Below is the blogger and dear friend Radhika @ weekendramblings.com, exposing the bad and the ugly on online shopping and of blog content theft.
The article copied with her permission ;P is about Fashion and You - (FnU for the junkies) and how unethical they are. If you have a experience with them worth sharing, please let us know.
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How Authentic is Fashion and You? As much as a Thief can be!
An online retail website that claims that every brand that they sell is guaranteed to be authentic - the following is my experience with them. I found out yesterday that a photo taken by me (and posted on my blog) has been used by FnU in their sales banners. I have mailed them twice and called them at least 5 times asking for this image to be taken down and some explanation given for their conduct but have not received ANY response and the image continues to be used by the site for commercial purposes.
The original photograph was published by me in November 2010 (here):
Despite contacting them and informing FnU regarding this mistake, they chose to just stall for time since the sale ends on April 14. They have not taken off the image from the site nor offered any sort of explanation for their behavior. Why they needed to take the image of a genuine handwoven Kanchivaram sari to sell a bunch of cheap saris I do not understand, but obviously they seem to think it's okay to steal and lie about everything. They do seem aware of concepts like "original content" and "rights" because they ask others to follow this on their FB page.
What is really disappointing is all I needed was somebody to take down the image and say a sorry. Mistakes happen, perhaps intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. All I was looking for was an apology. The site hires photographers and seems professional, and they could probably take much better photographs than what I have taken. However, they chose to take an image I posted and sit quiet about it.
The reason I have decided to post it here is I have heard a lot of complaints and bad reviews about Fashion and You ..in comments and in mails - about products being sold and not picked up for returns (though their sale policy clearly states they accept returns) and about inferior quality products sold online. It was only when I had a bad experience and I started asking around, I realized just how many people have had bad experiences with a site that thrives on "word of mouth good reviews." It's because nobody makes a noise about their bad experiences. I would request you all to please help me make a noise about FnU - tell your friends, family, anyone asking you about FnU my experience with FnU. Hopefully if the word spreads enough, they will think that the customer/ordinary person is also someone to be taken seriously. Feel free to copy-paste this article anywhere and share this article with anyone.
There are no contact numbers for this site other than the customer service numbers/mails, no contact for any other department or a person to escalate this to. A quick search through Google looking for persons to contact and I found - Pearl Uppal, someone who quit Yahoo to start this venture. Now that is some coincidence! (Click here to get that story)
I have blocked Fashion and You ads from showing on my blog - reason cited in Adsense Review - content theft. Please let me know if the ads still show up on my blog.
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