Heatwave scams: watch out for dodgy air-conditioner offers
Tali writes about scams and consumer rights for Which? delving into fraud, technology and consumer rights topics to keep readers safe and empowered.
As the temperatures continue to soar, Which? is warning shoppers to watch out for fake and non-existent air-conditioning units being flogged online.
Throughout the heatwaves, the demand for air-conditioning units has been unsurprisingly high, and scammers have seized the opportunity to capitalise on this. Some of the biggest cons have been a fake Aldi website selling air-con units and various dodgy 'air cooler' products being peddled on social media.
Which? has now been alerted to an online retailer currently trading as 'Picadex', which claims to sell household items including air conditioners, yet customers complain of receiving nothing, that a product isn't as described and of unauthorised card charges.
Read on to see how dodgy retailers are capitalising on the heatwave, plus how you can spot and avoid these scams.
Who is Picadex?
On its website, Picadex advertises portable and wall-mountable air conditioners from £39.95 to £199 at a time when the country is experiencing multiple heatwaves.
It claims to dispatch orders from its Birmingham warehouse within 24 hours. But when Which? looked up this address, we found it’s actually for another business which appears to have nothing to do with Picadex.
The website makes for an interesting read; it claims to have an ‘excellent 4.9-star review average on Trustpilot', yet when we actually examined its Trustpilot page, we found a more revealing rating of 1.3 stars. Which? also found imagery likely generated by Artificial Intelligence, including an image showing someone using one of Picadex's air conditioners.
The image looks too perfect and the product appears to be a generic portable fan, with identical products being found for sale across the internet under different product names.
Which? found that the contact number on Picadex's website was also used on another site selling air conditioners, and that an image of a ceiling light supposedly for sale was used on another retail website, indicating that whoever is behind the company may be operating more than one website.
On Companies House, the public register of incorporated and limited companies, there's an active proposal to strike off the company, which, if it goes through, means that the company will cease to exist.
While Which? couldn’t find any active adverts for the retailer at the time of writing. We did find an advertiser profile for Picadex on Facebook, which claimed that the company is based in Morocco and has changed its name three times since 2021. Previous website versions also suggest that Picadex has rebranded its website before.
Which? found complaints appearing on Reddit and Trustpilot. Comments document experiences of orders not arriving, items not being as described, products being shipped from China and orders taking weeks to arrive, being charged multiple times for one product and struggling to get responses from customer service.
Some customers mentioned spending around £500 on products and receiving nothing in return.
Which? contacted Picadex about this story, but it didn't respond to our questions.
Five tips to spot dodgy online shops
- A web address unrelated to the brand it claims to be from.
- A newly registered website which can be checked by typing it into Who.is.
- Prices and discounts which sound too good to be true.
- Missing contact information, an about us page or a privacy policy.
- Bad reviews across multiple platforms.
Getting your money back
If you have paid by debit card, you can try to get a refund by making a chargeback claim or a Section 75 claim if you paid by credit card and the cost was more than £100.
You can report scam websites to the National Cyber Security Centre on its website. You should also report scams to Report Fraud or call the police on 101 if you’re in Scotland.
