The Wish Platform is allegedly engaging in deceptive marketing practices, according to the Fraud Squad.

 

 

"Buying while having fun. "That's the motto of Wish, the online store for people who like to buy great deals and phone hulls for less than 3 euros. The Californian platform, which aggregates sellers from all over the world, and mainly from Asia, is today in the collimator's collimator of the General Directorate of Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF).

During a vast survey of a dozen e-commerce sites conducted since 2019, Wish drew the attention of the French authorities. By combing through nearly 9,000 ads on its site, the DGCCRF found "a fictitious "generalized discount practice", with "phenomenal price reductions calculated in relation to a deceptive, artificially inflated reference price," explains Romain Roussel, cabinet director at the DGCCRF.
More than 80% of the references studied were sold, very often between 70% and 90%. "This is really how the platform works. Consumers thought they were getting a good deal when the product was available on other sites at a lower price," continues Mr. Roussel. Prices that are constantly on sale without any economic reality that constitute "a deception to consumers, but also unfair competition with merchants who are transparent," he explains.

"It would be akin to counterfeiting." 

But the anomalies didn't stop there: "Products from well-known brands, which were advertised to attract customers to the platform, were not available for purchase. Consumers who were attracted by the ads were switching to other products," says Roussel. Investigators also found items with logos that looked like famous brands but were not. "That would be counterfeit," says Roussel. In addition, many of the descriptions on the French version of the Web site were written in English. "That's not legal. Consumers must be able to make an informed choice by having all the features of the product," concludes Mr. Roussel.