Scam Islamic Clothing Business
I’ve got to do what I can to get the word out about one particular scam company. I despise injustice, and I don’t want to see any more sisters lose their money to these thieves. But I don’t want to link to those web sites because it will give those web sites “link power”.
I’ve been notified of a handful of scam stores over the years, but there is one in particular that takes the cake for nastiness. It’s one business that runs quite a few web sites. There is a discussion going on about it at another sister’s blog.
The web sites run by this one person are listed below. If you want to get to the web sites to see if you recognize them, the URL is the words I’ve written out plus .com.
Al Hadeeqah
Salafi Clothing
Barakallah
My Hijab Shop
Janaza Kits
Amirah Hijabs
Elegance of Black
Islamic Swimwear Online
Islamic School Uniforms
April 8th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Are you familiar with Livejournal’s modest_style community? I posted asking about Barakallah there a few months back, and someone warned me off them, thankfully. A lot of their pictures are taken directly from Shukr’s website!
April 27th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Yes, I’ve heard about that too.
There are other websights that are run by the same people. Some of them have been taken down – only to “reappear” somewhere else of course.
When ever you buy anything on line – it pays to do a web search on them first!
May 4th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
As the owner manager of an Honest Islamic Business, I really appreciate you getting the word out to people about Islamic Clothing Business Scams. These thieves need to be closed down before more people are scammed. It is especially horrible to use religion as a means to scam people. Thanks for having this great blog and I will re-post this warning on my own blog http://oneislamicstore.blogspot.com/ to warn others if this is ok. Thanks Dara
May 27th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Just wanted to add another name that these crooks are under…it’s called Essence of Black. STAY AWAY FROM THEM. Regretfully, I speak from experience.
Thank you,
Umm Abdullah
June 15th, 2009 at 8:32 am
I was also a victim of Essence of Black. They used the “bait and switch” scam. I ordered the knee length khimars. After a month an a half, I received wrist length khimars. When I complained the woman was very rude and told me I was lying. I will never order from them again.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I, too, have been a victim of Essence of Black. I never received the merchandise that I ordered, and upon contacting them I was disrespected, falsely accused, and then completely blocked off. They don’t have a phone number or an address on their website (which should have run some bells) but, unfortunately, I trusted the Muslim facade too quickly. Not only was their response rude and offensive, but I was threatened to be confronted on Yawmul Qiyamah. How ironic. They operate through many websites with the name of Rehman Enterprises and already have taken advantage of many people. Sisters beware!
July 26th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
OMG sister this just happen to me to I sent my money and they have never sent me my items I have been calling them and writing letter and no response I don’t know what to do
July 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
More info on essence of black their address is 12063 Evergreen road detroit MI 48228 phone 313 332 4820 it is a private home not a store they are liars and thieves,we are contacting better business bueara and also in their state we are going to report them any one who has been scamed should do this also this is HARAM
August 6th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I also ordered from them, they actually have another website named: barakullah
I recieved an abaya from that website and it was absolutly different then what I ordered. I just let that go and didnt order from them again.
I went on this website and just recieved my abayas and they are nothing like the picture!
I am going to talk to my bank and have this transaction disputed as a fraud. Is there any one else who can tell me what to do? I dont know any one in Eygpt that can help me. They should have their website closed before many more people make this mistake.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I also have been scammed by essence of black, and currently i filed a form with the better business bureau and I urge all sisters who have been scammed by them to do the same.
We can work together to get things accomplished. Please don’t just idly let yourself be scammed, contact all available outlets.
Wa allaykum sallam
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:50 am
Jazakuallahu kharyran,Dara and everybody,iwas going to make the biggest mistake of my life with an online order of$2000.just today, no wonder god wasnt making that path easy for me, he didnt want me to lose so much. And the words they use my god you would think they were so religious. i hope they read these comments,maybe they will wake up to themselves b4 god sets them straight.
November 12th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Assalamu Aleikum warahmatullah wabarakatuu,
I am here to warn every sister out there to stay away from the essenceofblack website!!! Don’t order from them at all!!! I also a victim of their scandal business and it has been a VERY long time since I ordered from them and NEVER got anything. Unless…tomorrow the postal truck shows up with the package (UNLIKELY)
. Please, DO A RESEARCH before you order online anything, and make sure they have contact info (REAL ONE).
