George’s Caps

After almost four decades in business, George’s Caps is closing its doors.

“I’m George, I’m 78 and I’m closing George’s Caps after 38 years,” George says in the Meta ad above. “There are still shelves full of flat caps and newsboy caps so the remaining collection is up to 80% off with free shipping.”

The ad ends with a final plea from George: “Please help me empty these shelves one last time.”

This is the story behind George’s Caps’ going-out-of-business sale. But is any of it true?

TINA.org took a closer look at this purported shop and found a number of issues that don’t, shall we say, fit the bill.

Here’s what you need to know.

Curious George

Here’s how George appears on the George’s Caps website and in social media ads promoting the closing-down sale.

According to AI image detection tools, the photo is not of an actual person but was created by AI.

The video in the Meta ad, which also features George’s wife, also appears to have been created by AI.

But it’s not just this sweet-looking elderly couple. Several images of purported customers are also AI-generated fakes, as is an image of the shop shown on product pages, according to AI image detectors.

There are signs of artificial generation in the ads. The Meta ad video, for example, contains mismatched audio throughout the video. And if you look closely at the shop image, you might noticed garbled text in the store window.

Bull in a China shop

So if the image of the shop isn’t real, where exactly are these shelves that “George” needs help emptying?

The George’s Caps website (which TINA.org found was only recently registered, in February of this year) doesn’t provide any clear answers.

While a Wyoming address is listed at the bottom of the site, a note directly below it states that the location is the “registered company address, not a return address.” The site’s refund policy, meanwhile, says that returns should be “sent back to [a] fulfillment location warehouse,” but doesn’t identify the location of the warehouse.

In fact, many consumers report only finding out where the hats are coming from after ordering and being surprised to discover that they are actually shipped from China (in addition to raising other issues like George not being a real person, the poor quality of the hats and expensive return shipping, as the following sampling of Trustpilot reviews show.)

George’s Caps did not respond to a request for comment.

The bottom line

Fueled by AI, online shopping scams are getting harder to spot. Such scams appear to be on the rise so consumers need to remain vigilant. Just because an e-commerce site seems legit doesn’t mean it is not using AI and other deceptive tactics to ensnare consumers looking for deals online.

Before trusting a company with your money, check what consumers have to say on a variety of third-party platforms and if you are struggling to obtain a refund from a company like George’s Caps, consider documenting your experience and reporting it to your bank or credit card company to potentially reverse the charge.

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