Not long ago, Ms. Wei, who lives in a certain city in Liaoning Province, came across a product link for a "Soft and Cute Rabbit Pendant" while browsing shopping websites. The main picture shows a brown rabbit doll with fluffy fur and round eyes that are translucent, priced at 40 yuan each and 70 yuan each. She immediately placed an order to purchase two dolls. After waiting for more than 20 days, Ms. Wei finally received the package. However, at the moment she opened the package, she couldn't help but laugh or cry: the actual rabbit pendant had rough and messy hair, crooked eyes, and mouth stitching that looked like an "angry frown", completely different from the cute appearance in the picture. She contacted customer service to report the issue, but the other party only replied that 'the picture has filters, and there are errors in the homemade version'. What is this error? It is clearly using 'photo fraud' to deceive consumers! ”Ms. Wei said angrily. Later, when she logged on the store page again, she found that this product had been taken off the shelf. In the comment area, many buyers roast about the "wrong goods". She finally realized that the merchant was using AI generated exquisite images as a gimmick, but in reality, they were shipping poorly made goods. So she took a comparison photo of the actual product and the product link, and applied for a return from the merchant. This kind of 'photo fraud' is not an isolated case. A recent investigation by a reporter from the Legal Daily found that with the rapid penetration of AI generation technology in the e-commerce field, many businesses have started using AI generated images and videos as promotional materials to attract consumers to place orders with exquisite visual effects. However, the promotion of such products often hides the problem of "wrong product" - AI generated images excessively beautify the appearance of the product and exaggerate functional details, resulting in significant differences between the actual product and the promotional image. In addition, the lack of truthful information disclosure on product detail pages has to some extent damaged consumers' right to know and choose, and the number of related consumer disputes continues to rise. The difference between the actual product and the promotional image is obvious. Ms. Yu, who lives in Chongqing, never expected that after waiting for four months for her "dream lover", she would end up with a lot of anger. In July 2025, she likes collecting doll pendants and sees a plush pendant in the shape of a Siamese cat on a shopping platform. In the publicity picture, the little guy looks exactly like her Siamese cat. At that time, the sales displayed on the store page were as high as 39000 pieces, and the product review section was mostly filled with highly restored images. I immediately placed an order. ”Ms. Yu said. After placing an order, we face a long pre-sale wait. Half a month has passed, and she couldn't help but ask customer service about the delivery progress. The customer service replied that "the product is being sampled, and to restore more than 85% of the picture, it will need to go through four or five rounds of adjustment. Ms. Yu thought to herself, as the saying goes, slow work produces fine work, so she continued to patiently wait. On November 5, 2025, Ms. Yu received a shipping notification on her phone. She happily clicked on the store details page again to check, but was stunned: the original promotional image of the exquisite and agile Siamese cat had been replaced with a rough sample image, with plastic textured eyes, pilling hair and uneven color, making it impossible to see the appearance of the Siamese cat. She immediately contacted customer service for negotiation, and the other party replied casually, "What we are showing now is the actual product. If you are not satisfied, you can return it." Ms. Yu was very dissatisfied with this: "I have to bear the shipping cost for the return, and I have been waiting for 4 months for nothing. It's too frustrating." The reporter saw that because there are many buyers like Ms. Yu who are not satisfied with the actual product, the merchant once responded in the fan group: "This is the 'limit' we can reach. The actual product is not worse than the photo. If you are not satisfied, you can return it." What made her even angrier was that the merchant admitted that the promotional image that initially made her feel excited was "generated by AI. Ms. Yu roast: "They first used AI generated publicity maps to attract consumers, then used long-term pre-sales to 'tie' consumers, and then changed the maps when shipping, which made my four month long wait come to naught. Even the most exquisite AI generated promotional images cannot withstand the disappointment of 'wrong product'. ”Ms. Long, a resident of Shanghai, also had a similar experience. In April 2025, she saw a store selling clothing for middle-aged and elderly people on an e-commerce platform. She was attracted by an embroidered short sleeved top that sold over 300 pieces. In the promotional picture, a silver haired grandmother stood by the river wearing a light blue printed shirt, with clear fabric and exquisite embroidered flowers. The product description text read "Relatives praise youth". Ms. Long wanted to add a summer outfit for her grandmother, so she spent 329 yuan to place an order for it. But when she received the goods, she found that the pattern of the clothes was wrinkled, the printing was blurry, the embroidery stitches were skewed, and it completely did not match the clothes in the promotional picture. She looked carefully at the shop and found that in all the pictures of goods, the elderly models were all smiling faces and the same pose. Various unnatural aspects made her suspect that the product images were generated by AI. Ms. Long raised a question to the store customer service, but the customer service did not respond to the inquiry about whether to use AI graphics. They