便宜没好货? 网购需警惕

"便宜没好货",是中国众人皆知的一句俗语,但网络上那些让人难以置信的低价格的高档化妆品却吸引了无数的女性掏腰包.业内专家提醒说,网购低价化妆品,多半不靠谱.

Reporter:

Like many Chinese women, Xu Wen has fallen in love with purchasing cosmetics online. Not only shopping on major e-commerce portals like taobao.com, but she has made group purchases on several websites often. Recently, she bought a high-end brand lotion online with 70 percent marked off the original price, but later she found it was a fake one.

"I bought the lotion from a store online with a high reputation. The sales representative assured me it's an authentic product. But when I received it, I've found it's definitely a fake one."

According to statistics from China Consumer's Association, about 10 percent complaints were filed due to fake cosmetics purchases in 2010, and about 80 percent of those were products purchased online. Recently, China Consumer Association has issued a consumption warning to online consumers, to remind them to make purchases from legal franchises and outlets.

Wang Qianhu from the Association says scams usually hide behind great discounts online.

"Huge discounts usually are online frauds. Our records show many consumers have been cheated online by purchasing fake products of reputed brands from illegal online stores, websites or from individual sellers online."

Many online shops claim to sell authentic foreign high-end cosmetics brands at very low prices, which were found to have been fraudulent. Indeed, "low price doesn't mean good quality" is again proven to be true.

In order to protect the reputation of their own products, some cosmetic companies are forced to take action. Manager Li Hongbo from Chengmei Cosmetics Company based in Beijing says his company has started to fight against fake products sold online.

"The company has established a special team to blow away online sellers who sell fake products of our brands. Every manager has their own mission to accomplish every month. Their main task is to find those offer great discounts of our brands online and collect evidence to sue them."

Experts say it is difficult for online shoppers to protect their rights due to lack of evidence and related regulations concerning online trades.

Cosmetics Researcher Wang Qianhu from China Consumer Association reminds customers to ask for receipts from online sellers and keep online talking records as evidence in case scams take place. He also says cosmetic buyers need to pay attention to details even when shopping in traditional stores.

"For example, if a sales person only brags about how good the product is without letting you to try some, then you must be careful. Also, if the bar code, warranty and production date have been erased or covered by other information, then you need to double-check it."

The fack cosmetic products sold on some major online shopping websites like taobao.com have also hurted the portal's reputation. In order to protect their credit, taobao.com once invested 100 million yuan to fight against such conducts. They've closed down about 10 thosuand stores on taobao.com which sells fake cosmetics.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.