SINGAPORE – Danish online retailer LuxStyle said on Wednesday (Jan 9) that there is nothing wrong with its order process, despite a fresh warning by Singapore’s consumer watchdog a day earlier against some of its practices.

A spokesman for Digital Sourcing, which was previously known as LuxStyle, said in an e-mail statement to The Straits Times that a purchase is made only when a customer has clicked on the “order now” button.

This step comes after the customer has filled in a delivery address, an e-mail address and viewed the prices of the products, said spokesman Jonas Hedegaard.

The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) said on Tuesday that it has received a total of 37 complaints against the business since May 2017, with customers claiming that they were billed for purchases that they did not make.

These consumers said that they had come across LuxStyle’s advertisements on social media and were asked to provide their personal information before they could take a look at the prices on its website.

However, they claimed that they did not explicitly agree to buy the items they viewed.

A document detailing the order flow process, which was shared with ST by Mr Hedegaard, states that even if the customer closes the web browser and does not select a payment method after looking at the prices, an invoice will be sent to the delivery address that the customer gave in the first step.

“It is technically impossible to order just by clicking on an ad or banner and filling in contact details,” Mr Hedegaard said.

He added that Digital Sourcing’s parent company, Lux Group, is a global cosmetics vendor with “millions of customers in 141 different markets each year”.

“Due to our vast volume, we do occasionally experience consumer complaints, but these are relatively few and do not even account for a fraction of our total, global consumer base,” he said.

Mr Hedegaard said that under a 90-day satisfaction guarantee, all customers are able to return their product and get a full refund up to 90 days after the purchase, even though they have used the product.

In December, Singapore consumers received letters from a debt collection agency asking them to pay for debt they allegedly owed to Digital Sourcing.

The debt collection activities prompted Case to issue another warning to consumers on Tuesday, after its first alert in May 2017.

Case is not the only consumer watchdog that sounded an alert on LuxStyle in the past two years. A check online shows statements issued by agencies in Denmark, Australia, Canada, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand, among others.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission received 127 complaints against LuxStyle over three months from January 2017 to March 2017. In Sweden, over 220 consumer complaints were filed in 2016.

The Danish Consumer Ombudsman also filed a police report against LuxStyle in December 2016 for violating Danish marketing practices.

But in its e-mail statement, LuxStyle said that the Danish police have not formally accused LuxStyle of any offence.

The company added that it has not been unwilling to comply with legislation in Denmark and abroad, and said that it has contacted the Ombudsman to request for a meeting to discuss the matter.

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