only stated that "the quality of the clothes is guaranteed, and if you are not satisfied, you can return and refund them". After returning the item, Ms. Long found that she had been blacklisted by the store and was unable to place another order or provide product reviews. Ms. Long said helplessly, "Nowadays, online shopping not only needs to guard against color differences in physical products, but also needs to first identify whether the promotional images are generated by AI. How can we avoid this pitfall! ”The lack of detailed descriptions of the products on the shelves revealed that the toy industry is the hardest hit area for businesses to use AI to generate product images. A doll designer introduced that a fun and cute doll needs to go through ten or twenty processes to be made. During this period, it is also necessary to try out, replicate, and finalize the doll. If printing is required, a new version must be tried again, which is a complex and costly process. Therefore, some merchants who do not have the ability to develop original dolls and independently create models will use AI to generate product images to attract traffic, and then sell shoddy physical products to consumers. Based on the clues provided by consumers, the reporter purchased three dolls believed to have used "AI promotional images" on three e-commerce platforms. A product named "Dunhuang Flying Cat Float Plush Toy Doll" is priced at 35 yuan. In the promotional video, a cute doll cat with gray and black stripes hangs from a backpack, and a few strands of beard and ribbons on its body tremble up and down as the doll rotates. However, upon receiving the physical item, the reporter found that it did not match the promotional image: the cat's face and body seemed to have been flattened, its fur was messy and had no texture, and several strands of whiskers were horizontal on its face; The patterns on the wings and ribbons symbolizing 'flying' are very rough. Did you use AI graphics? Is there really a physical object? ”In response to the reporter's inquiry, the merchant stated that they did not use AI to generate images, but they were also unable to provide physical images. The customer service explanation for this is: "The warehouse has physical pictures, but our customer service does not have pictures on hand." "The pictures look good because our photographer has good photography skills." "If you are not satisfied with the physical product, you can choose to return it. The situation of the other two products is similar, with a significant difference between the actual product and the promotional image. One of the "lychee pendants" has already appeared in different versions with color and shape differences in the product images, and the actual product obtained by the reporter is different from the pendants in the pictures and videos. For the above three products, the reporter downloaded the product promotional images and uploaded them to AI software to ask if they were AI images. The response was: "It is highly likely that the images are generated by AI, especially the combination of exquisite and complex mixed patterns and flawless cartoon images, which is very in line with the output characteristics of current mainstream AI image generation models. ”The reporter found that in addition to relevant pictures and videos, there are no detailed descriptions of materials, sizes, patterns, and other details on the product details page. The merchants also have "one question, three unknowns" and cannot even provide a clear physical picture. Some people are selling AI tools to merchants. The reporter's investigation also found that on some platforms, some people specialize in selling "AI tools", claiming that "they can provide various product image scenes for e-commerce" and "generate multi angle model images", providing convenience for merchants to use AI to mass produce false promotional materials. For example, on a certain platform, a blogger named "Cross border E-commerce Goods XX" has a homepage post that guides an AI tool to generate videos of e-commerce product display backgrounds, models, and other related promotional images. After inquiring about the AI tool in private chat, the reporter was guided to add their private chat account. Afterwards, the other party sent a link that, when clicked, displayed as an AI generated image website. Users who register for the first time on this website will receive 400 computing power as a gift (AI generated operations consume the corresponding computing power, such as uploading product images and generating 3 corresponding model images, consuming 40 computing power at once). After the computing power is consumed, users can choose to purchase an additional fuel pack. For 120 yuan, they can purchase 2000 computing power, or for 299 yuan per month, they can receive 21000 computing power, which is enough to generate hundreds of different styles of "real-life" product images in bulk, and when downloading images, they can "remove watermarks". The reporter attempted to discover that by uploading only one image of a flat red dress retrieved from the internet and selecting the "AI Model" function, after more than ten seconds, the dress that was originally casually laid on the bed sheet had already been "worn" on the model with exquisite makeup, and could further consume computing power to "change the background". After selecting the scene of "coffee shop", the model was quickly "in" the bright and clean coffee shop, with a natural posture, and the folds of the skirt highly matched the surrounding environment. Even the glossiness of the buttons appeared real and delicate. After multiple attempts by the reporter, it was found that this merchant could even "fabricate" products out of thin air. Without any product or model images, the desired product promotional image could be described in text in the "image description" on the page. After nearly a minute, realistic product images could be generated. (New Society)