Look at this cool shirt. I could rock that shirt. I want that shirt. And Marketing knows full well that this is the shirt I want, which is why it’s on my Facebook page. It’s hard to not click on the sucker.

I have learned, however. I am still stung from ordering that adorable slouchy pair of overalls that struck the right notes of casual, comfy, and a little sexy. Many weeks later, I was in possession of an article of clothing that made me look like a halibut with a bad tailor.

But I didn’t learn that quickly. There was another super cheap thing and it was just a tunic; a sort of sleek, silvery number. If I could get it over my head, there weren’t a lot of ways it could go wrong. And I could: it went right over my head. I could walk around inside it without touching the rest of the material. Which was made of recycled pop-tops. I looked like a fuselage. They’d give me a full refund if I sent it back to Guangzhou for about seventy bucks postage. A little more, if I filled it with shit first.

So I’m done. The sites are easy enough to spot. First, they are selling something you absolutely do want to have. They’re good at that. Ball gowns and skank outfits do not appear on my social media pages. No, nothing but fabulous artistic designs with street-pajama flair and a certain post-hippie insouciance.

But the company has a name like Flotsjilly or Silkidor or Juicyju or Discoviery or some other computer-generated concoction somewhere between English and an overturned box of suffixes. And the come-on is not the work of a native English speaker either. Valanio: “Don’t miss out this chance to get changed!” Hlelu: “You would look a million dollars in this sweater!” And my favorite, from Starlystar: “Get it before it’s still available.”

And, the dead giveaway: this thing you absolutely do want is really, really, really inexpensive. So inexpensive you are tempted to order it because how bad could it be?

Really, really, really bad. If you sit still too long, a Bedouin will slip inside your dress with you and start hawking trinkets. The fellow in Receiving at Goodwill will run after you yelling if you try to drop and dash. Carhartt makes a sleeker blouse.

If it’s a shirt, it’s depicted on one hundred pounds of long-legged model, displaying the French Tuck—that is, it’s tucked in the very front only and draped attractively elsewhere. On a real body, it’s the front-end equivalent of getting your skirt hiked up in your underpants. It just looks like a mistake.

Does it say the fabric is smooth and soft? That copy was written by a crocodile. Is it sustainably made? Yes, in the sense that the garment will never disintegrate in a landfill. Does it hang attractively on the model? On you it will jut out awkwardly as if it had boning. Is it 100% cotton? It’s 100% not. It’s made of petroleum and splinters. It is constructed in a torrid, windowless warehouse on continuously racing sewing machines that seven-year-olds are taught to shoot the fabric through. The imperfections that are “part of the natural fabric” are fingertips.

No extra charge. They’ve got that baked into the price.