Now here’s an interesting thing.
I keep seeing ads on Insta for companies claiming they’re closing down, so they have a final sale on, great value. You’ve likely seen similar too. I mostly ignore them. But today, I saw one for a firm closing down after 29 years. And I thought, “Hang on; there’s a lot of firms that seem to be closing down after 29 years”
So, I looked in more detail.
First, I visited the website linked from the Instagram ad, which shows Regent Street – a bit odd, as the address on the Insta add is 42 Camden High St; and the clothes on the web site seem definitely more Regent St than Camden – much higher end stuff. We’ll come back to Camden later.
The banner on the website says they’re closing, and the sale ends today. What a coincidence! I happen to have seen the ad on the very last possible day. Must grab that bargain soon!
Looking through the site, I can’t find anything that mentions that Camden High Street address. That’s weird. In fact, I can’t find a UK address at all – though there is mention of a Chelsea store that will also be closing.
So, I check Whois for the domain, henrygray.co.uk
Well, that’s odd. The Whois information tells me the domain was registered on the 8th of May this year. That’s peculiar, isn’t it? They’ve been in business 29 years, according to the Instagram advert, but only registered their domain this month. No wonder they’re going out of business…
Oh, and 29 years, like it says in the advert? Well, in that case, why does the actual website say “Established in 2000 …” on the About page? That page also refers to “Gray Clothing” but there’s no active company on Companies House with that name. There are some dissolved ones that could be a match. We’ll come back to that.
The FAQ page has an email address at another domain. That domain is grayclothing.co.uk, the same name by which they refer to themselves. Whois reports that it was registered on 29th August last year. A bit weird for a website that says the company’s been around since 2000, no? And if this is related to the former UK company of the same name, it’s also a bit weird that the domain was registered after the commencement of the winding up, which was in Feb 2023.
Now, back to the original ad, and the Camden High Street address. Google Streetview shows it as a greek restaurant, in between a couple of other restaurants. It even says the restaurant is open today, and there are over 1000 reviews. It’s not at the top end of the High Street, where you typically find the clothes shops, but down by Mornington Crescent.
Finally, on the bottom of the Terms page of the website there’s a faint grey text with an address for Yiwushi Zhenbang Technology Co., Ltd in China. And on the Contact page, there similar for an ‘HK’ in Hong Kong.
All in all, this looks like an elaborate fake, to make people think it’s a long established firm, and you’re going to get a great deal in their closing down sale.
I would hazard a guess that if you did order something, it would be drop shipped from China, and likely nothing like the quality shown on the website. There are so many obvious holes in the whole thing – not least that Camden address – it’s amazing that Instagram actually runs the ad.
This has just been a cursory look; the similarly named and now dissolved UK firms may not be connected at all. Or maybe the name of the store was chosen specifically because those names were there in the Companies House database, to throw people off the track. Who knows?
But I’m pretty certain, this – and many other – “we’re closing after X years” stores are just crap. Made up stories to fool you into thinking you’re getting a great deal, on the same drop-shipped, mass-produced things you could find from any of a number of retailers.
