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Old 01-17-2017, 09:52 AM
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fazool fazool is online now
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Default A cautionary tale of online shopping (counterfeits and fraud)

This isn't guitar-related but the general situation shoud be a warning to us all.

I love old school Converse Dr. J's - they fit my foot the best and are my favorite.

They are hard to find - used vintage sneakers run $100-$500 on eBay and I have no interest in that. Occassionally Converse has a limited run and if you find them you can get some.

OK, my favorite style is #10319.

I found legit looking website of a store in the UK (with a .UK domain name and in GBP currency) called "alexis rossi eventing" and they have these in stock. So I ordered a pair. A while later, I got a confirmation email all in Chinese from an email address at outlook.com. Then the charge on my credit card shows up as Lyt Tranding Company in Hong Kong.

I emailed them that they were being deceptive and I don't want counterfeits. They already shipped them and totally different product arrived - not even remotely what I ordered - they sent me cheap junk. I sent them an email that I want the correct product, non-fake or a refund. They asked me to keep the product and "I give you 10% discount"

I refused and they told me I will lose lots of money paying to ship these back. I opened a dispute with my credit card company and notified this company of that.

The next day that website was gone and a new store (looking similar) opened up called Glencairnps.ca in canadian currency.

So I looked deeper and they hijacked alexxis rossi eventing which is an equestrian's twitter account in the UK and glen cairn PS is a public school in canada.

So, they make a fake website and take over someones web address.

I have so much loathing in me for these people.
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Old 01-17-2017, 10:13 AM
JCook1 JCook1 is offline
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Did you ever get your refund, or did your credit card company nullify the deal? And did you ever get the sneakers you wanted? It can be very difficult to verify the legitimacy of some of these online "vendors." It's a dangerous world out there in cyberspace; very easy to get taken.

Jack
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Old 01-17-2017, 10:23 AM
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Did you ever get your refund, or did your credit card company nullify the deal? And did you ever get the sneakers you wanted? It can be very difficult to verify the legitimacy of some of these online "vendors." It's a dangerous world out there in cyberspace; very easy to get taken.

Jack


The credit card company is processing my refund investigation. I've submitted a complaint through the FBI's online consumer fraud website, emailed nike/converse's counterfeit department, emailed the public school in canada and tweeted to the equestrian in the UK.

This is the umpteenth and countless time I've personally been confronted with Chinese manufacturing counterfeits and criminal activity.
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Old 01-17-2017, 11:15 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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To me, there is another aspect to Fazool's warning. Reading his posts, I can tell that he is a very intelligent and thoughtful person who knows his way around the internet. If he can get taken in on something like this, we all can, despite our best efforts. Extreme caution is the best policy, and I am sure Fazool already does that.

I hope you come out of this without loss other than the time and aggravation. Also, I agree with your loathing of such folks. I often wonder why some folks have to make their living taking from others, rather than just doing honest work and using the normal means of improving themselves to improve their lot.

Tony
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Old 01-17-2017, 11:42 AM
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To me, there is another aspect to Fazool's warning. Reading his posts, I can tell that he is a very intelligent and thoughtful person who knows his way around the internet. If he can get taken in on something like this, we all can, despite our best efforts. Extreme caution is the best policy, and I am sure Fazool already does that.

I hope you come out of this without loss other than the time and aggravation. Also, I agree with your loathing of such folks. I often wonder why some folks have to make their living taking from others, rather than just doing honest work and using the normal means of improving themselves to improve their lot.

Tony
Thank you for the kind words - I have been around the Internet a while and I totally got scammed...
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Old 01-17-2017, 11:50 AM
Gitarre Gitarre is offline
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Seems like you were all over the situation fazool, which is all you can do with e-commerce. It's amazing how much time it takes in trying to correct problems like this. I hope the card company takes care of you post haste.

As Tony said, it's amazing how much effort so many people put into scams to defraud people. If they chose it seems like they could be productive members of society.

Good luck fazool and.......have a good one!
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Old 01-17-2017, 12:13 PM
imwjl imwjl is offline
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That's too bad. I hope no major pain from the incident.

The spoofing that goes on gets a lot of people in trouble. It's my job to know that and when tired or distracted I've almost been caught.