Wassalam sisters.
Umm Islam
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:40 am
salaam to all sisters out there. just writing to share my knowledge andthe fraud committed by ESSENCE OF BLACK website, who pose to be good muslims but are nothing more than cheats and frauds. i purchased some abays and they were nothing like the pictures shown, threads hanging, messing stitching, unironed, just a mess really. i wrote to them to tell them i want refund or replacemnets they said that there will be further charges involved for this.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Salam alikum , i was sooo close to order from two of this web sites, thank you very much for this information and i was trust them because i think they muslims and sale realy modest clothes. I like the shop islamic butique online but now im realy afraid that this is a scam too did anyone hear about this ? Or there are fine?
January 6th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
I am sooooooooo glad you were spared the headache! I order from Islamic Boutique (in Egypt) all the time. I love them! Their quality is good and I can order things long enough for me! That company has quite a few sites actually:
2Hijab
Al Jilbab
Hedeyah
Nilebay
January 8th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I was scanned by them also (essence of black), telling me that I am wrong and that “That saying that the customer is always right is an old cliché.” Who are you guys contacting, to get things settled, and get these scammers into trouble. PLUS, I want my money back. The abayas I recieved were horrible! 3outhobillah! Has anyone tried contacting them with the # that was posted? Please let me know, I would love to call them and give them a piece on my mind. Because I have been scammed by a so called “muslim” website!
January 19th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
as salaamu alaikum, i am thinking about ordering from a store called al jilbab. i think they are located in egypt. are they a good store? i live in the USA,s0 i am worried about shipping time. as well as the measurements of the outfits. i want to make sure that the clothes fit me and my daughters before i order from them. i have ordered from al hedayah in the past and were pleased with their products.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
wa alaikum assalaam
Al Jilbab is a legitimate company. I order from one of their sister sites a lot. Their shipping times are reasonable and the clothes come fitting me. Their quality is good.
January 29th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Allhumdallah!!! I found you in time my sister, sooooooo close as others have said. I left them a message regarding all the disturbing info out there on them, please go and to the same, let them hear the voice of the sisters!!! Let them know “WE WON”T BE SCAMED!!!!!, there is a community of sisters out here reporting on such vile, and disgraceful behavior!!
I so new here sister but glad I found you in time to save my $$$$$$$.
Shukran/Thank you
Khadija
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:24 am
I had the same experience..they were lovely to deal with up until I received my abaya…OMG it’s the ugliest thing i ever set eyes upon. I was going to wear this for Umrah! It was not only ugly and cheap quality…it had a massive iron burn mark on the sleeve!! I complained and got a rude reply, basically calling me a liar. Just proves these guys are out to scam innocent Muslims. Astaghfirullah…they will pay for what they have done. I have never been so angry in my life! What can be done to expose these nasty dishonest people???
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:55 am
I’ve been thinking of running an ad via Google AdWords in order to blast the internet with the truth. The problem is that the bill would get very high very fast I think and no one has cash to burn. I’m still thinking about it though. I need to design an income stream that would directly support those ads–a way to make money on the very page that exposes their despicable behavior. That way, I could keep track of how much money is being spent to expose these people and how much money is coming in to support exposing these people.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
THANK YOU GUYS SOOO MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION! I was just about to order from them but my sister gooogled them just to find out some more info about then, and what do you know this came up. Astagfirallah, something must be done, they should not be allowed to scam people. I hope these rip offs are not muslim and if they are, they have a rude awakening. This type of behavior is condemned and haraam in Islam. Again jazakallah for the warning
February 24th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Add me to the list. I placed an order in January and received a portion of it. One piece was not finished on the hem. It looks like they just stopped working in the middle and threw it in the box and one piece was not in the shipment AT ALL. To be fair though, the abaya I ordered came and was absolutely gorgeous – very fine workmanship on it. I contacted them and they replied immediately. They said they would ship the missing piece and replace the unfinished piece. I was pleased with this. So pleased that I placed another order. Well I have not received the missing part of the first order, nor have I received the second order. It has been well over a month. When I inquired they said it was shipped on Feb 2nd but nothing has come and now they do not reply to my mail at all. I used to order from them in 2006 or so and although they took a long time to ship, I was always pleased with what I got from them but apparently, something has gone VERY wrong with this company. They will never see another quarter from me. I am sometimes furious but I know in the end Allah subhana wa t’ala sees all things and they will be accountable for every single cent. I hope it is worth it.
