Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: After the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country with prolonged lockdown and closures of markets and businesses during the spike of the contagious disease, online shopping has emerged as a remedy to shoppers facing difficulties.

Unlike the global practice of quality and genuineness of the online service providers and shopping portals, a number of fake e-shopping websites have become rampant particularly in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad looting common masses in the name of online shopping.

Kiran Khan, a beautician, reported that due to increasing demand for beauty products and supplements used in her field she ordered some products online to use in her beauty salon. As she could not manage to go out shopping during lockdown and closure of all non-essential items, she also placed orders for a few dresses online that were looking awesome and of good quality in pictures. “But when I received the order I was shocked to see the low standard of products. I tried to return them but it was too late as the website had closed.”

Haroon Ali, a student of class matric, said that for the first time in his life he tried online shopping to buy a birthday gift for his younger brother.

He said he had ordered a few t-shirts for his brother but the fraudulent website had ruined his surprise as the ordered received had poor quality shirts where the color of the shirts was faded and inconsistent in size for a teenage boy.

He further mentioned that the people who run this false business were also demanding higher prices for such substandard products. He advised that before going online shopping people should check the authenticity of the site otherwise one would get easily robbed.

Summiya Khan, a student of culinary arts said she had the worst experience of online shopping during complete lockdown, as she ordered used high quality curtains but received a curtain containing patches of torn pairs of jeans inside.  She regretted losing a handsome amount of money in that deal.

Khansa Khan, a teacher at a private school shared her experience in this regard. She said that local authentic brands were delivering fair and good quality materials but among them there were many fake websites in the name of international brands looting innocent customers venturing online shopping.

” I try not to order the items that would be shipped from any far off country as it’s not easy to claim your money back if it appears to be a fake dealer,” she warned.

Laiba, a student of Rawalpindi Medical College said, she prefers famous local brands and has not regretted anything yet.

Saeed Mustafa a sales manager of a well known cloth brand outlet said, customers should remain careful enough while choosing among the websites for shopping through online as they could only prevent a hoax deal if only authentic and real websites of famous brands were approached, he commented.