A friend recently sent two pictures my way of people they know shopping at one of Zara’s shops in Beirut and discovering that they were possibly victims of fraud by a chain that many believed wouldn’t resort to such techniques for profit.
Every year, come sales time, retailers slash prices off many of their items in attempts to lure customers into buying. We all fall for it – what’s better than paying a whole lot less for something that, a few days ago, cost a whole lot more?
Except it seems to be possible that some retailers have reverted to a technique that many of us had only heard of before but haven’t seen: increasing the pre-sales price on an item and then applying the sales discount on that, to maximize profitability on the item to be sold.
I don’t know how long this practice has been going on in their premises nor do I know if other retailers in Lebanon also adopt this fraudulent technique to rip us off of our hard-earned money. What it seems to be, however, is that even shopping in Lebanon isn’t the simple straightforward matter that it should be.
Perhaps it’s a typing mistake, perhaps it’s not. But even international brands may not above bending the law when they set ship over here. Today even our markets are in anarchy. With no control, no safeguards, no monitoring and no regulations, who protects the average Lebanese customer from falling to such practices?
Filed under: Lebanon
