For the past couple of days, I’ve been seeing some very peculiar ads on Facebook: websites promoting sales of up to 80% off on so-called Italian handmade products.
At first glance, they all look the same.
White background, a name recalling a beautiful Italian city in the logo, and a heart-wrenching story explaining why the business is supposedly closing — and therefore the reason for the sale.
Front and center there’s always a beautiful photo of the artisan at work, in their “Italian” workshop, accompanied by a melancholic story about the imminent closure.
Too bad that, if you dig just a little deeper, something doesn’t add up.
There is a “Contact” page, but almost always no real “About us” page. There’s no coherent brand story and, quite often, no physical address at all.
Pay close attention: in most cases, this is not Italian craftsmanship, but Chinese resellers passing off extremely low-quality industrial products as handmade.
When the item arrives — if it arrives at all — it doesn’t match the description. Returns are practically impossible, since the return shipping costs more than the product itself.
What really caught my eye was the photo of the artisan on the homepage: too perfect. Faces, hands, environments… everything has that artificial look typical of AI-generated images.
That’s when I started checking reviews on Trustpilot: all negative, reporting poor quality, nonexistent customer support, and impossible returns.
These are, in every sense, scams operating undisturbed.
And Facebook?
Facebook doesn’t check. It profits from the ads, so these promotions keep circulating without any issue.
Be careful.
As an example:
https://luciasofiagioielli.com/
https://elena-firenze.com/