Shop owner flees to Israel, leaving many in the lurch

TALI FEINBERG

Cape Talk host Kieno Kammies investigated the story and reported last week that Lifshitz had apparently fled to Israel. This, after suddenly closing her store, called Occassions (sic), which sold eveningwear, matric dance dresses and wedding outfits.

Kammies was alerted to the scandal by a message on Facebook by single mother Fiona Earl, who wrote: “I put down a substantial deposit (R5 000) on a dress at Occassions (a bridal and eveningwear shop) in Canal Walk for my daughter’s matric dance. I discovered that the shop closed on February 28 with no warning – not even for the loyal staff of over 10 years’ service [sic]. I tracked the owner down on Facebook, but she has blocked me and apparently her staff too. I have her cell number, but she doesn’t respond either. Canal Walk hasn’t been very helpful. According to them, her lease was up. I had no choice but to make a frantic plan to get my daughter into a dress in less than 48 hours, which of course, cost me more.”

Earl has tirelessly attempted to contact the store owner, and even found a post from her daughter, Amy Lifshitz, that appeared on the Facebook group “Secret Raanana/Hertzliya”. Under the heading “Couture evening dresses for sale”, it advertised dresses being sold privately in Ramat Aviv.

Said Earl: “It looks like all the shop stock got shipped to Israel and they have a nice little sideline business, selling other people’s stolen dresses over there.”

Earl has laid a charge of fraud and theft at the Milnerton Police Station and urged others to do the same.

Kammies interviewed three other people affected, including the owner of Iconic Designs, Martie Walker. She said the store owed her R65 000 for the dresses that she supplied to them. Liza Cliff said she’d been paying off a R14 000 matric dance dress for her daughter since January but hadn’t got the dress or her money back when the store suddenly closed down.

Soon after the airing of Kammies’ interview, Cliff received an email from Lifshitz, “and within a day my full deposit was paid back”. Yet, Cliff said, she would “not rest until every single person who was affected by this incident’s case is resolved… one way or another”.

Ruby Fortuin, the former store manager of Occassions, detailed how Lifshitz’s disappearance unfolded. She said Lifschitz had slowly stopped showing up at the store and disconnected her phone, and staff could only contact her via WhatsApp. She then told staff that the store’s lease had expired and that it would be relocating, ordering that they pack all the dresses into boxes.

According to Walker, “she then took all the dresses and the computers in the middle of the night”, and that was the last anyone heard from her.

On Facebook, numerous customers complained of outrageous prices and rude staff, while some suppliers and customers described being left without payment or dresses. While Bernadette Lifshitz’s profile was initially on Facebook, by Sunday evening it had disappeared. Those who tried to contact her had been blocked.

Marion Sanzul says she was treated terribly by the shop whenshe asked the shop to design her daughter’s matric dance dress. The Sanzuls provided the pattern and had to pay a R500 deposit. When they visited the store a few weeks later, they saw a girl going to the same dance trying on her dress in their pattern! When they said this was unacceptable and asked for their money back, Lifshitz said they could “sing for their money”.

After numerous attempts to contact Bernadette, her husband, Arie Lifshitz, agreed to share their side of the story with SA Jewish Report. He wrote in an email that he felt events had been “misrepresented”.

He said that until the very last week, there were attempts to find a new location, which did not materialise. He said all his staff were paid their salaries except Fortuin, who, he said, helped Walker remove 30 of the dresses she’d supplied from the store before it was closed.

He shared correspondence with Walker in which she said: “No dresses were taken to sell. All the dresses are in safe keeping in lieu of full and final payment for Iconic stock sold by Occassions. I have repeatedly tried to contact Bernadette to arrange a formal payment plan since September last year, to no avail. I am worried that you are planning to go into liquidation, hence you’re avoiding all my mails and messages.”

However, both Arie and Bernadette told Walker her actions were a criminal offence and threatened her with legal action.

Arie said he was “not in a privilege to discuss Bernadette’s location or plans. I am aware that before she left, she delivered a list of clients that paid deposits to our designer to complete. The dresses that she has with her are Occassions property, Occassions designs, and self-produced. They do not belong to any suppliers or customers. I have no idea of her future plans regarding that. Our email address, occassions@live.co.za, is open to receive mails.”

He added that his daughter Amy has been viciously attacked online, and that the family received hateful and anti-Semitic messages. “Lastly, I feel deeply sorry, and apologize to those customers that were affected by these events,” he wrote.