Missouri Business With Naughty Past Goes For New "Bad Girl" Image

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  
Michelle L. Corey, 314-645-3300
Bill Smith, 314-645-3300
 

St. Louis, Mo., April 28, 2009 -- Jennifer Lutke, the Maryland Heights woman whose internet lingerie business prompted a hard look from law enforcement officials two years ago, apparently has slipped out of her old company and into a new one.

The new business – Bad Girl Intimates – appears to be very similar to Doxy Lingerie which operated out of a Maryland Heights office complex until a few months ago.  Doxy Lingerie has been the target of numerous complaints to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and was the defendant in a December 2006 lawsuit filed by the Missouri attorney general’s office.

Eight months after the suit was filed, a St. Louis County judge ordered Lutke to make thousands of dollars in restitution to customers and ordered that Lutke and Doxy not accept payments for items until they had been shipped.  But it appears the firm has violated the order.  In the 1 ½ years since the court order, consumers from across the U. S. have continued to complain to the BBB that they never received ordered items.

The BBB has received 634 complaints and reports about Doxy Lingerie over the past 36 months.  More than 200 of those have come in the past 12 months.

Consumers who complained to the BBB have said they never received ordered items, they received a portion of their order, or the items arrived months late.

In 2005, when Doxy Lingerie was located in Kalamazoo, Mich., the BBB of Western Michigan said the company had an unsatisfactory report due to numerous unanswered complaints concerning failure to deliver pre-paid merchandise.

Michelle Corey, president and CEO of the St. Louis BBB, said Lutke seems to be trying to quick-change her way into business respectability. “But just because she’s trying on a new name doesn’t mean consumers should forget how she has operated in the past,” Corey said. “If she is trying to turn over a new leaf, that is a good thing, but based on her past the BBB has no reason to believe that anything will be different. Bad Girls is still bad business.”

Last week the BBB asked Lutke for a meeting to explain the continuing complaints against Doxy Lingerie.  In an emailed response, Lutke said Doxy “isn’t even operational and hasn’t been for several months.”  In a later email, she said “the website is still up because we are still trying to find a buyer for the business.”

Asked whether Doxy was still accepting orders, Lutke did not respond. She also declined to say whether she was still selling lingerie and related products.

Just this week, visitors to the DoxyLingerie.com Web site were greeted by yet another name – eLingerieSite.com.  That site says that eLingerieSite.com acquired DoxyLingerie.com “in April 2009.”  It says any pending Doxy orders will be fulfilled.

Records with the Missouri Secretary of State’s office show that “Bad Girl Intimates” was registered as a fictitious business name on March 9 of this year. The sole owner of Bad Girl Intimates is listed as Jennifer Reynolds, Lutke’s married name. Bad Girl Intimates gives an address of 11469 Olive Blvd., Suite 134, a mailbox at a UPS store in Creve Coeur, Mo.  The lengthy “policies, terms and conditions” outlined on the Web sites of both Doxy and Bad Girl Intimates are virtually identical.

On the Web site for Bad Girl Intimates (BadGirlIntimates.com) – a site that includes many of the same photographs and marked-down prices as the Doxy Lingerie site – a notation on the business’ home page says it is a DBA (doing business as) for MAJEK Outfitters.  The name MAJEK Outfitters also is registered with Missouri as a fictitious name.  A document filed with the state on April 2 lists the owners of MAJEK as Mark Reynolds, Lutke’s husband, and Kevin Freed, both of the Creve Coeur address.  An April 8 filing lists Freed of O’Fallon, Ill. as the sole owner.

Another state registration, filed in May of 2008, lists Lutke as the sole owner of SassyBikini.  Another Web site – SpoiledKittyLingerie.com – last week had many of the same photos of lingerie-clad models and also noted the same Creve Coeur mailbox address as Bad Girl Intimates. This week, that site was no longer active.

Doxy Lingerie’s Web site last week offered an extensive listing of hundreds of styles of lingerie, swimwear and costumes, many with provocative names such as “Officer Frisky,” “Wild Cowgirl,” and “Nurse Bettie.”  The new company’s Web site, BadGirlIntimates.com, also lists a variety of outfits including “Sexy Gangster Costumes,” “Sexy Pirate Costumes” and “Sexy Fairytale Costumes.”

Doxy Lingerie has operated out of a Maryland Heights office and warehouse building at 11088 Millpark Drive.  Others working in the same complex said they had not seen Lutke there for at least the past two months.  One said a postal carrier told her the Maryland Heights Post Office had been holding a large quantity of unclaimed mail for the business.  A BBB visit last week showed the office suite locked and the inside in disarray.   Lutke also has used a business address in the 11900 block of Charter House Lane in Creve Coeur.

Typical of BBB complaints was one from a woman in Evans Mills, N. Y. who said she paid $158 for items from Doxy on Feb. 11.  She said she never received her order and eventually had to go through PayPal to receive a refund.  “It was very disappointing,” she said.

A woman from Clifton, N. J. said she ordered several items including a Wench costume and an Alice in Wonderland costume in October 2008, but only received the Wench costume and eventually disputed the $172 bill with her credit card company.
Most orders totaled less than $200, but a few were more than $1,000.

The BBB offers several tips for consumers shopping online.  Among them:

• When ordering from a new merchant, ask the merchant for a physical location and phone number.
• Know the company’s refund and return policies before ordering.
• Be cautious about supplying personal information, such as a Social Security number or personal bank account information.
• Print a copy of your order and a confirmation number for your records.
• Check with the BBB for a reliability report by visiting www.bbb.org or by calling 314-645-3300.