‘Beware of overseas purchases’
Wig lover sold duds by Chinese firm
The digital age has made the world smaller. Consumers can now buy things directly from the country that manufactures them. This is a convenient way of shopping but what many consumers don’t take into account is how their consumer rights might be affected, and whether they even have any rights?
This is something that Charity Ndaba learnt the hard way. Ndaba saw an advert on Facebook about a special on wigs. She says she is always looking at wig content online. The advert popped up on her feed, it was for Eva Wigs, which is based in China.
Consumer Line could not get the company’s contact number and sent queries through its website, but there was no response at the time of publication yesterday.
Ndaba said the wigs were supposed to arrive after two weeks of placing the order in December after she got her year-end bonus.
“When they didn’t arrive after the two-week period, I googled them and I realised that the company was nonexistent. They had actually been using another existing businesses’ name because there is an Eva business that sells here but this one wasn’t it,” Ndaba told Consumer Line.
She only got the wigs two months later. “I placed my order and it took forever to come and when it came, oh my God, it wasn’t what they had advertised.”
The school finance administrator was so incensed about the quality of the wigs that she burnt some of them.
Ndaba said she should have known that the deal was too good to be true. She said the special had some of the wigs that were advertised to be 100% human hair priced at R500 or less, which would have been a bargain and so she bought five for R3,900.
Ndaba was comfortable in making the purchase as she had bought wigs online before from another wig supplier UWinsHair. Everything with this company was above board. “Now that I realise it, it has used other companies’ pictures.”
The 39-year-old tried to call Eva Wigs and found that the number didn’t work. She also tried to go on the website and was redirected to the website of the company that shared the name with Eva Wigs. On that website there was a notice stating that there is a fake company trading under its name.
Ndaba then took to Facebook to complain, only to find multiple complaints from other women about the shoddy dealings of the company. The Facebook post of the company said that there were two fraudulent accounts that were operating under their name.
One Facebook user, Willine Pierre, wrote: “I’ve ordered from the ‘real’ website. And I still have not received my order. I am about to take legal action.”
Matsie Rapholo posted on Facebook: “It’s fake hair and horrible.”
Marilyn Arendse Kleinsmit wrote that her order didn’t even arrive. “I also lost out. I ordered and nothing yet.”
Consumer lawyer Hugh Pollard of the Legal Advice Office cautioned about buying stuff online from overseas suppliers because there is no protection for the consumer.
“It’s a very dangerous thing to do because your law is applicable to SA, so how are you going to enforce it? My advice is simply: you do not buy anything online overseas... do not cross international borders.”
Pollard said SA has good laws in some instances but the issue is how would one enforce those laws overseas? He urged consumers to use trusted suppliers with a proven track record if they buy overseas.
Ndaba would have been protected by the Consumer Protection Act section 56.2 as she would have been entitled to a refund or replacement wig or repair if the retailer had been trading in SA and she had reported the case within six months of purchasing the items.
She could have gone the legal route and litigated but that would have cost more money than she had spent.
Consumer Goods and Services Ombudsman spokesperson Ouma Ramaru said it gets complaints about wig suppliers but overseas businesses often don’t respond to correspondence from the ombudsman. “If it’s a local supplier, we can mediate,” she said.
Ramaru said the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) does not cover transactions that are made outside SA borders.
“That’s why we always encourage that [people] do not transact online with overseas suppliers... even if the overseas supplier does respond to our emails, it’s hard to enforce anything as the CPA works within SA,” Ramaru said.