Our Design Was Stolen By Scammers!

What started as the best thing to ever happen our business, quickly turned into one of the worst..

Our best seller, the 2026 'F1 Scrapbook Race Calendar' was a huge hit on our website & socials. So many of you managed to grab one between restocks.. We were so busy we had to restock THREE times. It was amazing for our small business!

How Did It Start?

Customers started to send us screenshots of an Instagram ad which was ripped from our TikTok account. Random scam websites stole our video to promote their fake websites. They also stole the product page photos from our website and fooled the public into thinking that they created the calendar. Another stated that we were official suppliers to them and gave them permission to sell (which of course, we did not!). We managed to comment on a lot of these scam ads, our customers & Instagram followers were a great help with this! It saved some people from purchasing a fake knock-off product, but unfortunately, countless others were none the wiser.

What Happened?

We first presumed that these fake sellers were going to take peoples money and not send any product. We didn't share photos of full A4 designs on our website of each month, so there is no possible way they can have the files to make a product.. right? WRONG. Thanks to the terror that is Ai, these companies were able to put a calendar together using a video from our TikTok account that showed a quick flip through of our calendar. They used our cover photo from our website which has our logo, website and design clearly visible. But, the inside was filled with countless errors. All of the text around the artwork was complete gibberish and a lot of the race dates/locations were completely wrong.

Then my heart completely sunk.. I found a TikTok video of a Hong Kong based factory who had stacks and stacks of our monthly pages on a shelf. We believe they purchased or were sent a calendar from our website that they photo copied and illegally reprinted to sell themselves. I was so devastated and angry. Like most of the other 'companies' we were quickly blocked from their page and it was very difficult to get a response from them. More fake resellers started popping up on Amazon, eBay and even on TikTok shop. We got a lot of them removed but they just kept coming back.

The Unfair Backlash

I am very thankful to those of you who received these terrible knock-offs but seen it for what it was. I really appreciate everyone who took the time to find us and educate themselves on what happened to us. The kindness and decency of strangers is something I will never again take for granted. The internet is a crazy place, unfortunately we received a lot of hate.. a LOT. So many messages, emails, comments etc. with horrible and cruel remarks. Things were said to me that I genuinely would not repeat to anyone. It was beyond unfair, we truly deserved none of the abuse we got over our Christmas break. It's hard enough on a small business owners mental health to deal with the feelings we get around a customer who isn't happy, but when they are not even your customer, that is a whole different ball game! It was an incredibly difficult situation. The only thing that got me through it all was Brian, my loved ones & the lovely people in this little community we have built here. Thank you all.

Stay Safe Online

If you were among those who got caught out by a scam seller, please know that I do not blame you. It can happen easily, especially around Christmas time when everyone is busy shopping for gifts. It's not your fault! If you are looking for Little Ren Studios designs in the future please know that they are only available directly from us. We hope to expand some products into stores across Ireland again this year. We will list all official stockists if and when we return to wholesale orders. Please always check our website first or get in touch if you're not sure. If you see any more scams using our products, please help us by reporting them and commenting if you can.

Tips to stay safe when shopping online:

• Have you heard of this company before, goggled them? Check reviews.

• Do they have a reliable active social media presence?

• If it feels off and everything on their store website is random and there is no clear consistency between products.. chances are they have stolen designs and do not have permission to sell a lot of those items.

• The description pages are full of emojis and Ai written text, always a 'Last Chance To Buy' sale happening.. it might not be legit.

• Hard to find a contact page or a precise location of where they are based? Look into it further before purchasing!

• The company or website domain has obvious spelling mistakes, extra random letters or doesn't make sense? Red flag!

• They sell Ai generated 'art'.. run away as fast as you can! Real artists need the support and their work is 100% nicer than any fake design. Ai is creeping up all over the place, please be careful and double check exactly what you are trusting. Artwork on sites like Temu, Shein, AliExpress etc. are more than likely stolen by artists like me or made with Ai.

• Avoid any site that only allows you to pay in gift cards, bank transfers or crypto. If they only accept payment outside of the website, like by email, do not proceed.

  
  

I hope these tips help you make smart choices when shopping online. They are what I do when I find a new website or an ad I like pops up on my feed. A lot of ads are scams but not all of them are. The important thing is to take the necessary time to make the right decision.

What Now?

The good thing is we managed to get our design removed from a lot of the scam sites. Here is a short list of some of the websites you should avoid and use caution with:

• Wishoppe

• Wendy Lee Czjz Shopify

• One && Only

• Wilddrootss

• Kaufkram

• Kozmozcyber Store

• Temu

• eBay

• AliExpress

• Amazon

• Walmart

• TikTok Shop

We have the 2026 F1 Scrapbook Calendar available only our website for you to purchase.

Thank you for reading,

Ren