This problem has more and more sent me to brand names sold by major sellers. If Amazon not just a Prime seller but sold by Amazon.

I've even wondered of all the counterfeiting has made decent products go away. Looking for Apple Watch bands I see the high priced Apple and designer stuff and huge world of knock offs. The knockoffs can have a lot of 5 star ratings but up to 30% 1 and 2 star rating showing junk.

One defense for the web shopping problem gets some people riled up but an up to date operating system and web browser set to safe defaults usually gets you a certificate error to show that a site has been spoofed.
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Old 01-17-2017, 07:30 PM
LSemmens LSemmens is offline
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Did you purchase using PAYPAL, on the few occasions that I have been "caught" they have refunded me almost immediately.
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Old 01-17-2017, 07:52 PM
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Did you purchase using PAYPAL, on the few occasions that I have been "caught" they have refunded me almost immediately.
I used a credit card this time and , frankly Bank of America is about to lose my 15 years as a customer, along with all my platinum checking, savings and credit cards because they are being so terrible to deal with.

I have to upload evidence documents to them via their website which doesnt work then closes the complaint so I cant send files. Then I call and they tell me to wait for an email and the cycle starts over.

Seriously I'm about to burn these counterfeit shoes and give up on the $76 and move all my money to a new bank.

In the past few times I ever had a dispute, I got my money credited back to me while they investigated and they had my back the whole time. My bank is treating me like I'm someone they don't trust.
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Old 01-17-2017, 09:10 PM
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Couple of years ago I was looking for a new pair of UGG boots but didn’t necessarily want to pay the “fixed” (formerly known as “fair-trade”) price that everyone from department stores to Zappos was charging. Came across a site that looked to be an authentic .com discount shoe store, and the price seemed to be right, but after submitting my purchase I had second thoughts when I saw some strangled syntax and misspellings on the site, and I got PayPal to abort the processing of my payment. Never heard back from the “seller.”

A few weeks ago I was browsing to try and add some Pandora charms to my collection and found pandoraonline.uk (supposedly, according to Pandora, “pandoraonline.com” is an “official reseller” and that was what I typed). The prices seemed fantastic—including for several “retired” pieces, and when I went to the “checkout” page I noticed there was neither an “https” in the url nor a little padlock icon anywhere on the page. I immediately deleted that browser tab before typing anything in.

One further caveat: even if you are at an outlet mall at an official outlet store, you might not be buying what you think is regular merchandise marked down due to being “past-season,” overstock or slightly irregular. Many companies—notably UGG, Coach (purses and leather goods) and Chico’s (women’s sportswear)—stock their outlet stores with items that are, while genuine rather than counterfeit, made just for their outlets and of slightly lesser quality than that sold in their regular shops, department stores or online. (Conversely, some shops located in outlet malls aren’t discount outlets but full-price shops, just as in regular malls).

I discovered this at the outlet malls I visited recently in Leesburg, VA and Rosemont, IL. In the case of Coach, I did manage to snag a purse that came in as a “return from retail” at a fairly deep discount off the price I saw the week before while in Macy's; and even their outlet-only stuff is fairly high quality. UGG’s outlet, OTOH, has much flimsier boots—many with narrower shafts and not-so-plush linings—at their outlet shop. But ironically at Chico’s outlet, I saw stuff very similar but not identical to what I’ve bought both online and in their boutiques, under a different sub-label (e.g., what online and at retail is part of their “Zenergy" line is sort of knocked off at the outlet under the "Weekend by Chico’s” line that has the same quality materials but less detailing, and is actually cut more generously. I discovered this when I found several pieces there that were exactly what I’d been searching for for months, but was never able to encounter at their boutiques or in their catalogs. The salesclerk told me that everything in their outlets is exclusive to their outlets!

So cheaper is not necessarily better, nor even as much of a bargain, but sometimes it’s good enough and better fits your needs!
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Old 01-18-2017, 06:50 AM
GHS GHS is offline
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Thank you for the kind words - I have been around the Internet a while and I totally got scammed...
Remember the famous line from "Apocalypse Now" "Don't get out of the boat". That was good advice. I never sold nor bought outside of the USA. Never had a problem, (unless I had a fussy buyer).
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