TikTok Shops Are Lousy With Counterfeit Products

Ikran Dahir, reporting for BuzzFeed News:

Iman Hamid, a lawyer and author in London, was browsing TikTok in January when she came across a NYX lip gloss being sold on a livestream for just £3.99 (about $5) — almost half of the product’s original price. Thinking this was a good deal, she purchased the lip color — but once it arrived, she said she realized the discount was too good to be true.

In a video she posted on TikTok in June, Hamid swatches the lip gloss she purchased on TikTok and compares it to the same color she bought at Superdrug to compare. The colors are starkly different and she says the texture didn’t match up. […]

Several commenters on Hamid’s TikTok video shared their experiences of purchasing what they believed to be a fake product from TikTok. “Same happened to me with mascara,” one person said. Another warned, “if the price is too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.”

“It’s shocking to me to see how many people have actually gone through the same problem,” Hamid told BuzzFeed News.

This shouldn’t be shocking at all. Of course TikTok shops are riddled with scams. Of course name brand products being sold by rando TikTok users at half price are counterfeit.

★ Tuesday, 5 July 2022