When Sam Smith, from Liverpool, ordered her tree for Christmas, she couldn’t believe her luck.

She’d managed to find what she thought was a massive festive tree, with a working train, a moving model village, and Santa climbing a ladder among its branches for just £40.

The extravagant tree appeared so elaborate that the 26-year-old even thought about taking a day off work to set it up, as reviews on the website claimed it took them ‘hours’.

The website even went so far as to say customers who bought the tree would ‘open a new chapter in your circle of friends, and you will lead a new trend’ – a hefty claim.

However, when the tree arrived four weeks later, Sam and her mum Karen, 50, were aghast to be handed a tiny parcel containing a worse-for-wear six-inch tree that ‘looked like a twig’.

There were no elaborate model homes and villages between each layer of branches, nor was there the train, the moving Father Christmas or the working carousel that videos had shown spinning on top of the tree.

Sam said: ‘The tree that was advertised was lovely. It was supposed to be six feet tall with Father Christmas carrying a ladder and a working train.

‘But we got a six-inch tree which was basically a twig with a couple of baubles, a bit of string and a Father Christmas with a deformed face. It looked like the paint had been chucked on.

‘I ordered a charger for my phone that arrived the same day as the tree and the charger came in a bigger box than the tree.

‘We were crying with laughter. It was so funny.’

Sam claims her friend ordered the same tree and ended up receiving the same tiny ‘twig’, and numerous reviews online by other buyers say they got trees that did not match their descriptions.

Karen said: ‘We were excited for it to come, it said you had to build it yourself so that would have been fun.

‘I forgot it was coming, the postman came, and I didn’t know what it was because we’re always getting parcels at Christmas. I opened it and just burst out laughing. It was so funny.

‘I messaged Sam saying she was going to have to take a day off to help me put it up, and she was howling when she saw it.

‘You wouldn’t get that for £40, so we thought it might be smaller or not that exact quality on the website, but it wasn’t worth a fiver.’

Sam and her mum had ordered the tree from online shop Wulimer after seeing it had been reduced from £100 to £40.

The Wulimer website seems to have dropped the price of the 6ft tree even further to £27.99, claiming they have ‘limited stock’ of the ‘unique’ tree.

Sam said: ‘Mum came downstairs and asked me what I thought of this tree she’d seen online, and I thought it was lovely so told her to order it.

‘It said it would take about four weeks to come, so we thought that would be just in time for Christmas.

‘We read the reviews which were all good, there weren’t any bad reviews, so we ordered it.

‘There were photos of it in people’s houses which is strange.’

After unwrapping the tree, Sam shared a picture of it on social media, writing: ‘Imagine mum four weeks ago saying “ooh shall we order this tree?” Yeah sound go on then… it arrived today. God knows where it’s gonna fit.’ [sic]

One commenter wrote: ‘I saw that tree and knew it was too good to be true. I think it was about £30 or something.’

Sam said: ‘I decorated it and posted a photo of it on Facebook and everyone was saying they couldn’t believe we’d fallen for it.

‘We’ve put the decorations on and put it on the side for fun.’

Karen added: ‘Everyone was laughing and telling us to get our money back, but it’s not about the money, people will fall for it.’

Even though Sam and her mum have found the funny side, she’s requested a refund from the company and is yet to hear back.

Wulimer has been contacted for comment but have yet to respond.

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