If you haven’t owned, or at least deeply wanted to own a pair of Dr. Martens, you may not understand why people are willing to splurge thousands of rands on the edgy and timeless footgear. However, if you, like many other locals are constantly scouring the internet and thrift stores for that perfect cop at a reasonable price, you may just get tied up in a scam if you tread down the wrong path, no matter how pretty it looks.
One website that looks elaborately real is www.drmsouthafrlca.com. From the web layout to the user-friendly interface, it has certainly put a lot of effort into seemingly deceiving customers – with the illustrious offer of dreamy discounts.
But the river of dreams has been warned to be a river of deceit, as after you pay for your purchase, you’re more likely to meet Dr. Marten himself than to receive it.
Many South Africans took to call That Shoe Lady, the only distributor in SA to sell real Dr. Martens (beyond second-hand pairs), in querying about their purchase whereabouts. Cape {town} Etc reached out to the Woodstock division to ask about the website, to which one of the employees conferred that they receive calls daily complaining about the site as their orders never show up – a key sign of a fake site.
As the employee explained, if you use the website and pay for the shoes, you’ll get a reference number, but this is as far as it seems to go.
Scamwatcher.com has also put the website on its fraudulent website list.
In speaking to a Dr. Martens hopeful who figured the site to be a scam, the individual told Cape {town} Etc that the site was one of the top results when searching Dr Martens in South Africa.
“I just had a feeling…certain things didn’t seem right despite the site being well put together. It seems to have been taken down since,” they added.
The page seems to be unreachable at the time of this article’s writing.
Also read:
City of Cape Town shares graphic smash and grab video without victim’s consent
Picture: Dr. Martens/ Instagram