Company Ignores Cease-and-Desist Letter, Continues Lying to Callers About Fur Sales
For
Immediate Release:
March
13, 2013
Contact:
Sophia
Charchuk 202-483-7382
San Francisco -- bebe's continued claims that it is a fur-free company—even though it sells items made with rabbit and chinchilla fur—have led PETA to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). In the month since PETA sent bebe a cease-and-desist letter—which the company has yet to respond to—demanding that it either stop lying or stop selling items made with real fur, bebe representatives have refused to answer callers' questions about fur, saying that they "don't have any information regarding the exact materials," that they "do not have a way to actually respond to this," and even that they are "not obliged to answer your question." Representatives have also lied to callers, saying that the company sells "only fake fur."
"Deceiving customers—many of whom care about animals and would never patronize a store that sells fur—is as unethical as skinning animals for their fur is cruel," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "PETA is calling on the Better Business Bureau to step in and tell bebe that if it doesn't want to be known as a fur monger, then it needs to stop selling fur—not lie to customers about it."
InChina—one of the countries from which bebe obtains rabbit fur and where there are no penalties for abusing animals on fur farms—workers pull rabbits out of cages by their ears and stun the screaming animals with electrical devices. Workers cut the rabbits throats and hack off their heads and paws with knives before peeling their skin off their bodies. In other parts of the world, animals killed for their fur spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy cages amid their own waste until farmers break their necks, smash their skulls, or slit their throats.
For more information about PETA's campaign to end bebe's fur sales, please visit PETA's blog.
