{"id":626889,"date":"2026-01-29T16:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=626889"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:30:11","slug":"temu-lies-about-shipping-orders-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/626889-temu-lies-about-shipping-orders-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Temu lies about shipping orders in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chinese e-commerce platform Temu is sending South Africans fake shipping notifications for orders to lure them into buying products on its mobile app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A MyBroadband reader was recently surprised to receive a “Shipping Confirmed” push notification from the Temu mobile app for free items, even though they had no pending orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Your 8 gifts were sent on 21 January 2026,” the notification said. Concerned that someone had gained access to their account and placed an order on their profile, the reader opened the app to investigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app opened into one of Temu’s typical mini-games, where the user must spin a wheel to receive a reward, such as a free item, discount, or coupon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Temu’s interface implies the outcome is random, the user will always receive the same number of items or the same value as promised in the notification they received beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temu itself admits in the app’s rules that the spinning wheel, lucky draw, or other similar mini-game interfaces are for illustrative purposes only and that all participants will receive the best result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this particular reader, it turned out that the gifts had not been shipped. They first had to pick them from a curated catalogue and buy something with a minimum order value of R450.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the “free” gifts were not placed in the user’s cart; they were added to a wishlist. The only way to get the items for free was to redeem in-app currency called “stars,” earned with each purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get all the promised “free” items, the reader would have needed to collect 5,000 stars. Users have reported that they typically receive 25% or 30% of their order value back in stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, a customer would need to spend upwards of R25,000 to collect enough stars for all eight of the gifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For reference, the total value of the reader’s free gift wishlist was R1,236. Therefore, they surmised the gifts were not worth the effort and ultimately did not check out their cart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions about Temu advertising practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
The notification that the reader received implying that items had been shipped on their account.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
The reader received several more false “Shipping confirmed” notifications throughout January 2026, typically every second day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the peculiar terms and conditions of the “free” gifts, the “Shipping confirmed” notification is false. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked Temu whether this did not amount to misleading advertising, but it did not respond to our questions by the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Push notifications promoting products are regarded as a form of direct marketing in South Africa, which makes them subject to advertising and data protection laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) CEO Gail Shimmel told MyBroadband that false statements used to lure customers into transacting were typical examples of misleading advertising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If it is a misleading ad, then it is in breach of the ARB Code and possibly the Consumer Protection Act,” Shimmel said. Consumer journalist Wendy Knowler labelled the notifications as “beyond deceptive.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shimmel said that although the ARB had not received complaints from other users about this particular issue, it had received reports about other allegedly misleading ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it had not issued any adverse rulings regarding Temu’s advertisements, in part because the company was willing to engage and rectify issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, the ARB handled four Temu complaints. One was resolved between the complainant and Temu, while Temu fixed another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ARB lacked jurisdiction over the third complaint, and the fourth was invalid. Two more issues are currently under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband also asked the National Consumer Commission for its views on the notifications, but it did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the NCC is already conducting investigations into Temu and Shein to verify their compliance with the CPA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A MyBroadband reader was recently surprised when they got a “Shipping Confirmed” push notification from the Temu mobile app for free items, despite having no pending orders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":601661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[61905,97086,11165,103038,61697,10412,51703,87953],"class_list":["post-626889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-advertising-regulatory-board-arb","tag-chinese-e-commerce","tag-e-commerce","tag-gail-shimmel","tag-online-orders","tag-online-shopping","tag-online-stores","tag-temu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626889"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627134,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626889\/revisions\/627134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}