Wholesale DVD Sales....warning!

barbiedoll

This company....

http://www.wholesaledvdsales.co.uk/

offers cheap DVD box sets. The website is designed to look as though it is a UK site but the DVD's are cheap pirate copies and they are sent from China....so no "5-8 working days" delivery times, more like 2-3 weeks. None of the discs will play all the way through and you can ask for a refund (see their "15 day return and 1 month warranty" blurb) but you won't get one.

The company is registered to a woman in Essex with an English sounding name, but I'm guessing that she speaks fluent Chinese. :mad:

Avoid avoid avoid!

transient

This would give the game away for me

http://www.wholesaledvdsales.co.uk/article-11-Payment-Method.html

and any one of these FAQS

http://www.wholesaledvdsales.co.uk/article-20-FAQ.html

ThumbRemote

transient wrote: »

This would give the game away for me

You'd already been told that it was a fake site, so all you had to do was go looking for something suspicious. It's completely different for someone who doesn't have that prior warning and visits the site. Not everyone views the FAQs; most will just place their order.

Nilrem

A bit late, but any site selling DVD's massively cheaper is suspect, especially if it's selling DVD's that may not be available from other retailers, or the disc count is lower

It's been a massive problem with Anime and Disney DVD's for years, even on Amazon at times (third party sellers are sometime dodgy), and Ebay is (or was, it may have improved) a massive source of dodgy discs
The sellers have just moved to producing some template websites to host their sales now.

pmduk

ThumbRemote wrote: »

You'd already been told that it was a fake site, so all you had to do was go looking for something suspicious. It's completely different for someone who doesn't have that prior warning and visits the site. Not everyone views the FAQs; most will just place their order.

When buying from an unfamiliar site a customer surely should check the bona fides of a company? Anybody can set up a .co.uk website address.

transient

ThumbRemote wrote: »

You'd already been told that it was a fake site, so all you had to do was go looking for something suspicious. It's completely different for someone who doesn't have that prior warning and visits the site. Not everyone views the FAQs; most will just place their order.

Incorrect.

With regards to most that just place the order, well due diligence should be part of that process.

George_Michael

transient wrote: »

Incorrect.

With regards to most that just place the order, well due diligence should be part of that process.

What was incorrect in the post by ThumbRemote?

You'd already been told that it was a fake site, so all you had to do was go looking for something suspicious.
This is true as people reading had already been told that it was a dodgy site.
It's completely different for someone who doesn't have that prior warning and visits the site. Not everyone views the FAQs; most will just place their order.
Again, true.
It might be sensible for everyone to check out all websites, but just because it's sensible doesn't mean that it happens.

You even stated this yourself transient.

With regards to most that just place the order, well due diligence should be part of that process.

There are lots of things that should happen, but as not everyone who uses the internet is aware of the possible pitfalls, these things very often don't happen.

barbiedoll

I like to think that I wouldn't have been caught out by this site, there was no padlock symbol on the payment page for a start! Unfortunately, my husband was very keen to get his hands on a box set of some US show that he likes and when he searched online, this site threw up the cheapest price, although not by much (£12 cheaper, still over £60 for the set)

I don't look over his shoulder every time he shops online so we only looked at the site more closely when the supposed delivery date had come and gone. It was then that I noticed the poor english on the reviews and after a bit of Google digging, we found a couple of negative reviews stating that the discs were pirate copies as indeed ours turned out to be when they arrived. After more than 10 years of online shopping, it's the first time that we've been caught out, that's probably due to the invaluable advice given on here as much as anything else. That's why I posted, hopefully any search on this "company" will throw up this thread!

Scarpacci

barbiedoll wrote: »

I like to think that I wouldn't have been caught out by this site, there was no padlock symbol on the payment page for a start! Unfortunately, my husband was very keen to get his hands on a box set of some US show that he likes and when he searched online, this site threw up the cheapest price, although not by much (£12 cheaper, still over £60 for the set)

For what it's worth, the presence of a padlock means very little in determining whether a site is genuine. Although it's true that the absence of a padlock should set off alarm bells, because it likely means they're scammers and incompetent ones at that, it's not a great determiner of safety. Anybody can buy an SSL certificate and set it up, so all it means is your data is being sent securely to the website - whether they're a legitimate business or not. So be suspicious of sites that don't have padlocks, but don't grant much credence to sites that do.

pmduk

There are various organisation's logos on the home page to give it credibility. Some of them invite you to click them to prove their legitimacy. Unsurprisingly these are false.

pinkteapot

I appreciate that a lot of people don't read FAQs etc, but one quick and easy thing to do before ordering from any website is go to the Contact Us page.

I never order from any website that only offers email as a contact method (as this one does).

I want to see a UK address and phone number listed.

Doesn't guarantee a website is safe of course but it's a good start.