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Does Facebook play a role in DressLily complaints?

Central Texas consumers continue to report problems involving an online dress retailer following a KVUE Defenders investigation.

Central Texas consumers continue to report problems involving an online dress retailer following a KVUE Defenders investigation.

Many of the consumers found the store through ads posted on Facebook and they don’t think the social media company is doing enough to prevent problems.

Two of those consumers are Herb Wright and Keri Bradfield.

Wright ordered two shirts for about $20 in November from SammyDress.com.

“I was on Facebook, and there was an ad that popped up,” Wright said.

Bradfield paid DressLily.com about $37 dollars for three dresses. Both websites are run by the same online company and registered in Bejing, China.

It took two months for Bradfield’s dresses to arrive, but none of them fit properly. Wright never got his shirts or his money back.

“I’m still waiting,” said Bradfield.

Thousands of consumers have complained about similar problems online. Even on DressLily’s own Facebook page, the KVUE Defenders couldn’t find one positive review when scrolling on the webpage in early March.

One Facebook user posted, “Don’t order anything ladies!” Many of those complaints have since been removed by DressLily.

Nearly two months ago, the KVUE Defenders bought three dresses to test the website out.

One dress never arrived. The two that did were poorly made, with loose stitching and looked nothing as advertised on the website.

The KVUE Defenders couldn’t find one phone number for DressLily. Email replies seemed to appear automated and did not address our specific questions.

KVUE also sent two emails to Facebook’s media department, but only received automated responses.

According to Facebook’s own advertising policy “deceptive claims, offers or business practices” are strictly prohibited.

Gary Wilcox is an advertising professor at the University of Texas. He’s surprised Facebook has not taken action based on the amount of complaints involving DressLily and SammyDress.com.

“I assume if this is brought to their attention that Facebook would take a look at that and say, this is questionable enough that perhaps we should pull this,” said Wilcox.

According to Wilcox, similar advertising issues could make users want to use Facebook less.

“It’s all about trust. A medium wants consumers to trust and consumers want to trust a medium,” said Wilcox.

Consumers, like Bradfield, share similar concerns.

“Unfortunately, I think Facebook is just looking at it as a means to create income,” said Bradfield.

KVUE also uncovered returning items to DressLily is extremely difficult, if not impossible. The company requires consumers to prove something is wrong with your order before returning it.

The Defenders sent pictures of one poorly made dress we received, but did not get approval to return it.

Want to contact Facebook about a problem? Go here. On the site, scroll down to “Ads” to learn how to report or hide ads.

Go here to watch the first part of this story.

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