Leadyle Rotaing Bookcase Tracking Scam - How Does This Work?

RefluentBeans

With regards what to do about the scam (not fraud) - it’s a crime. