Police probe online luxury scent subscription service

Disgruntled customers complain about being wrongly charged and not receiving orders

- Carmen Sin

The police are investigating online luxury scent subscription service Ivre after disgruntled customers filed reports claiming they were wrongly charged and never received their orders.

Self-professed perfume fanatic Srimala Balakrishnan had 494.50 charged to her debit card by the company in November even after she cancelled her subscription, she told The Straits Times.

The 41-year-old nurse had seen an advertisement for the company whose name is derived from the French word for drunk” on social media in May and was enticed by its deals, she said.

She bought a premium subscription plan for 44.95 a month to receive three sample-sized bottles of perfume every month, picked out from I’vre’s inventory of designer fragrances. These came in I’vrebranded 8ml spray bottles called atomisers.

The company offered two other plans. The cheapest one, priced at 19.95, entitled customers to choose one bottle a month from its catalogue of more than 200 scents, while the 34.95 plan allowed customers to choose two bottles monthly.

Everything went swimmingly for the first two months, but from the third month, Ms Balakrishnan noticed that every time she ordered a more expensive scent anything that retailed above 400 for a50ml bottle it would invariably be out of stock and she would be forced to settle for a cheaper one.

She also started to doubt the authenticity of the scents she received, after the well-known Victoria’s Secret VS) Bombshell perfume she ordered smelled very off”.

A check at a VS boutique confirmed her suspicions that she had not received VS’ Bombshell, she said.