‘The croissant lamp now starfish’: Temu shopper buys starfish curtain ties. She can’t believe what she receives

This woman’s starfish home accessories from Temu were a bit more real than she bargained for. Now, she’s calling the retailer out.

What is Temu?

Temu is an online retailer known for its wide range of products—selling everything from home goods to electronics to clothes—and extremely low prices. It’s often compared to platforms like Shein, AliExpress, and Wish.

Unlike its counterparts, Temu is primarily used as an app and has had several stints as the most downloaded app on both the App Store and Google Play Store. It’s shipping is also much slower than say, Amazon, with items easily taking a week to a month to arrive.

This is in part because most of Temu’s deeply discounted products ship directly from factories and warehouses in China, Time reported.

But despite it’s booming popularity, Temu has also been called out for likely selling items made with forced labor, selling knockoffs, stealing designs, and never delivering on packages, PC Mag reported.

It currently has 2.44 stars on the Better Business Bureau site, a B- rating, and several alerts (including one for copyright infringement).

Something’s fishy (literally)

In a viral video with a staggering 9.5 million views, customer Kelly Kaye (@kellykaaaye) shared an order gone wrong.

Kaye, who may have been going for a beach house aesthetic in her home, ordered starfish curtain ties from Temu. But when they arrived, she was disturbed by what she saw and smelled.

“Temu order turned up stinking of shellfish….” the text overlay on the video read.

As she further inspected the starfish on the curtain ties, she realized it was a real (but dead) creature of the sea that they’d attached to the curtain ties. It seemed one of the starfish’s legs broke, and as she looked inside, Kaye could tell there was nothing fake about it.

“Aww Temu!! Ick Ick,” she said in the caption.

One commenter claimed that the Temu site states it’s a natural starfish and that the package may have a smell. “Read the description,” they told Kaye.

Kaye told them she bought them from a listing that stated the ties were “starfish inspired,” and she had assumed they were starfish replicas.

None of the starfish curtain tie listings the Daily Dot found on Temu had many details aside from stating that the tie material was cotton or polyester.

Depending on the seller, one curtain tie costs as little as $2.79.

And this isn’t the first time Temu has been accused of selling something that was ‘too real.’ The company was called out just last month for its croissant lamp, which was giving one woman an ant issue. Turns out it was literally a real croissant covered in resin.

@kellykaaaye

Aww Temu!! Ick Ick😪⭐

♬ No No No No No – No No No No No

An environmental and ethical issue

It is often advertised on social media that if you happen upon a starfish at the beach, you should leave it alone. Yes, it’s beautiful and might make for a good photo, but when taken out of water, starfish can quickly suffocate, NZ Herald reported.

On top of that, harvesting starfish for souvenirs and home decor can damage the local ecosystem and lead to a loss of biodiversity.

Commenters react

“The croissant lamp now starfish…. do not order any stuff animals,” a top comment with more than 150,000 likes read.

“When you buy a starfish and get what you ordered,” a person said.

“So if I order a mannequin from temu..” another joked.

“Ok yall she probably didn’t think it was an actual starfish. I would of thought it would be clay or some not a real one,” a commenter pointed out.

The Daily Dot reached out to Kaye for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Temu via email.

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The post ‘The croissant lamp now starfish’: Temu shopper buys starfish curtain ties. She can’t believe what she receives appeared first on The Daily Dot.