February 24th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I wish I had known just how bad Abdul Rahman is. I placed two orders online. One with essenceofblack and one with barakallah. I didn’t know they were one in the same. I have never received my items. They will not respond to my emails. I am still working with my credit card company to get my money back. Pretty sure the Detroit address is garbage. The Detroit phone number they gave my credit card company is no good. Please sisters, file complaints with anyone and everyone you can. Insha Allah, with enough complaints, something can be done. In addition to filing with the BBB, please file complaints with the FTC and with IC3.gov (FBI – National White Collar Crime Center partnership that investigates internet crime complaints). Beyond that I live with the satisfaction that Allah will punish those who bring harm to Muslims and no one can hide from Allah on the Day of Judgment.
March 7th, 2010 at 10:43 am
AsSalaamuAlaikum, I have a simular experience with myhijabshop.com, I ordered the garnments, they took the money out of my account 2/3/10, It is now 3/7/10 and I have not received the garnments. I have called everyday no answer, I have emailed them everyday, no answer. I read on one site they are connected with essence of black. InshaAllah, no one else will make the same error. And May Allah swa make it easy for all of us. Ameen
March 28th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
i bought 3 jalabiyahs and as of 30 days i have not received anything. these are one of the people that allah(swa) will not look at on the day of judgement.
March 28th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
send your complaints to http://www.IC3.gov.
April 6th, 2010 at 6:46 am
This is so sad, does anyone know of a website where we can share this sort of information? Where we can give reviews of online abaya stores to share our experiences. It will be good for the Islamic businesses as they will succeed on merit.
I had a really bad experience with one store and I have taken pictures of the abayaat and if they have not given me a complete refund by next month I am going to create a blog showing exactly the poor quality they produce.I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt so I won’t mention their name here.
Its so sad, there are such devious ppl in the community.
April 21st, 2010 at 1:39 am
i was too late to find out about their filthiness. i became one of their victims too. and as other sisters mentioned, they replied us rudely when we complaint about their extremely poor service!
I am so angry wallah. I am very sure the orders that I will be receiving is totally different than what I saw in their website.
I sent the money through western union. The receiver name is
Marwa Abdullah
29 Hayes St.
Shubra, Egypt , Contact number: 20166147490. Postal code is 00000
Their location is in egypt.
a girl?? can we call western union to track down this marwa abdullah because there are too much compalining about this so called islamic website!
April 21st, 2010 at 10:01 pm
plese everyone who want to take this ugly website down and knows the details of who is behind this website, let us complain to this site where this essenceofblack using to make their identity become privates!
https://supportcenter.securepaynet.net/Abuse/SpamReport.aspx?prog_id=domainsbyproxy
May 9th, 2010 at 9:31 am
I agreed with the negative comments on Essence of Black– I have had really bad experiences with them too. Also Hijab411— I’ve been waiting over a month for an order with them and they haven’t answered any one of my emails. Not a very good company.
I’ve started ordering more of my hijabs and hijab pins from Amazon.com– there are independent sellers there that offer hijab items and since they sell through Amazon they are covered by Amazon’s guarentee. You don’t have to give any of your financial info to shady companies this way too– Amazon handles all the money matters and pays the independent seller themselves. So no credit cards are shared….
June 24th, 2010 at 11:20 am
I ordered several jilbabs from them over 2 weeks ago. Tried to contact the seller about my order only to find out that the “ONLINE HELP” is actually disabled and no one is answering phone numbers listed.
I am also no longer able to log in to “My Account” on their site (something that I could do before to view my order), its no longer recognizes my e-mail and/or password.
Apparently they also known as Nine East Apparel supposedly located in TX, Houston:
Nine east apparel
832) 426-3445 FAX : (281) 754-4941
10685-B Hazelhurst Dr. # 9108
Houston, TX 77043
USA
Phone
BEWARE OF THIS SCAMMERS!
June 26th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Hello there Dara,
I had a recent experience with hijab411… – Based in Malaysia(Please note this is not the same as 411hijab.com in the USA which is a good company that I previously dealt with).
