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Hugfirst is a website that claims to be selling women’s clothing at discounted prices. It has consistently been among the most-searched websites on Scamadviser.com. Therefore, we have done an in-depth review for the benefit of our users.
Official Domain
hugfirst.com
Registered on
2020-11-12
Location
Guangdong, China
Owner
Not provided
Alexa Rank
703,252 (Very Low)
Website Speed
No data
Hugfirst is a website that claims to sell women’s clothing and accessories such as tops, dresses, bottoms, swimwear, shoes and more at low prices.
The store was created relatively recently as the domain name was registered in November 2020 from Guangdong, China. Other important details such as the registrant’s name and location have not been provided. Therefore, it is a new website that is being operated anonymously from a high-risk country.
The products being sold on the websites appear to be mass-produced Chinese goods. The same clothing can be found on numerous other websites that are also Chinese online stores.
The images on the site are not actual pictures of the products. They are designs superimposed onto stock photos of models. Therefore, they can be considered as being deceptive due to the pictures not accurately representing the items that customers can expect to receive.
The text content on the website is not original either. The ‘Who are we?’ page of the website contains the following text:
We value all our customers:
Our professional customer service team is always here to help you. Your satisfaction is our top priority. moreover, you can easily get your order anywhere in the world thanks to our worldwide shipping service.
The same text can be found on at least 28 other websites that are equally dubious. I ran the list of sites through the Scamadviser Analyzer and found that 22 out of 29 (75.9%) websites analyzed have shared IP addresses. The average Review Score of these sites is just 0.44 out of 5, which reflects poorly on Hugfirst.
While testing the checkout process, I found that the PayPal account associated with the website is named ‘hugfirst Inc’. However, there is no reason to believe that this is a real company due to reasons that are covered in this article’s Company Information section.
Email ID
service@HugFirst.com
Phone Number
Not provided
Address
Aober UK Limited
Suite 10c,17-23 Queen Street,Deal, Kent,United Kingdom CT14 6EY(Not the return address)
Social Media Profiles
14 Facebook pages
Scamadviser Verification
The Scamadviser page of Hugfirst has not been claimed by the company.
The website has no real information behind the company running the website. In fact, there seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead customers regarding the website’s origins. As we already know from the domain registration information, Hugfirst is a Chinese operation.
However, the only company name and address mentioned on the site is that of a UK-based company named Aober UK Limited. This company seems to be a shell incorporation intended to hide Hugfirst’s Chinese origin. Aober UK Limited is actually owned by a Hong Kong-based company name ‘Aober Network Technology (Hong Kong) Co., Limited’ and the Director is a Chinese national. There is absolutely no mention of China or Hong Kong anywhere on the website and neither is there any mention of ‘Hugfirst Inc’.
Though no social media links are provided on the website, I found that Hugfirst has at least 14 separate Facebook pages and all of them are being used for advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Two of these pages have also been deleted, presumably due to complaints from customers. Hugfirst is running hundreds of ads through these pages.
The page information on Facebook also confirms that Hugfirst is a Chinese operation as the majority of page admins are from Macau. Other locations include Bangladesh, India and the Philippines but these are most likely a deception.
One of these pages has been marked as ‘Permanently Closed’ but is still running advertisements. The reason for the page being marked as ‘Permanently Closed’ is probably due to several customers leaving negative reviews as users are prevented from leaving new reviews once the page is marked as ‘closed’. The reviews are discussed in detail in this article’s User Reviews section.
The only real way to contact Hugfirst is via email. The Contact Us page does not even provide the email ID; it only has a contact form. The email ID ‘service@HugFirst.com’ can be found on the ‘Return & Exchange’ page. It is never a good sign when a website does not provide multiple means to contact the company.
As mentioned earlier, there are several reviews on the ‘Hugfirst-shop’ Facebook page. A number of reviews have also been posted on TrustPilot. The reviews on both platforms are exclusively negative.
Customers have complained about issues such as non-delivery, extremely long delivery times, missing items, wrong sizes, inferior quality, terrible customer service and bait-and-switch advertising.
Many of the reviews also mention common scam tactics such as only providing refunds in the form of store credits as well as refusal to provide a refund unless the item is shipped back to China at the customer’s expense. You can find information on the steps to take to obtain a full refund in such a case here.
There is an extremely high likelihood that Hugfirst might be a scam.
It has a Trust Score of 1% on Scamadviser, indicating that it is incredibly risky to shop on this website. You can read more about Hugfirst’s Trust Score here.
It is a relatively new website that has been created in November 2020. There are multiple signs indicating that it is operated from China which is a high-risk country for scams. Curiously, the website itself does not mention China at all.
The images of the products on the website seem to be deceptive as they are not actual photos of the clothing. They are simply designs photoshopped onto stock images of models. Therefore, customers are likely to receive something other than what they see. Indeed, this does seem to be exactly the case as per customer reviews.
The only company information provided is the name of a UK-based company called Aober UK Limited appears to be a shell incorporation as the Director is a Chinese national and it is owned by a Hong Kong-based company with a similar name.
The clothing items sold on Hugfirst are also sold by a number of other websites. These websites also share the same content and also have shared IP addresses. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Hugfirst and the 28 similar websites are all part of an organized network of online stores operated by the same owners.
An extremely suspicious find regarding Hugfirst is that it is advertising on Facebook and Instagram using at least 14 different Facebook pages. Not only is this unusual but the page information also confirms that they are operated from China. Therefore, the fact that only a UK company name is provided on the website can also be construed as intentional deception.
It should be noted that one of these pages has been marked as ‘Permanently Closed’ probably because customers were flooding it with negative reviews. Even though the business has been marked as closed, it continues to run ads.
Not a single positive review for Hugfirst could be found online. Customers have complained about various things such as packages being delivered after waiting for months or not being delivered at all, items being missing, clothing being in the wrong sizes, poor quality of the clothing and misleading advertising.
They have also complained that requests for refunds went unanswered or were refused. Hugfirst has apparently been asking customers to ship items back to China at their own expense in order to receive a full refund or accept a partial refund in the form of store credits. This is a common tactic employed by countless Chinese stores to make customers give up on getting their money back.
It is advisable to avoid shopping on Hugfirst or any of the related 28 websites as the odds of them being scams are tremendously high.
Hugfirst is one among countless dubious e-commerce stores that originate from China but do not disclose their origins. It is important to exercise caution when shopping online to avoid losing your money or ending up unhappy with your purchase.
To know more about how you can have a pleasant online shopping experience while ordering from Chinese ecommerce stores, read the article 7 Common Mistakes to Avoid with Chinese Stores.
You can also check our list of Reliable Chinese Ecommerce Sites from where you can order products directly from China without getting scammed. You can also take a look at our list of Reliable Fashion Websites.
Read our reviews of other dodgy online stores with connections to several other websites:
Follow our social media channels for news about the latest scams and tips to stay safe online. We also invite you to join the growing community of scam fighters on our Facebook Group.
List of websites that have the same content as Hugfirst:
bathsoappaper.com
begreenday.com
biowuly.com
chiczala.com
coubird.com
crisnow.com
dhs-store.com
dianalike.com
drunkele.com
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globalmallgoods.com
godezone.com
grimmanggun.com
guyowl.co
holagken.com
noralady.com
rainmarker.com
salonjoe.com
snazzywe.com
stuzzytom.com
stuzzywow.com
taclot.com
thetimbro.com
timepauseing.com
uhomedeco.top
voguwe.com
whostrap.com
yuyoins.com
This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact Scamadviser.com using this form.
