Possible scam - need advice - ebuy4u.com

lil_Princess

I spent days trawling the internet prior to this thread to find information on eBuy4u and once I came across it, I wanted to share my experience also. I imagine the others did the same. It would seem we all made purchases around a similar time so have all recently starting worrying about it (and "google-ing"). I think it's great that we can share our stories and that so many people have joined the thread, we need to target these criminals!

pitkin2020

halibut2209 wrote: »

Well, let's see. A dozen new users signing up on the same day purely to complain about 1 company? A google search doesn't come up with any other people complaining.

I don't believe in coincidence, but I do believe in Occam's Razor. Smear campaign by 1 or 2 people who have either had a bad experience or some personal grudge with the aim of putting this thread high up in a google search.

Of course, I shall glady apologise should I be proven wrong.

Have you used google yourself to find a positive review?? I could only find one review that had a 5 star rating posted and that was on a random review site, I couldn't find anymore personally.

BottomRung wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your problems but I believe Hallibut is pointing out the fact so many newbies are posting about 1 company in 1 day. It is a little odd. If you think about the problems posts like this could cause a legitimate company if someone decided to post lies, it could well come back on MSE for allowing the posts to remain. He is just giving his opinion on the situation from another perspective. Doesn;t mean he's right but he has a point.

Yes but if Halibut actually took a moment to read the posts and the back ground you he could see this appears to be very genuine.

Most people have gone past their delivery date by a few days, so now start looking for info as they can't get through to the company

They can't get through to the company via email or phone, again another reason to search the net and see if its just them or if its happening to other people

The website was only formed a few months ago

The delivery dates they seem to have offered everyone seem to be around a weeks lead time, roughly. Most people would accept that and wouldn't start querying until the delivery date had passed and no contact was made

The company address is a small industrial unit where others have said the management of the estate have never heard of them

You could ring OFT yourself if your so concerned its a smear campaign.

I expect this company has done a runner, with quite a lot of money I would expect!!

Those who have been effected should also get in touch with http://www.bigcommerce.com/ who are the hosts for the website, and point them to this thread they should pull the site then whilst they too investigate it.

Best of luck to those who I would say IMO have been scammed

lorrainemer

lil_Princess wrote: »

I spent days trawling the internet prior to this thread to find information on eBuy4u and once I came across it, I wanted to share my experience also. I imagine the others did the same. It would seem we all made purchases around a similar time so have all recently starting worrying about it (and "google-ing"). I think it's great that we can share our stories and that so many people have joined the thread, we need to target these criminals!

thank you for this - it is exactly why I joined the site and I assume many many others that are new posters did also. Its clear that a few people like to just argue on the site and clearly spend time going about different threads for the sake of it to add there 2 p worth . however I want to say thanks as I have been able to at least not feel along and get what others are doing about it . So thank you and to the others who are saying this is a scammed thread - lets hope you are right and I will be first to apologise if I get my goods or a refund.

duboisier

I have been following this forum since early yesterday when I realised I had been scammed, and have decided it is time to contribute. You will see I appear as a newbie, but I am actually involved in running a successful ecommerce site that has accreditation from HSBC so understand (or thought I understood!) the controls in place. I am all the more cross therefore that I have been scammed.
Look at the clues. One of the clearest is sending out multiple similar emails. I got:
"Your order is out for delivery and will be delivered today between 5pm-7pm. Again we apologise for all the inconvenience and we promise to do everything in our power to put things right."
So what do we do next?
I have contacted Trading Standards. They were VERY helpful and promised to assist in every way they could. Everyone needs to contact them too.
I have registered for mediation with Google Checkout - but nothing will happen there for 5 working days.
I have contacted MasterCard who were less than helpful and said they "would send a form out by post" (no, when asked, they don't have email!)
Then I got onto NatWest Bank to ask about my chances of getting my money back. Not such good news, even though I paid by credit card. It seems to turn out that the Consumer Credit Act protects me if I pay for goods DIRECTLY, but not when there is an agent involved (Google Checkout). I have to get my money back from Google Checkout - but then what chance there, because they only "mediate" with a company that has done a runner? They then went on to say that the reason systems like Google Checkout were created was to get round the Consumer Credit Act (his words, and I'm sure he wouldn't be prepared to be quoted).
We will see where this leads, but I don't have a good feeling. I know there are experienced posters who are sceptical, but my experience tells me this was a well-planned scam. They probably traded at a low level to get the accreditation they needed with Google Checkout, and then went for the sting. I ordered on 5th July. They shut down all email and telephone communications sometime around the end of the day on 19th July.

brippon

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Those who have been effected should also get in touch with BigCommerce who are the hosts for the website, and point them to this thread they should pull the site then whilst they too investigate it.

They have been aware of this thread at the highest level since last night and are investigating. However they're based in Australia and Austin TX so due diligence might be taking longer than one would like. They're unlikely to want to pull the plug on a customer's site which is only alleged to be malevolent any more than they want to be involved with one that is.

Ellis1888

duboisier wrote: »

I have been following this forum since early yesterday when I realised I had been scammed, and have decided it is time to contribute. You will see I appear as a newbie, but I am actually involved in running a successful ecommerce site that has accreditation from HSBC so understand (or thought I understood!) the controls in place. I am all the more cross therefore that I have been scammed.
Look at the clues. One of the clearest is sending out multiple similar emails. I got:
"Your order is out for delivery and will be delivered today between 5pm-7pm. Again we apologise for all the inconvenience and we promise to do everything in our power to put things right."
So what do we do next?
I have contacted Trading Standards. They were VERY helpful and promised to assist in every way they could. Everyone needs to contact them too.
I have registered for mediation with Google Checkout - but nothing will happen there for 5 working days.
I have contacted MasterCard who were less than helpful and said they "would send a form out by post" (no, when asked, they don't have email!)
Then I got onto NatWest Bank to ask about my chances of getting my money back. Not such good news, even though I paid by credit card. It seems to turn out that the Consumer Credit Act protects me if I pay for goods DIRECTLY, but not when there is an agent involved (Google Checkout). I have to get my money back from Google Checkout - but then what chance there, because they only "mediate" with a company that has done a runner? They then went on to say that the reason systems like Google Checkout were created was to get round the Consumer Credit Act (his words, and I'm sure he wouldn't be prepared to be quoted).
We will see where this leads, but I don't have a good feeling. I know there are experienced posters who are sceptical, but my experience tells me this was a well-planned scam. They probably traded at a low level to get the accreditation they needed with Google Checkout, and then went for the sting. I ordered on 5th July. They shut down all email and telephone communications sometime around the end of the day on 19th July.

Not sure I want to thank you for the Goggle Checkout information !
The MasterCard representative I spoke to didn't indicate that they might be a 'refund' problem caused by using Goggle Checkout, only that it could them up to 10 days to 'clarify' the situation.

sandle

I think Google Checkout are to blame for using the term "security" in relation to their service. Thanks to Google Checkout, the bank is not now likely to refund as they can point to the involvement of Google as a third party. I e-mailed [EMAIL="checkout-support@google.com"]checkout-support@google.com[/EMAIL] and of course there is no reply.

:mad:

brippon

Google 'section 75 refunds checkout' to find out...

brippon

It looks to me like the site's been pulled.

Grrrr2011

Yes, looks like site has been taken down. What happens now though. I paid by credit card thinking I would be safe but now looking at the posts above we may not get our money back because it went through Google Checkout. Surely the law can't let people get scammed like this without taking some serious action and at least giving some compensation back to the victims.