*Edit 10/24/2020- different pictures are being used now, but the same scam is still going on. Please get a live person on the phone before ordering anything.
Over the last few days, I’ve seen a lot, and I mean A LOT, of targeted advertisements for commercial quilts. It made sense. I’m a quilter, and I am probably in one of the top ten hits from any targeted ad involving quilts. No surprise there.
I’ll admit I was taken in by the beauty of these advertisements at first, but as I had no intention of buying them I didn’t look all too closely. It wasn’t until a sweet person in one of my quilting groups asked about the fabric in one that I learned the truth. Another person posted the link to a news segment about the scam. They used the name of a store that was only slightly off, and that poor store had received numerous calls from scam victims asking when their quilt would arrive. Over and over again, that lady had to break the news to them that they’d been scammed. I was surprised when I recognized the image of the scam as similar to ones that had been on my news feed pretty constantly. Some of my other friends had also taken notice, and I believe they tried to buy them.
Here’s what a few minutes of poking around amounted to. Here’s the original image that probably came across your news feed. It’ll be this quilt or any variation therein.
If you click on the link, you’ll find a legit spot where you can buy it. It has all sorts of useful information on payments, customer reviews, shipping, etc.
If you need to contact them, there is either a form, like on this page, or some type of email address. This one was the first I’d seen with a full address. The others either didn’t have an address or it was partial. The lack of a phone number, or at least a working one, is a dead giveaway.
I looked up the address, and this was what I found on the street view. The house to one side is 2030, and the house to the other side is 2060. There is NO 2055 Hazel Ave at this location or across the street.
Ok, so the next step would be to try the email address. This isn’t the first one to do this. Another one I tried had a space in between the front of the email and the “@” symbol. I closed that gap so it would work correctly, but I never did hear back. This particular email address bounced back within a minute.
So no phone number, no correct address, and no email. Yeah, this isn’t a legit product at all. I went back in and looked at the merchandise itself since that was the original draw. I’m not sure where the images for the quilts/blankets themselves came from, but they are most certainly photo shopped.
In this set, it’s pretty cool how, in the red circle, you can see the quilt is placed in the exact same spot of the display. I’m good at set ups, but I’m never that good. It also has the same fold up top. And in the yellow circle, you can see that the editor got sloppy and didn’t change the red binding color or navy blue backing in that spot – even if the front of the quilt had no such binding or colors.
In the second set, you can see the same issues. The leaves fall gracefully over the quilt in the exact same way. The same fold can be seen in the blue circle, and even the smaller creases in the yellow circle are duplicated.
So what happens now? For a good while, I reported as many to Facebook as I could find. When given the option, I specifically reported it was “misleading or scam”. I remembered the news segment saying that Facebook was actively trying to take down the scam, but it was going strong on my feed despite the news segment being four days old now.
Here’s what I have received so far in regards to my reports. Long story short – the advertisement itself is fine and goes with their standards. I suppose they are washing their hands clean of the fact that they know it’s an active scam.
Funny enough, I tried to find a link where I could email them directly and explain why the ads were scam. However, just like the websites I investigated, I couldn’t find an actual email or message section. Funny how that works, right?
Long story short – please don’t be taken in by these ads that seem too good to be true. They are. Please share and reshare to spread awareness since Facebook seems uninterested in taking them down.
I was scammed. I did reach out to them, several time to inquire on shipping, and I did receive a response of excuses i.e.; it’s the holiday, our site says three weeks to produce, 7 to 10 days for shipping… and so on. I remained patient. I had ordered two quilts at the beginning of Nov. They did finally sent me two “questionable quilts” received one 1/2/19 and the other 1/12/19. When the first one arrived, remember I had waited for two months for them, so I wasn’t going to address the thin material it was made out of. But then, the second one arrived, and it was printed backward. Each picture. Total scam and both were supposed to be Christmas presents too.
😦
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Oh I’m so sorry you were scammed. I’m surprised you received any sort of response/product at all, to be honest. Many of my test emails just bounced right back. It makes me angry because they stole people’s artwork AND gave online quilts a stigma.
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I too was scammed. Ducks was the theme. Like kathylynncross, I was patient. I paid through PayPal, confident I was safe. Two emails to company, that I had to research to find brought excuses. A note to PayPal said that I must write company another letter. This time I told company I would ask PayPal to investigate if no product was received. “Quilt” showed up within 3 weeks. POOR quality fabric, poor color. Company changes their address regularly. I learned: Google product/company for possible scams with others. My emotions took over because my husband had forwarded it to me. He liked it.
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Shellye, that’s terrible!
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I’ve been bitten twice. I’m still waiting. I’ve sent several emails, but no response. One was supposed to be a Christmas gift that I ordered last August. The second, I thought I was ordering a kit. I expect the bank can’t do anything to help me, even though I used a credit card.
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Oh I hate to hear that! You can contest the charge on your credit card maybe? I’m not sure exactly how that works, but it seems a shame!
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Call your bank and ask. I have successfully disputed a charge that turned out to be a fraud (not quilting related) and got all my money back. I don’t know if you have to open a dispute within a certain time or what your bank’s requirements are but asking can’t hurt. I am in Canada and had to involve the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre. They investigated, and as soon as they confirmed that it was indeed a fraud, my bank reversed the charge right away. Good luck!
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Even if it’s been months, contact your state Attorney General’s office. They have a department that handles consumer fraud, which this is. They might have better luck tracking down the company, but be sure to give them as much information as you possibly can, including all of the info in this awesome blog post. If the bank can’t help to get your money back, the AG might and also may be able to shut them down. It’s worth a try and can usually be done online. Good luck!
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Here is a list of all their ads. You can go through and report each one. https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&q=Ninety%20Fabric&view_all_page_id=354899768598288
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I try and report them as I see them, yes!
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Here is a blog post from a quilt maker that tried to do something about the image of her quilt being used without her permission. http://theboredzombie.com/project/my-image-is-being-used-in-an-internet-scam-and-i-tried-to-do-something-about-it
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Thanks! I’ll definitely check it out!
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Thank you so much for posting this. I was scammed also last year. I did get FB involved — to no avail — but I also got PayPal involved because that’s where I made my payment from and they refunded my money. But just a couple of months after this incident the credit card number I used for payment was compromised. I know that that’s a PayPal issue but paying for this “quilt” was the only time I had used that credit card. I think the “quilt company” was able to steal the information somehow. I do not buy from FB any longer, which I’m sure is a no-brainer for most, but I did and so that’s that. Again, thanks for your post.
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Yikes! I’m sorry you had to go through that at all. What a nightmare. I’m at the point now where I won’t buy from a company I see on Facebook unless I call them first and get an actual representative on the phone.
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Thanks for the alert! Nancy A: rangerer@sbcglobal.net
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I was scammed too on an Indian Motorcycle quilt scam. these people are too much.
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Yes, and now it looks like they have bots making replies on posts to make it look like they’ve received something.
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Just realized (partly thanks to this post) that I’ve been scammed too. Was the perfect birthday gift for my librarian wife. Now I see through it (one month later), no phone number, pictures are obviously photoshopped, reviews are fake… Just reported it to my credit card company… Sigh. https://proudteaching.com/proudteaching/Librav4d5v?mockupID=2160308&type=economy-blanket-youth&pretty-type=Youth%20Hooded%20Blanket&color=white&render=view3d
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I hate you got scammed. Hopefully your credit card company can help out.
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