the others!

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  16. Thanks for the warnings! I read about this companies on Buzzfeed a while ago, it sounds like an awful scam!

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  17. Oh wow! I had never seen any of these companies before. But I guess the old "you get what you pay for" saying is really true!

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  18. Ugh. I've had blog pics stolen and used by Chinese websites. I've also had my email used on some sort of Chinese version of EBay. Horrible, horrible things going on there in the way of international scams.

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  19. WOW! I can't believe people think they can get away with this. Or that they think it's ok to take your money like that. UGH.

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  20. I fell victim to an Amazon purchase from China! OMG I was so pissed. It ended up costing more $40 total for a pair of leggings for my niece. The leggings looked like I tried to make them. They didn't even look like you could fit a human into them. Customer service was horrid and amazon couldn't help me out because the company only allowed for returns if you paid for it... which would have been SO EXPENSIVE.

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  21. Thanks for the tips! We bought a dog bed that was supposed to be guaranteed not to be chewed up by any dog, it failed and they didn't stand by their guarantee. Not good.

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  22. Thanks for the heads up! Sometimes things that are too good to be true are!

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  23. Thanks for the heads up! Sometimes things that are too good to be true are!

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Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.