![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759915628_913_grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"C'est](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ea8c5ae0-9acf-11f0-a76e-93cad8547592.jpg.webp.webp\")
C’est La Vie<\/p>\nAlice Cullinane and<\/p>\n
Rebecca WoodsBirmingham<\/p>\n
C’est La Vie<\/p>\n
The images of “Patrick and Eileen” are among those AI-generated, experts say <\/p>\n
Unscrupulous foreign firms are using AI-generated images and false back stories to pose as family-run UK businesses to lure in shoppers.<\/p>\n
Customers say they feel “completely ripped off” after believing they were buying from independent boutiques in England but were delivered cheap clothes and jewellery, mass-shipped from warehouses in east Asia.<\/p>\n
Among the websites is C’est La Vie, a shop purporting to be run by couple Eileen and Patrick for 29 years and based in Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter – but with a returns address in China.<\/p>\n
Consumer guide Which?<\/a> said the growing use of AI tools was making it possible for fraudsters to mislead the public on an “unprecedented” scale.<\/p>\n Another website appearing to use AI-generated images is Mabel & Daisy, a seemingly quintessential, mother and daughter-owned clothing firm, which claims to be based in Bristol but has an address in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n More than 500 one-star reviews for the companies appear on review platform Trustpilot, with customers complaining of paying high prices for cheaply made goods and being charged extortionate return fees.<\/p>\n Shoppers told the BBC they were targeted by ads as they scrolled on Facebook. <\/p>\n The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which recently banned ads by Marble Muse, a Chinese clothing company pretending to be based in London<\/a>, said social media platforms also had their part to play in tackling the issue.<\/p>\n The BBC has contacted Facebook owner Meta for comment.<\/p>\n A grieving widow and 80%-off sale<\/p>\n “Eileen” told customers she was closing down her shop with a huge sale<\/p>\n With their warm smiles, branded shirts and cabinets full of jewellery behind them, Eileen and Patrick are the perfect image of a successful husband and wife team.<\/p>\n Except, they are literally too perfect, according to a professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham, Mark Lee.<\/p>\n “Previously there were obvious clues, for instance AI had difficulty generating realistic hands with plausible finger placement,” he said after viewing the website. <\/p>\n “This seems well done but the images look a little bit too perfect and staged to be real.”<\/p>\n ‘Lumps of resin’<\/p>\n Recent adverts for C’est La Vie, which claims to be based in Colmore Row, Birmingham, stated that the couple had befallen a tragedy – Eileen’s “beloved husband” Patrick had died and she was shutting the business down with an 80%-off clearance sale.<\/p>\n “I’ve battled to keep our handmade jewellery boutique alive but grief has drained my strength and I must close our doors,” it said.<\/p>\n But customers lured in by the sob story posted furious reviews on Trustpilot about receiving “lumps of resin”, “plastic junk” and “cheap metal rubbish”.<\/p>\n “If I could give 0 stars, I would – complete scam, no such company in Birmingham, can’t believe I fell for it,” one said.<\/p>\n The website claimed huge discounts were available on all items<\/p>\n Sunny Pal, who runs Astella Jewellery in Birmingham, said that the scams damaged the reputation of the city’s Jewellery Quarter and tarnished the hard work of local businesses.<\/p>\n “The lying ruins the distinguishing factor between different businesses. It takes the credibility away from family-run businesses that have been here for so long,” he said.<\/p>\n Within hours of the BBC’s first approach to C’est La Vie, its website stated all its products had sold out, the business was closed with a message from Eileen that said: “We’re carefully packing and shipping the final orders that were placed.”<\/p>\n The name of the business on its website then temporarily changed to “Alice and Fred” before returning to its C’est La Vie branding. <\/p>\n The company did not reply to a request for comment. <\/p>\n Customers said Mabel & Daisy looked professional and authentic <\/p>\n Justyne Gough spent \u00a340 on a pink floral dress from Mabel & Daisy, a business that claims to have created “timeless clothing” in Bristol since 2022.<\/p>\n She realised it was a “complete scam” when the garment arrived weeks later looking nothing like the elegant dress on the website and made of an “awful material”. <\/p>\n “The website looked lovely, professional and authentic but I had to email a few times to say the items hadn’t arrived even though the money had been taken straight away,” she said.<\/p>\n Justyne Gough’s cheaply made dress cost \u00a340<\/p>\n When she tried to return it, Ms Gough was told it would cost another \u00a320. She eventually managed to get a refund of \u00a320. <\/p>\n Emma, from Birmingham, said she tried to send a \u00a350 jacket back to Mabel & Daisy which was far too big – but was told to keep it and, for an extra \u00a310, she could be sent a smaller size.<\/p>\n “There was no way I wanted to give them any more money – I realised it wasn’t based in Bristol when a load of Chinese symbols popped up when my initial transaction went through,” she said.<\/p>\n Mabel & Daisy did not respond to our questions.<\/p>\n ‘Poor-quality tat’<\/p>\n Last month, in response to a complaint from BBC’s Watchdog<\/a>, the ASA banned ads for a so-called “British” clothing firm<\/a> that used images of roses, cobbled streets and the union jack when it was shipping goods from a warehouse in Asia.<\/p>\n The regulator said it was continuing to take action on misleading ads. <\/p>\n But their spokesperson added: “Other regulators and the platforms on which these ads appear all have a part to play in tackling this issue.”<\/p>\n Sue Davies, from Which?, said trading standards teams were “severely under-resourced and not well-equipped” to deal with the websites, meaning many could be going uninvestigated. <\/p>\n “Although the onus should not fall on consumers, there are steps they can take to limit the risk of ending up with poor-quality tat,” she said.<\/p>\n Shoppers should check reviews online to see how other people have found the company’s products and customer service.<\/p>\n It is also worth checking if the company is based in the UK – terms and conditions pages can reveal the location of businesses.<\/p>\n Identifiable locations<\/p>\n Prof Mark Lee said some things to look for were “images of the person in different settings, with different backgrounds and the inclusion of real, identifiable locations”.<\/p>\n But he warned: “AI is becoming better every day and soon the challenge might not be to prove whether the site is AI-generated but whether there’s actually a real human involved at all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alice Cullinane and Rebecca WoodsBirmingham C’est La Vie The images of “Patrick and Eileen” are among those AI-generated,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-197763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"C'est](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/f58636d0-a2a6-11f0-b41e-0d1eddfd7cf3.jpg.webp.webp\")
C’est La Vie<\/p>\n![\"C'est](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/78e71060-a2b3-11f0-bced-69e06f2484e5.jpg.webp.webp\")
C’est La Vie<\/p>\n![\"Mabel&Daisy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/57118420-9ab1-11f0-a5a9-ef712abe4eeb.png.webp.webp\")
Mabel&Daisy<\/p>\n![\"Justyne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1e57d110-a2b4-11f0-bced-69e06f2484e5.jpg.webp.webp\")
Justyne Gough<\/p>\n