Citizens Advice helped a UK consumer with a fashion purchase every seven minutes last year.
That figure alone would be enough to raise eyebrows, but the context makes it considerably more troubling.
According to the advisory charity, the rising use of AI by fashion retailers contributed to almost 18,000 complaints from customers in 2025 – a 21% surge on the year prior.
The core problem, as Citizens Advice sees it, is that AI-generated imagery is making it easier than ever for bad actors to advertise products that bear little resemblance to what eventually lands on a customer’s doorstep.
Of the complaints logged, 82% related to online orders (14,487 cases), with women’s clothing alone accounting for nearly half of all issues (48%).
The top complaints were faulty goods (18%), delivery failures or delays (13%), and trouble returning unwanted goods (12%). One in 13 complaints involved outright scams.
A Familiar Setup, Made Easier
The mechanics of these scams follow a recognizable pattern:
- A shopper spots a discounted item through a targeted social media ad.
- The seller lists a UK address.
- The product arrives looking nothing like the photographs.
- When the customer tries to return it, they’re directed to ship it overseas at their own expense.
For Hannah, a mother in her 30s from the East Midlands, that’s precisely how it went.
She spotted a jacket advertised at half price by a company claiming to operate from London’s Covent Garden and paid £35 for it. But when it arrived, the jacket was unrecognizable.
In discussing the incident, Hannah explained that the jacket was “a totally different material and color, and not as premium as it was pictured.
“The pockets were different and it had massive plastic buttons, but the one in the photograph had nice metal ones. It even smelled cheap.”
Trying to get a refund only made things worse. She said:
“The service felt very different to any other clothing company I’d dealt with. They asked for pictures of the jacket I’d received and I thought ‘this company sent the item to me, surely they should know what it looks like’.
“They said I could return the jacket if I sent it to China at my own expense, it left me fuming. I looked up the cost of shipping and it was about £15. The website clearly stated it was a UK business, which was deceptive.”
Hannah eventually got her money back through her bank. But she knew to report it. Many shoppers in the same position don’t.
Where AI Fits In
What separates this wave of complaints from standard online retail fraud is how AI is being used to scale it.
Generating a polished, convincing product image no longer requires a photoshoot, a designer, or even a real product. That’s the problem.
Scammers can now produce professional-looking storefronts and advertisements at virtually no cost, making it genuinely difficult for shoppers to distinguish between a legitimate UK retailer and a fraudulent operation running from an overseas warehouse.
Jane Parsons, Consumer Spokesperson at Citizens Advice, noted:
“Consumers face all kinds of problems from receiving faulty items, to waiting weeks for deliveries and poor customer service.
“Plus, the ever-increasing use of AI makes it easier for scammers to trick people into buying items that look nothing like the images advertised.
“It’s important consumers know what steps to take before they part with their cash or after there’s an issue. It can make all the difference in avoiding a trap or getting a refund.”
Citizens Advice does advise consumers to look for clues in the imagery itself, such as overly airbrushed textures, distortions around the body or face, and inconsistencies in the fabric.
This is useful guidance, of course, but it assumes a level of visual literacy that most shoppers are only now being forced to develop.
The Wider Cost
For the retail industry, this moves beyond a consumer protection story.
Legitimate brands stand to lose ground too, as shoppers become broadly suspicious of online product imagery. When everything looks potentially fake, the trust deficit doesn’t stay contained to the fraudsters.
Social media platforms have a specific role to answer for here. Targeted shopping ads are explicitly flagged by Citizens Advice as one of the primary routes through which consumers get drawn in.
The tools enabling these scams are, in many cases, the same ad products that those platforms profit from.
A 21% year-on-year rise in complaints isn’t a blip. Whether the industry treats it like one is another question.
