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Buyer Beware: DressLily.com complaints

<p>DressLilly.com shows off glamorous gowns, often for under $20. (Photo: KVUE)</p>

AUSTIN, Texas -- Looking for a red carpet-worthy dress or how about something for prom or a wedding? New online retailers, like DressLily.com, advertise designer clothes, dresses and bathing suits for a fraction of what others charge.

DressLily.com shows off glamorous gowns, often for under $20.

While the price and pictures lure shoppers to click, the KVUE Defenders uncovered an increasing number of complaints involving the retailer.

Regina Schneider is one of those consumers. Last year, the Taylor resident saw an ad for DressLily on her Facebook feed. She was impressed.

"Everything that is hot, in style, anything most women would be interested in,” Schneider said.

She purchased a shirt for $10. Schneider said DressLily claimed it would ship in six to eight days.

It never arrived.

According to the Better Business Bureau, complaints about similar online stores have soared 1,300 percent across the country since 2010. Most involved delivery problems, but many consumers reported problems with quality and sizing issues too.

The KVUE Defenders found multiple websites with Dress Lilly consumers posting pictures of their complaints. Knockoffnightmares.com shows several pictures of how the dresses looked on the website and how awful clothes fit once they arrived.

The KVUE Defenders put the website to the test with the help of KVUE News anchors Quita Culpepper, Cori Coffin and Tina Shively. We asked them to pick out what they consider Oscar-worthy dresses on the DressLily website.

Tina picked a gown for $17.54. Quita chose a blue dress for $30.49. Cori was drawn to a red dress for $16.63.

Nearly four weeks later, Quita and Cori's dresses, which we paid express shipping for, were a no-show.

Tina's dress arrived this past Thursday.

"It doesn’t really look like an Oscar gown from the outside that’s for sure," explained Tina, describing the small white plastic bag and the dress squeezed inside.

Not only is the dress unworthy for the Oscars, but almost anywhere. After trying it on, Tina was far from impressed.

"If I wasn’t wearing clothing underneath this dress, you could never wear this in public," Tina said. "There are three buttons and seven button loops. One of the buttons is about the fall off."

Tina says the material also looks and feels like plastic.

The BBB isn’t surprised.

“Consumers are also telling BBB that the quality that they thought they were getting is not there, and they have to have somebody else really fix it, going to a professional tailor to make it so they can wear it, certainly spending more money," said Erin Dufner, Austin BBB spokesperson.

The KVUE Defenders reached out to DressLily for an interview, but did not hear back.

According to BBB’s research, DressLily operates under several names, like SammyDress.com. The operation is based out of Beijing, China, which could explain the delivery problems.

To find out who and where a website is registered, the BBB suggests using WhoIs. Users can enter a website into its system and identify names and addresses of website registrations.

This story originally appeared on KVUE.

(© 2016 KVUE)

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