Very bad experience, only shipped my package after I asked for the money back, was told items shipped when in fact they were not. After placing a claim with PayPal, they shipped the items: The items received were not same colors or styles for the most part..They must have shipped whatever they have in stock…
In short very untrustworthy business, they communicated well until they got the money, it made me suspect they are a fraud.
I am writing this in the hope that no one else hopefully would have to go through this experience and waste their money..
Feel free to contact me via email if you have any further questions.
Kindest Regards,
Zeina
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:13 am
I ordered $321 worth of islamic clothes from these theifs they are cheats and crooks it’s been 2 months no package yet and no reponse to my million emails and phone calls i got their 313 number listed above from my bank they are called rehman entreprises, i will file a report withthe bbb in my homestate and in detroit they are theifs and they should go to jail, please sisters anyone scamed by them report them I have no problem taking them to court if all of us got together we can do somthing they need to be locked up!!
July 7th, 2010 at 9:59 am
As salaamu alaikum,
I was a victim of Essence of Black. I was billed nearly $100 on March 6, 2010, and received confirmation that my purchase was shipped out of Egypt and even given a tracking number. The U.S. Post Office has no record of the package ever entering the country and the Egypt Post office claims it was shipped to the U.S. Mind you, I have made several inquiries to essence of black “customer support” and have received autoresponses only. Al hamdulillah, they may get away with this crime for a time, but Allah is Merciful. I am in the process of filing a complaint with the Michigan branch of the bbb, and thanks to Ummjihad’s listing of a physical address and phone number, I may have some hope of resolution. Subhannah Allah. I’m glad to see that I could have avoided this mess by reading these posts, but at least I know where to look in the future–that is if my husband ever permits me to order anything online again…lol
July 16th, 2010 at 12:28 am
As Salaamualakium.
I want to give a warning about the website essence of black.I ordered $68.00 worth of hijabs and other merchandise and never received it. They gave me an invalid shipping order number and when I did not receive the package going on for 2 weeks, I got a little inpatient, okay alot inpatient to when I emailed them about it, no response back and yes no package at all, my hard earned money is lost and I thought it was a legit site but I should’ve been more cautious especially with no contact information on the site and no responses back to my emails when I questioned them about my orders. the funny thingwas that they were emailing me alerts when they had a sale going on!!! go figure!!!! Please beware of the site. DO NOT PURCHASE ANYTHING!!! IGNORE THE SITE!!!!
July 28th, 2010 at 6:11 am
Wooooowwwwe Subhanallah….Allahu Akbar & Alhamdulillah for Allah protecting me from these people I wanted to place an order but the size chart for the item was not working and neither was the contact us link Mashallah something told me google them and this is what I came up with. May Allah protect anyone else from being taken by these scams and may you all be compensated for loss on yammul qiyama Ameen…and remember Allah’s most beautiful names and attributes Al Adl & Al Hakim He is the Most Just Judge and they will brought to account accordingly
August 16th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Nine East Apparel??? This is the company name of Islamic-Attire… with the same contact information. This is supposed to be the US address in texas, but they are based in India and everything ships from India. I am very concerned now…has anyone heard anything else that was negative about this company?
August 18th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I’m so sorry you had to experience them Mariem. I wish I could save everyone before they buy. Why don’t you start a class action lawsuit against them. You’ve got lots of contacts here to get on board with you.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I’ve heard enough bad stuff about this copycat company now to support a warning against them. I remember when they first launched, they were trying to get advertising on my site in the exact same places as the legit 411hijab.com. I thought it was really crappy of the copycats to steal their good name and then try to steal their good potential customers. Abdul and Julie who run 411hijab.com are a hard-working, honest, couple who don’t deserve this crap. I’ve met them in person in their retail store when I was in Richardson, TX, and I buy wholesale from them all the time. I’m waiting for an order right now as I write this.
August 25th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
salam alaikum
thank you for the info about essence of black.
i wanted to place an order but im too scared and i notice they have no location or phone number.
my friend just ordered from them and inshaallah she will her package.
has anyone ordered from nadafashions.com or al-sundus?
does anyone know a good website to order something nice for eid?
may Allah help everyone get thier money back or the website shut down.
August 26th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
here is more info on the woman who owns essence of black.
it does look like a scam i have seearched for stores in detroit and different websites and business names come up for her name and address.
http://www.michiganbusiness.us/showcompany.php?id=19370