SOME readers of celebrity blogger Dawn Yang have found themselves hundreds of dollars poorer because of an ad posted on her website.

The ad for designerluxurybrands.com appeared in Dawn's blog in mid-May and it turned out to be a scam.

The professional-looking website claimed to sell designer merchandise by brands such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci at up to 70 per cent off.

Thinking the website was legitimate, some of her readers ordered bags, wallets and other branded goods and transferred money in the last three weeks to a Singapore bank account as instructed.

UNCONTACTABLE

Once the seller received payment, he became uncontactable, whether online or through his Indonesian handphone number.

The victims never received the goods in the next two to five days as promised.

It turned out that the scammer had copied and pasted the logo and contents of a real Singapore company, DesignerLuxury Pte Ltd, which was started about six years ago.

The real company's website is at www.designerluxury.com.

The fake website has since disappeared, leaving only a "Account Temporary (sic) Suspended" message for its frustrated victims.

Police spokesman Mohd Razif confirmed they have received several police reports on the fake website and are investigating.

The real DesignerLuxury company has also made a police report and is consulting lawyers about the case.

Blogger Dawn, 23, has apologised to her readers who fell victim to the scam.

She wrote on her blog: "I am deeply sorry and apologise to the affected readers who had purchased items from the fake store.

"I recommend them to make a police report, and I will gladly help furnish any available details I have of the company."

But the apology was of scant comfort to victims like Ms Chua H T, 20, whose husband was cheated of $600 after he ordered a bag from the fake website.

She said: "We trusted that since the ad was posted on Dawn's website, she probably bought something from it. But she didn't.

"I feel she shouldn't post something she's not sure of."

Another victim, Malaysian student Michelle Ng, 18, e-mailed The New Paper on Sunday about the scam.

She had spotted the ad on Dawn's blog, and decided to buy her first-ever branded bag, a Gucci Jolicoeur, for RM900 ($375).

She said: "It's more than RM2,000 on the market and only RM900 here. What a bargain!"

She said that while she was worried she would end up getting a fake bag, she decided to take the risk as it was so much cheaper.

Michelle said she communicated with the seller, who called himself Mark, mostly through Internet messaging and e-mail.

After she paid up in late May, she was told the bag would be delivered in three to five days.

SUSPICIOUS

She tried e-mailing "Mark", but the seller, who had previously taken mere hours to reply to her enquiries, ignored her e-mail messages.

Michelle said: "I then started to panic and became really suspicious. RM900 is a lot of money."

Ms Chua and her husband, Mr Siew C R, 24, a sales director, told a similar story. The seller "Mark" went missing after receiving the $600 meant for the Louis Vuitton canvas Neverfull bag they had ordered.

Mr Siew and Michelle, who were instructed to send their payments to a United Overseas Bank (UOB) account here, then separately posed as "new" customers to try and re-establish contact with "Mark".

Michelle said that when she revealed her identity, "Mark" immediately blocked her from his Internet messaging account. She did this five times with the same result.

She then posted her experience, together with screenshots of the fake website, on her blog.

Separately, Mr Siew made a police report on 2 Jun. He and Michelle also e-mailed Dawn about the scam.

Mr Siew did Internet searches and contacted other victims of the fake website.

One of them e-mailed to say that she had been cheated of $2,300. She said she has contacted UOB about the case, and advised him to do the same.

A UOB spokesman confirmed that the bank received one feedback about the case early last week.

EMBARRASSING

Michelle said that she felt "so stupid" after realising she had been cheated.

She said: "The reason I am telling you about this embarrassing experience of mine is because I do not wish to see anyone else out there being tempted and fooled by this fraud."

Dawn's manager, Mr Noel Davenash from Looque Models, said she had been contacted by the fake seller in May to post an ad on her blog.

"She went through the site and allowed the ad because it seemed genuine," he said, adding that Dawn had received "a few hundred dollars" for posting the ad.

When she heard about her readers being cheated about a week later, Dawn tried to contact the seller but to no avail. Meantime, she had put up a warning above the ad telling readers to be careful.

She took down the ad when the real DesignerLuxury company contacted her, her manager said.

Mr Davenash said that to reduce the chances of something like this happening again, Dawn is now allowing ads from new sources to be placed on her website only after being vetted by Looque.