Left at the altar

Staff reporter

Shopping for a wedding dress is usually a once-in-a-lifetime thrill but after selecting, fitting and paying for their dream gowns, many Hong Kong brides say they went to pick up their dresses only to find empty stores and vanished vendors.

More than 100 newlyweds claim they have fallen victim to a company which uses different store names, and they have each suffered losses ranging from HK$1,000 to over HK$30,000.

One of the women, who wants to be identified only as Fan, paid a company that goes by the name of Dolly Bridal a total of HK$32,600 upfront for a gown, photography, bridal makeup and other services on PayPal, before actually getting her hands on the wedding dress.

Fan says she took two measurements at its studio in Lai Chi Kok last year but was forced to postpone her wedding due to social restrictions amid the Covid pandemic.

She was then told by the salespeople that the store had relocated to Kwun Tong and she could reschedule her date without any extra charges. But after setting a new date for her wedding, she found the company unreachable.

In desperation, Fan turned to the internet to dig up more about Dolly Bridal and to her astonishment found other women who said they had fallen victim to similar scams. She then started a group for them, which now has over 100 women who say they have similarly scammed.

Another woman called Suki says she found the style and quality of the wedding dresses in a store she spotted online were outdated and did not want to rent it but the salesperson at the shop named Chere Wedding promised that there would be new dresses arriving in January and persuaded her to place a deposit.

She made a down payment of HK$2,000 but later realized her receipt had the name of another bridal store, Lebelle, and a different address.

But when January came, Suki could not get in touch with the shop, as the phone number on the receipt was unreachable. She then turned to the internet and found a couple of other women had gone to pick up their wedding dresses recently but the store was not open.

All the women say that though the names of the bridal stores they patronized were different - Lena Rosa, Chere Wedding, Lebelle and Laruku Wedding - the paper trail appears to lead to Dolly Bridal.

This is because all their receipts are in the same format and have the same company address, with the only difference being the names and logos of the companies.

Fan says she first rented a dress from a bridal store called Lena Rosa before going to Dolly Bridal for a fitting, where staff told her that both Dolly Bridal and Lena Rosa belonged to the same company. She later got a receipt signed by a staff member named Irene, but without a company seal.

Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung says receipts are similar to contracts and can be used as evidence of transactions.

However, he admits it will be more difficult for the women to lodge any claims if they were given receipts in the name of other companies.

If a company persuades customers to pre-order dresses but does not deliver them in time and offers no reasonable explanation - such as shipping delays - they can be held accountable for deception, he says.

He adds that there is reason to believe that this bridal company's operations are questionable since there are over 100 women who claim they have been scammed.

Luk says the women should seek legal advice and file reports as soon as possible so that police can launch investigations.

Meanwhile, the police say that the Kwun Tong Police Station received a report from a woman surnamed Kwok who claimed to be the victim of a suspected wedding dress store fraud and the case has been classified as a "miscellaneous incident."