Bolstered by stolen images, aggressive ads, and images of security certificates from places like PayPal and Norton Security, the sites regularly sucker consumers into buying clothing straight from China and it often bears little resemblance to pictures they saw online.
The most painful stories come from women who bought bridesmaid, prom, and even wedding dresses from these sellers.
Facebook, in conversations with BuzzFeed News, said its rules around ads and pages are way more focused on language and images, and noted its policies prohibit stolen pictures and deceptive, false or misleading content. In March, it shared photos on WeChat of its gleaming new headquarters, complete with a cafeteria straight out of a startup, a gym, and a photo studio. Needless to say, those haven’t stopped advertisers from pilfering images from across the web, including from Instagram, that Facebook owns, and using them to baitandswitch users into buying poorly made imitations. Whenever celebrating birthdays together and playing team sports all while boosting the brand of Made in China and winning the honor for Chinese brand, as the subtitles say, the video on Youku shows smiling employees speaking multiple languages, including French, German and English. Looking at Global Egrow’s promotional materials, its business seems a world away from the fury in North America.
At least eight of the sites drawing fraud accusations DressLily, RoseWholesale, RoseGal, SammyDress, Zaful, Nasty Dress, TwinkleDeals, and TrendsGal are tied to really similar publicly traded company in Shenzhen, China, BuzzFeed News has learned depending on and European trademark filings and registration history data accessed via DomainTools.
That isn’t technically a violation of Facebook’s guidelines, and the isn’t able to catch the specifics of the huge issue, while Facebook is aware of the many complaints. Even if thousands of people feel like they got the wrong item, unhappiness with the actual product ain’t something it looks for, the company said. This is the case. Whether ads misdirect users to external sites, Facebook’s systems look for ad language violations, and obvious signs of counterfeiting.
I’m sure that the Chinese companies are known to some American Instagram stars as prolific photo snatchers. She didn’t see it until we emailed her, modLily had ripped off a photo of Rowe posing in a light green and light yellow dress. Claimed to be selling the dress she was wearing for length dresses from quite similar designer cost at least 200 million in sales in That same year it was acquired by one of China’s best known clothing companies, a ‘publicly listed’ giant run by among the country’s richest men.
With most selling garments under generic names like scoop collar sleeveless floral print dresses and chic lace designed hollow pencil jeans, the subpar retailers don’t set off copyright infringement alarms either, rather than using protected brand names like Nike or Gap. She expects more of this as prom season approaches. On Saturday alone, three or four girls came in with pictures of dresses that technically don’t exist saying they wanted that dress and they could get it on the internet for 70, she said.
One reason such companies can so routinely take advantage of people using Facebook’s infrastructure is that the social network’s policing of users and advertisers is limited to what happens on the service its monitoring doesn’t extend to bad experiences users have once an ad click takes them away from the site.
Another question is. Are these companies aware of the trail of fury they’re leaving in their wake? What if the stolen images, multiple brand names, awful service, and disappointing products are just the growing pains of a brand new kind of commerce, am I correct? Without an intermediary like the Gap or Nordstrom, do they believe they’re pioneers in a brand new world where hinese sellers can deal directly with American buyers, this is the case right?
They game Facebook in other ways loads of delete negative comments and posts on their pages, and some even post bogus customer service phone numbers and contact info, that isn’t an actionable offense. Complaint lists 153 different infringing URLs that were using its picture of a model in a long, expensive gown, including DressLily, NastyDress, TwinkleDeals, and TrendsGal.
Consumers have puzzled over the unusually high number of Likes that these clothing sellers have managed to accumulate on Facebook.
Facebook has acknowledged that fake Likes are a big problem but reported major strides against the practice from click farms, fake accounts, and malware a year ago. It gonna be that the massively popular pages are the result of intensive paid advertising campaigns which will be quite profitable for Facebook. Facebook said it didn’t see any clear indication that fake likes were used to build up RoseGal and DressLily.
Wasn’t able to get beyond their receptionists, buzzFeed News attempted to contact Global Egrow’s executives or PR department. Like Rotita and RoseWe, quite similar image pops up on RoseGal. And similar sites unaffiliated with Global Egrow, all without her permission. Therefore the strange interconnectedness of these sites lots of us are aware that there are more than 18 facing similar complaints is easily illustrated by right clicking on the stolen @MsBlingMiami photo on ModLily’s site and selecting Search Google for Image. Ren, listed on the company’s website as its contact for clothing investments, told BuzzFeed News by phone that she’s not aware should ask her supervisor for feedback. It is multiple emails in both Chinese and English to addresses listed on its website received no reply. While suggesting the companies are looking to replicate similar items, so this pattern emerges again and again with photos across these sites, including with screenshots of Facebook ads and page posts. Ms.
Wayne Lu of FashionMia.
Facebook groups warning other consumers about these sites. FashionMia has an F grade with the BBB, 413 reviews on PissedConsumer, and 7 5 out stars on SiteJabber. BuzzFeed News that the site was started in 2014 by Endeavor International Enterprise, a Hong Kong clothing company that already owned a couple of clothing factories in mainland China and wanted to target North American consumers.
Still, DressLily somehow has 7 million likes, RoseGal has 1 million, and RoseWholesale has 5 million. Upon further exploration, it turns out it’s actually just an image from Shutterstock titled Multiethnic Group of Friends Giving a Hand. Misleading images even haunt the company’s own website, where a Englishlanguage careers section includes a picture of what appears to be the company’s diverse workforce. However, in just two days in March, any of those numbers increased by a whopping 200,For context, Crew’s likes are near 5 million, Old Navy’s are around 9 million, and smaller chains like Gilt Groupe and Warby Parker clock in below 700000.
On a recent Friday, a young woman and her mom came in to Allison Swoboda’s dress shop in Washington with a prom dress nightmare.
Its name is ShenZhen Global Egrow ECommerce Co. Global Egrow.
Our post was shared across the warning group ecosystem, and a flood of frustrated responses came in from women in their teens through their fifties who had lost anywhere from The entry point for many was Facebook, though the sites also advertise on Google and retarget through banner ads across the web, after we joined and posted in an acebook group for users scammed by the site. Shoppers say they’re frequently small enough to fit children, their color is off, and they are created from flimsy materials, if and when the garments finally arrive. Sometimes they smell like chemicals. Customer service, typically located in China, is barely reachable, especially wheneverit gets to returns and refunds.
The same email address, Admin@GlobalEGrow.
Segment of consumers are satisfied with what they buy, or chalk it up to getting what they paid for, with intention to be sure. GearBest. Ultimately, few are expecting to play knockoff roulette when they order from these sites. Needless to say.
While showcasing its bright, young Chinese workforce in a sparkling office environment, a Chinese streaming site, describes Global Egrow as a bold and successful pioneer within the world of e commerce. While adding that Global Egrow promotes and glorifies the brand of ‘Made in China’ globally, the narrator cites multiple favorable national policies supporting online ‘trans boundary’ export retail. Chinese with English subtitles. Through the analysis of products’ market demand and customers’ purchasing behavior, we look for qualified hot products required by overseas customers… We achieve the glory with innovations and fill the world with smiles. It was uploaded nine months ago.
The Better Business Bureau issued a warning about SammyDress and DressLily last April after fielding 504 complaints about the sites within months, and testimonials and disappointing order photos are rampant on Facebook in groups like Knock Off Nightmares, Rosewholesale Scam and SammyDress, RoseGal, and Rosewholesale Is A Scam, that has 1008 likes and the phrase dontdoitgirl in its URL.
Indeed, the difficult to get Chinese companies to buy Facebook ads targeting customers overseas, as Facebook remains banned in China.