HotCrazyDeal.com

AMO
AMO Posts: 1,464 Forumite
edited 28 January 2014 at 9:40PM in Praise, vent & warnings
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Our News Team's just looked into this. Read our Facebook Pulls HotCrazyDeals Ads after Users lose Money news story.

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Is this website a scam?

I can't find any reviews on the internet and yet their deals seem to be better than Groupons.

Thanks.
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Comments

  • Coopdivi
    Coopdivi Posts: 3,412 Forumite
    I love the big banner on the home page which covers virtually everything up and can only be removed by entering an email address. Fortunately they accepted my made up one : qwertyuiop @ gmail.com :D

    The contact address is in Panama. When I copied and pasted this address, enclosed by speech marks, into Google I got nine entries for seven different websites. One of them, according to Web of Trust, is 'Engaged in the use of misleading marketing tactics.'

    http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/vidzstar.com

    The address on the Domain Registration is in Jakarta, Indonesia. Copying/pasting this into Google gave me precisely one entry, for this website. This leads me to conclude that it doesn't exist and has been falsified. Also note the Hotmail email address because all reputable websites use a throwaway email address don't they? :)

    http://whois.domaintools.com/hotcrazydeal.com

    As for the bargains well, there's plenty of them isn't there? After much deliberation I decided to go for 2 Pizza Hut pizzas for a £1.

    Hotcrazydeal don't faff around with extra pages for payment details. Whatever deal you click on you are immediately presented with a form for entering your credit card number etc. These pages are encrypted but there is no card payment processor present and they aren't precise about how much your card will be debited by either.

    Whatever you decide to buy, you will automatically become a 'premium member' with a free 72 hour trial. If you don't cancel your credit card will be debited £29.90 every 30 days.

    My conclusion: It's obviously a con website run by criminals. Most of the deals are too good to be true and almost certainly don't actually exist. Panama is a notorious haven for crooks. The trial will be impossible to cancel and the monthly membership will be a continuous payment authority which will be difficult to stop.

    http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments

    Don't waste your hard earned money.
  • AMO
    AMO Posts: 1,464 Forumite
    Thanks. They're pasting all over Facebook so I am sure that many people less suspicious than I will have signed up.
  • i've just seen this too, and was intrigued by the £30 supermarket shop for a £1 with a vague mention of a membership "after 72hr trial"

    Will give it a wide berth me thinks :)
    Debt@LBM1=£4050 1st DFD 27/08/09 :D Debt @LBM2 =£14,469.97 2nd DFD 14/03/2018 :T
    Make £10/day Y1£3.5k Y2£3k Yr3£4k Yr4£1.5k
    DFW NERD 1068 :cool:
    Avios 78,000 :D
  • I was tempted by the "Two Pizza's for £1" offer having seen it on Facebook.

    Decided to call the helpline prior to purchasing to see if I could find out more on them.

    Phone rings for a bit, then you get: "Thank you for calling Hot Crazy Deal,, sorry we can't take your call right now, please call again later"

    If they were legit they would at least pick up the phone. Avoid!
  • anitaperezvogel
    anitaperezvogel Posts: 1 Newbie
    edited 25 November 2013 at 9:23PM
    Do any of you, please, have a clue how to cancel the already (unfortunately :( proceeded transaction?
    Is there any chance to move away from it within certain time period (i.e. 24 hours or so)?
    Thanks a lot in advance for your advices! Better should have read this forum before :(
  • I would suggest you contact your bank & ask that they do not let any payments be authourised, or to be even safer just report your card lost that way card number will be cancelled immediately & no payment will be taken. Am so glad found this thread as was also tempted by 1 of their "fantastic" offers.
    I have had a look through the terms & conditions & it does state that there is a 14 day cooling off period but they could have this stated just to look legit, I will not use them until I read some positive feedback from the public x
  • andiecayne
    andiecayne Posts: 2 Newbie
    edited 26 November 2013 at 9:19PM
    You can't even read the terms and conditions, so no way I was going to enter an e-mail address and click okay. Whenever you are suspicious of things like this, it's best to search google for "...." scam - this is how I found this forum on this particular topic.
    Unfortunately, facebook didn't allow me to tell them why I didn't want to see this ad anymore - I will, however, certainly forward some of the info I read here.

    Thanks guys and gals!
  • andiecayne
    andiecayne Posts: 2 Newbie
    edited 26 November 2013 at 9:33PM
    PS I have reported the ad to Facebook and I did manage to get to the offer I'd seen there by entering an invented e-mail address too! So I took a screenshot of it and added this to the report.
    If you do enter a fake e-mail you are also finally able to read the terms and conditions - dodgy dodgy indeed.
  • I have unknowingly made a purchase on this website.

    Would anyone have any advice for me: I have contacted the bank and asked them not to allow any unauthorized debit orders to be set up and have given them the website's name. They have said that they will make a note of this, although they cannot guarantee anything. Do I have any kind of protection against these people?

    Is this not that the bank has made enough or is there something more that I should/could do?

    I'd really appreciate any advice
  • If you pay for something, goods or services, by c/c, then the c/c issuer is 100% liable for the aptness of what you buy.
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