As if the Great British high street weren’t enough of an assault course, lined as it is with tourist dawdlers, charity hawkers, freesheet sellers, sample-pushers and assorted leafleteers, shoppers are having to negotiate a new obstacle: the lugger.
Certain luxury stores are deploying salespeople on the pavement to lure us with promises of expensively transformed skin, among other things. “Lugger” comes from “chugger”, a portmanteau of “charity” and “mugger”, paid street fundraisers with whom one makes eye contact at one’s peril).
Westminster city council, whose patch includes consumer mega-gauntlets Oxford Street and Bond Street, is cracking down on the alleged use of aggressive selling techniques. It declined to confirm which companies it is investigating, but said it was aware of Orogold, an American cosmetics chain with outlets in Mayfair and Kensington.
Many Londoners will be familiar with the brand’s keen pavement presence and taste-challenging shopfronts. The web is awash with allegations of excessive tactics used to push its wares, which include a 50g, £1,000 pot of Nano Day Recovery moisturiser (“Apply to clean face and neck daily”, the website suggests).
Forums, including those at Money Saving Expert, and reviews on Amazon, suggest a pattern: enthusiastic attention grabbing followed by heavy flattery and hard bargaining. Not all of which challenge consumer laws, which are open to interpretation, but forbid the use of “undue influence” or “pressure selling”, as well as scams such as bait and switch (promoting one product to sell another).
ISOD Ltd, Orogold’s UK distributor, did not respond to the Guardian’s questions, but told the Times: “Franchisees of Orogold Cosmetics do not engage in aggressive sales tactics. We constantly monitor standards at all Orogold stores and we have engaged with trading standards since we launched in London.”
Our advice, in the meantime: keep your head down on the way to Boots – nowhere is safe.
