Lisa Casey
A designer dressmaker has come to the rescue of a potential Miss Ireland from Dundalk, who was conned out of two glamourous gowns by a cruel online scam.
Lisa Casey was runner-up to Hackballscross girl Fionnuala Short in the recent Miss Louth competition in the Fairways Hotel but that was enough to secure her passage into the semi-finals of the Miss Ireland competition.
Lisa Casey
In an attempt to raise money for a new dress for the semi-finals this Friday night in Dublin’s Wright Venue, the Ard Easmuinn girl placed two dresses on the DoneDeal website in an attempt to sell them.
However, she lost €316 after shipping the dresses to Nigeria, convinced she had sold them and payment had been processed.
That left her in a real predicament ahead of Friday night’s semi-final but when Dublin-based designer Justin Brown heard about her plight after she spoke with the Irish Daily Mirror, he offered her the loan of an €8,500 dress.
She told the newspaper when they told her the good news: “I’m am so thrilled, it is unbelievable. I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Justin.
“This is brilliant. An hour ago I had nothing to wear to the event and now I have this? There are no words really.”
Justin, boss of Dresses 4 Heaven based in Ballymount, revealed how Lisa is set to steal the show in the gown he’ll loan her.
He said: “We’d love to help her out. What we can do is lend her our Watercrystal dress, a special design that takes about eight days for a fitting.
“Wearing that dress she will blow everyone away, she is guaranteed to steal the show.”
Lisa’s trouble began last Thursday after she was conned out of cash when she used an online ad website.
She received an email she believed to be from PayPal confirming they received more than €300 from the buyer and the money would be transferred once the postal tracking number was sent.
But the message was not from the company – it was the work of conmen.
The two dresses cost €280 and the postal costs came to €36.
Lisa added: “It’s absolutely shocking. I was on DoneDeal and I got a message from this woman saying she was interested in buying the dresses for her daughter.
“She said her daughter lived in Nigeria. Now I was a little wary as I know a lot of scams going around come from Nigeria but it all seemed above board.
“I got an email from PayPal saying that I’d get the money once the tracking number was sent. So I sent it – and waited.
“Then there was nothing. I rang PayPal and they told me I was scammed. It looked so convincing, I’m raging.”
An Post spokeswoman Anna McHugh confirmed the dresses were shipped out of Ireland last Thursday night but said it was unlikely they could be retrieved.
