A win or a scam???

fin08liv02

I haven't activated the sim card so don't know anything

mjm3346

This appears to a variation on the "you have been selected as a possible winner etc" type of e-mail.

Someone might win the prize, but they are almost certainly trying to harvest information for marketing (or worse) reasons.

Rolly_Coaster

I take it this is a dead duck then? Has nobody heard anything?

Bertoost

BITTEN BY IBITSCAM

Hello

I found this thread while googling IBITSTORE, who recently stole funds from my account. These parasitic criminals should be avoided at ALL costs. Here's their MO: they phone up unsuspecting consumers and represent themselves as calling from Vodafone, Orange etc. They offer a mobile contract with a particular handset and take your banking details. Within hours your account is gouged with amounts ranging from £40 and more - beneficiary is IBITSTORE. In my case, I was offered the Blackberry Bold 9700. Their email the next day states your Blackberry 8400 is on its way. You realise this is not the mobile that was agreed upon, and point this out. The agent then apologises, admits its his mistake and spins a harrowing, tear-jerking yarn about how he will lose his job. He can however "send you the 8900 so please massah, think of my poor kids" or somesuch melodrama.

Realising you're being conned and with your skin crawling at this shocking unprofessionalism, you overcome the fleeting altruistic paralysis and cancel the contract. However, they've already grabbed money from your account. From there on, its a nightmare. They do not answer their phones (endless answering machines & voicemail messages) nor do they respond to emails. When you do get hold of them (such as another victim did, I was unable to) you're told that the £40 / 50 / 60 taken from your account is a non-refundable service fee.

Now here's the interesting bit: I also received a genuine-looking email from noreply@Vodafone, citing a reference & order number. On calling Vodafone, I was informed they had NO record of such an order, did not recognise the ref number, had NEVER heard of Ibitstore or Halo Mobile. One of their senior managers suggested the email to me was either spoofed, or someone fraudulently phoned Vodafone using my details, placing an order for a phone which was then promptly cancelled.

I suspect they deliberately use the bait & switch tactic, to induce people to cancel and thus "forfeit" payments. Numerous cases of this typical Ibitstore fraud exists all over the internet. If you don't however cancel, what then they'll do is still take your money and simply never send the goods. Hundreds of cases of that everywhere as well. Additionally, they sell other consumer electronics - same MO, grab the money, but never deliver the goods.

IBITSTORE is run by a gang of Nigerians and Egyptians more crooked than a barrel of snakes. The call centre is based in Cairo, Egypt. They are supposedly owned by Addendum Ltd whose address is cited as 583 Fulham Road London SW6 5UA. Same address for Ibitstore. Same for SMH Marketing, yet this address and company name is blacklisted as fraudulent by a number of companies, including BT Business Direct. Its a whole vipers den of intertwined slithering tails, heads and snake carcasses.

They also commit their deception, fraud and theft under the names of HALO Mobile, Hello Mobile, SMH Marketing, and One Mobile Village.

Don't hold your breath that anyone of them will actually reply to you. If you really want a laugh, then send a test email to complaints@ibitstore.com. It comes back as 'undeliverable, address unkown'. Known telephone numbers are 0844-567-5863.

Lastly, my apologies for being slightly off-topic here - as you can appreciate, linking together their brazen fraud and theft with this trick of sending you SIM cards, one can only imagine the crooked, nefarious purposes for which it could be used. In South Africa, a number of Vodacom (local subsidiary of Vodafone) employees got arrested for fraud & racketeering. Their trick was to clone customer's SIM cards. Since they also had access to your banking details from phishing scams, it made it easy for them to intercept bank security alerts & text messages of funds transfers, beneficiary additions etc. Millions were stolen this way. Is this what Ibitstore is up to with their "competition"? I don't know, but whatever it is, there's a rather large, mean snake in the grass so don't join the ranks of IGOTBITTEN by IBITSTORE!

Rolly_Coaster

Erm, right... We'll leave it there then I think... thanks for the heads up.

I'm glad now they didn't follow it through and get any of my details - ********s :mad:

Vodafone

Hi Bertoost

I'm not too sure on this one to be honest but I'd like to take a look just in case there's anything we can do.

If you send me an email from here with WRT135 in the subject line (so your email comes straight to my team) as well as a link to your post and your username in the body of the text, I'll take a look at this for you.

All the best

Kirsty
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

AdiPam

Hi, I've received the same E-mail and a T-Mobile sim card in the post. I'm a bit concerned to if it's genuine or not, as these people have my address. I was also wondering if anyone has actually received this "won" Iphone and £500 vouchers? If it is a scam what could they possibly hope to gain from it?? All they asked for was the telephone number off the sim... Strange :S They haven't replied back yet, has anyone else heard anything at all from these people? Is there any way they can be reported if it is a scam?

Thanks, Adele.