Contact before ordering

Flyonthewall

I'm looking to buy something on Amazon and all I keep seeing is "contact us before ordering" followed by an email address. Some giving no reason, some for delivery costs and info and some because they state they don't deliver to all addresses.

There should be no reason at all to contact them. Item is new/they can state item description, they can enter delivery price, set where they'll deliver to etc.

Prices from one seller are lower than you'd expect for item (e.g. £1000 TV at £400). The others seem to be a little lower, but not dodgy low. That one seller seems to be on pretty much every item I look at! Weirdly they do have good feedback though (edit, did lol. They've had a few bad ones recently and their customer service is clearly very bad based on their reply to one!).

I keep thinking I've found a good item at a good price, only to find out it's the same sellers and Amazon or obviously legit sellers have a much higher price.

Is there any legit reason why any seller would ask for contact before a purchase that I just haven't thought of or are they all dodgy, in which case why are Amazon allowing them to list on all these items?

soolin

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I'm looking to buy something on Amazon and all I keep seeing is "contact us before ordering" followed by an email address. Some giving no reason, some for delivery costs and info and some because they state they don't deliver to all addresses.

There should be no reason at all to contact them. Item is new/they can state item description, they can enter delivery price, set where they'll deliver to etc.

Prices from one seller are lower than you'd expect for item (e.g. £1000 TV at £400). The others seem to be a little lower, but not dodgy low. That one seller seems to be on pretty much every item I look at! Weirdly they do have good feedback though (edit, did lol. They've had a few bad ones recently and their customer service is clearly very bad based on their reply to one!).

I keep thinking I've found a good item at a good price, only to find out it's the same sellers and Amazon or obviously legit sellers have a much higher price.

Is there any legit reason why any seller would ask for contact before a purchase that I just haven't thought of or are they all dodgy, in which case why are Amazon allowing them to list on all these items?

It makes me uneasy, Amazon should be straightforward , you click you buy, I can't see why they would want you to contact them first unless they have been hacked and want you to buy outside of Amazon.

Brywalker

I suspect if you did contact them they would try to get you to buy outside Amazon and maybe even scam you out of your money.

Flyonthewall

soolin wrote: »

It makes me uneasy, Amazon should be straightforward , you click you buy, I can't see why they would want you to contact them first unless they have been hacked and want you to buy outside of Amazon.

Exactly. Good point about buying outside of Amazon. Possible they've been hacked.

Some have gone now so either sold or removed.

There are various posts/articles elsewhere about it being a scam, but it seems a bit odd that some have decent feedback. One or two I think are using FBA so they obviously have some goods at least that are being sold legit. Seems an expensive way to build up feedback to appear legit so others trust contacting them.

Flyonthewall

Not sure if they've all been removed. No current listings stating about contact for the items I'm watching now.

Tried looking up one and went into my browser history to find it, but it only gave me other seller profiles so maybe one person hacked a few sellers? Must have changed their usernames to the same on a few.

Would explain why the seemed a bit odd and not the usual contact us scam by a new account.

Flyonthewall

One of the sellers is back, except it shows a different seller name when you view all sellers/prices to what it does in my watch list and on the Amazon description page. Same price on each page and only 1 seller with that price though.

If sellers had been hacked surely the name would change everywhere or not all?

Looking at the bit with all sellers everything looks legit. Looking elsewhere it looks dodgy!

I don't know what sellers can be trusted now. How do I know if a seller asking more is legit or whether it's dodgy too when only the cheapest seller is shown on the description page with the name change?

Very weird.

Edit: The name is switching between 3 things. A long dodgy name, another name (personal sounding) and a business name (I assume the original, legit business name). They go to the same profile page.

forgotmyname

Worth giving them a call?

Flyonthewall

forgotmyname wrote: »

Worth giving them a call?

Maybe, I did think about contacting them. Just refreshed the page and listings seem to have vanished again.

Loanranger

You know the old saying: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
I would steer well clear.

martinthebandit

Loanranger wrote: »

You know the old saying: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
I would steer well clear.

My Auntie Dot had a saying (she was a down to earth country woman) which has always stood me in good stead...

'If it looks like chicken poo and smells like chicken poo are you really going to taste it to find out what it is?'

Except she used a more earthy term than poo

Flyonthewall

Loanranger wrote: »

You know the old saying: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
I would steer well clear.

Yeah. It seems a mix of scammers, hacking and glitching which is very odd!