A WOMAN who ordered a starfish-shaped curtain tie from Temu was disgusted when she discovered why it smelled so bad.
Kelly explained that she had seen the nice home accessories on the budget site and decided to order one.
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But when it arrived, she couldn’t figure out why it smelled like shellfish.
In a video on her TikTok pageKelly explained the situation and said she had broken one of the legs to see what was inside.
When he held the broken bone apart to see its contents, it was clear that there was some kind of skeleton under the surface. Kelly thought it had once been a real starfish.
“Aww Temu!! Ick Ick,” she captioned the video.
Kelly’s video emerged after someone else shared a clip of a croissant lamp attracting hundreds of creepy crawlies.
When they broke open the lamp, it turned out to be a real croissant. This had been covered in resin to make the lamp.
“Have you ever heard of a girl who ordered a croissant lamp and it was real?” someone wrote under the video.
As another said: “The croissant lamp is now a starfish… don’t order the stuffed animals!”
“Open it up and check there are no organs in it,” a third commented.
Others insisted that Kelly’s discovery in the starfish is completely normal.
“Don’t people realize that most hard starfish are actually dead starfish?” one person wrote.
“Temu literally states on the article that it is a natural starfish and that it smells a little, read the description!” insisted another.
To which Kelly replied, “I bought ‘starfish inspired cotton curtain ties.’
“Clearly I would have preferred to read the description instead of running away ‘inspired’!”
“It is very common to use real sea creatures as decoration,” wrote a third.
“In my coastal province they sell dried starfish all the time.”
Why is Temu so cheap?
TEMU came onto the scene in late 2022 and people on social media were raving about the low prices.
The company is a Chinese-owned digital marketplace. It is essentially an online shopping app where people interact directly with the retailer, while the app handles the shipping.
The hype surrounding the app is not entirely unjustified, as the app offers a wide range of products, including fashion, make-up, electronics and furniture.
According to a report of the U.S. House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Temu is exploiting a loophole in the law that allows the company to ship duty-free goods directly to the U.S.
This loophole is called the de minimis exception and means that goods worth up to $800 (£643) can be shipped to the US without being inspected or taxed by US customs.
Temu connects customers directly with manufacturers and only manages how the items are shipped to customers.
This means that Chinese suppliers can sell and ship their products directly to customers, without having to set up a global network of warehouses.
This allows them to save enormously on costs and ensures that the product itself is not reduced in price any further.
While many of the products you see on the Temu app come from brands with extensive, original collections, there are also many more counterfeit products from designer brands.
“When you buy a starfish and get what you ordered,” someone else said sarcastically.
“If I had known it was real, I wouldn’t have ordered it,” Kelly responded.
“That’s exactly the point!”
