BALTIMORE — This holiday season, retailers are relying heavily on social media ads to entice shoppers. One caught the eye of Renan Pires. The ad was for a magic wand that shoots fireballs.
“This is a Harry Potter wand that I saw online,” Pires said holding the wand. “I had friends talking about it, I had people linking it to me, so it really piqued my interest.”
With a spell and a button, the website claims you can become the wizard you’ve always dreamed of being.
“So, you’re supposed to put these pieces of paper crumbled up inside the wand, and then you press this button, and it ignites the paper, and it shoots it out and it combusts fast enough in which it just disappears, so it looks like a fireball,” said Pires.
Except this wand doesn’t work as advertised.
“It doesn’t do anything. That was like the first giveaway that the button didn’t seem to do much except heat up the tip, but it does not ignite or do anything else,” Pires said.
He requested a refund of his $124 purchase under the website’s 30-day money back guarantee. The seller then asked for a video. When Pires declined, the seller questioned his mental health and accused him of being the scammer.
“When you see something go viral and people like it over and over and over, you have greater trust in it,” said Angie Barnett, president & CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving greater Maryland.
The BBB continues to receive reports of shoppers who were lured to fake websites through social media ads.
“We think oh, a scammer’s not going to pay to post ads there. Oh yes, they will because the rewards are so much greater,” Barnett added.
For Pires, this was his second bad buy in two months.
“These are Air Jordans that I purchased on a website online that I was linked to by Google, and it turned out that they are knockoffs,” said Pires.
Once again, the photos and price convinced him to make the purchase.
“Yes, it was a lot lower. It was $190 compared to what these go for, which is generally anywhere from $300-$500 so I thought it was a great deal,” said Pires.
Barnett recommends vetting a website by reviewing the fine print.
“I always go to privacy policy, terms and conditions. A, do they even have it? And B, a lot of times they lift it from somewhere else and the company’s name or information is still listed. Address, if you can find one, put it in your web browser. Recently, we had somebody that was using a courthouse of all things for their bogus business address,” said Barnett.
Pires obtained a refund for the counterfeit sneakers from PayPal and filed another dispute for the wand order.
For added protection, place any online orders with PayPal or a credit card. And screenshot the product details. If you receive something that’s different than what was advertised, you can provide that information during the dispute process.