Online fashion complaints in the United Kingdom increased significantly last year, with the consumer-help organisation Citizens Advice receiving nearly 18,000 complaints about clothing, shoes and accessories — about 21 % more than the year before. Most of these disputes (around 82 %) involved online purchases, according to the advisory service, which found it was assisting a consumer with a fashion purchase issue roughly every seven minutes. Officials say the growing use of AI in advertising and retail promotions has made some scam listings more convincing and harder for shoppers to spot.
Consumer advocates noted that professional-looking product images, increasingly generated or enhanced with AI, can make low-quality or misleading adverts appear authentic. These convincing visuals have helped create scams where customers think they are buying from legitimate UK retailers — but receive goods that look nothing like the advertised images, or in some cases nothing at all. One in 13 of the complaints involved such fraud-related incidents, where shoppers were misled about the origin of the seller and faced difficulties with returns and refunds.
The most common problems shoppers reported included faulty goods, delayed deliveries, difficulty returning unwanted items, and poor customer service. Women’s clothing accounted for nearly half of all complaints, with men’s clothing making up about a fifth, showing that these issues affected a broad range of buyers. Many customers were asked to return items to overseas addresses at their own expense — often at significant cost — after realising that the merchandise was not as promised.
Consumer experts warn that while AI can create more attractive and engaging product listings, it also lowers barriers for scammers to produce convincing and misleading adverts. They urge shoppers to take precautions, such as verifying retailer authenticity, avoiding deals that seem “too good to be true”, using secure payment methods, and checking online reviews before making purchases. UK consumer law also remains harder to enforce when sellers are based abroad, making awareness and caution especially important.
