A company claiming to have a presence in Bristol faces accusations of selling fake shirts and failing to refund.
Direct Football Shop, an online store, gives its 'customer service and returns address' as 42 Triangle West at Clifton - but the site is empty and the latest occupant, Mail Boxes Etc, has harshly criticized the online company.
The mailbox service says it has been bombarded with return packages containing Direct Football Shop jerseys, likening the "nightmare" experience to the scene from the Harry Potter movie when a torrent of letters from Hogwarts spilled down the chimney. of the magician.
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Direct Football Shop, which has ties to Bulgaria, faces allegations that returns are accumulating in a Royal Mail warehouse and that its overseas "call center" staff do not know who owns the business. Trading Standards is investigating the store.
Jason Pepper, an accountant from Sheffield, bought an England jersey from the website on July 11 and spent ยฃ 77.84, including shipping the jersey with defender John Stones' name on the back.
The 49-year-old was excited for England's run towards the final of Euro 2020 when he placed the order. He described the England jerseys as "like chicken teeth" at the time, but the tournament was long over when the jersey arrived on August 3.
Jason was impressed with the Direct Football Shop website, which includes a customer support chat box and displays jerseys from all the Euro 2020 nations and several others.
"They have done a good job astroturfing their presence online," he said. "At first glance, it looks pretty professional. If I had done a little more research, I would have seen that it has absolutely horrible reviews on Trustpilot. But it turned up on Google and I tried."
"The shirts were around ยฃ 80 at major retailers, roughly the same as on this website. If you see a shirt advertised and it's noticeably cheaper, draw your own conclusions. If you pay ยฃ 30, you know what you're getting, but This was marketed as an authentic England jersey.
"If you order something from Sports Direct or one of the big retailers, you tend to receive it in 48 to 72 hours. This took three weeks to arrive and when it did, it was clearly a poor quality counterfeit."
Jason says the badge was the wrong size, the labels were "a shoddy fake" and the font was different from legitimate Nike England jerseys. He sent an email to Direct Football Shop on the day of delivery, complaining that it was "clearly a fake" and requesting a refund.
The company responded the same day. An unidentified customer service representative emailed Jason: "As a retailer, we are often caught between the wholesale distribution process and the customer, if an item is truly not authentic."
They added: "We pay a very high cost for this as well, as we are paying the high cost of the item and are essentially fooled by a cog in the supply chain and essentially as a company we are the losing party."
The representative asked Jason to return the item so that the company could "investigate this further and carry this out with our supply chain," promising that a refund would be "processed" once the shirt was returned.
His credit card had been charged by Online Step Trade Ltd, a company based in the Bulgarian city of Ruse. He says he was unable to reach Direct Football Shop customer service via an overseas phone number.
Jason says he sent the shirt by registered delivery to the Bristol address, where someone signed it. He says he emailed multiple times asking for an update on his refund, but even though he received "incredibly kind" responses, he says he didn't get his money back.
When Jason sent an email on September 1, warning that he had filed a formal complaint with his credit card provider, Direct Football Shop responded later that day: "Please accept my sincerest apologies, I can understand the frustration. your order will definitely be processed within this week. I would really appreciate your cooperation in this regard. "
But Jason says the week went by with no refund. At this point, his wife had bought him a replacement England jersey from Sports Direct, this authentic one. "Clearly she's not as naive as I am," Jason laughed.
The accountant, who is waiting for his card provider to finish his investigation, noted this week that Direct Football Shop had launched a sale on England jerseys for just ยฃ 59.99. He hopes that, by speaking, he can "prevent other people from being fooled."
Google lists 42 Triangle West as a unit of Mail Boxes Etc., but Bristol Live He found it unoccupied, with cables hanging from the ceiling and construction tools scattered everywhere.
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When contacted by another Mail Boxes Etc. site in the area, the franchise owner of the service for Bristol said he had been through a "nightmare" with Direct Football Shop. He had acquired the franchise at the end of May and inherited the online store account.
The franchise owner, who asked to remain anonymous, closed the Triangle West unit six weeks ago and moved services elsewhere. Direct Football Shop had paid a monthly fee to use the site for returns.
He said: "Remember the first Harry Potter movie, when Hogwarts is trying to send a letter to Harry and his aunt and uncle are trying to stop him, but the letters start to fly through the mailbox and down the chimney. That's right. how we feel.
โWe keep getting these bloody soccer jerseys. Out of curiosity, I opened one of the packages and saw the customer's details. I spoke to her and said, 'I'm so sorry, we have nothing to do with these guys.' I just wanted to see if you got your money back. '
"The customer was from Leeds and had bought a Leeds United jersey. She said, 'Don't worry love, we bought it with a credit card, so we got the money back from the bank.'
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"I felt a little better knowing that people buy with a credit card and can get their money back, but some people have returned packages saying their shirt is the wrong size and they would like a different one, so the shirts are clearly the right thing to do. Reasonable enough quality to fool some people but not others. "
The owner of the Mail Boxes Etc. franchise does not know the exact number of Direct Football Shop returns it has received, but says the number is in the dozens.
"We throw them in a box in a warehouse, and as soon as the head office says we can destroy them, we will." "We'd have a hard time giving them back to the people, and nobody wants them back anyway, so we're on a Catch 22."
โWhen you call their customer service, it is a foreign number. I asked to speak to the owner and they said, 'We don't know who he is.' I said, 'How come you don't know who you work for?' And they said, 'Well, we're just a call center.'
The franchise owner says it is his understanding that the Mail Boxes head office recently closed the company's account, which means it has not signed up for return packages in recent weeks.
"I think the t-shirts [those returned after the account was closed] they are now accumulating in the local Royal Mail depot, "he said." A Hermes driver tried to deliver one to us last week ... but we've washed our hands of [Direct Football Shop].
"Normally, with mailboxes everything is kosher, and 99 percent of it is great, but you get a bad egg or two like this one."
Direct Football Shop has an average rating of two stars after 13 reviews on Trustpilot. A review this month complained of a three-week wait for a T-shirt that eventually came too small.
The reviewer claimed that he had at least eight phone calls and five "website chats" with customer service, writing: "Every time they tell me the refund will be here in five days. It never comes and when I complain, they just tell me they are having a problem with refunds. "
Another review, also published this month, complained of a shirt with "cardboard / plastic still on the ironing parts, very poor quality and clearly fake."
"We paid ยฃ 7 to return the shirt to Bristol, we sent them the proof of postage and they said the refund will be in seven to 10 days," it reads. "Ten days there was no refund, then they said 24/48 hours, no refund, then at the end of this week, then three to five days, now again seven to 10 days."
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Jason has reported his case to the Bristol City Council Business Standards department. A council spokesperson said: โWe take any report like this seriously and our Trade Standards team is aware of these allegations. Our investigations are ongoing and we will take robust enforcement action where appropriate. ''
Explaining its customer background checks, a Mail Boxes Etc. spokesperson said: "Mail Boxes Etc. conducts customer due diligence checks to confirm the identity of companies using mailbox rental services. mail in our facilities, along with identity checks of the people who operate the companies.
"We also have systems in place to flag and record abnormal use of our services, including our compliance team responsible for reviewing complaints received about mailbox customers.
"This allows us to work closely with law enforcement, Trade Standards, and other official bodies to assist in crime prevention, when necessary. Following our compliance processes, we terminate this client's mailbox services in accordance with our terms and conditions ".
Direct Football Shop was contacted for comment.
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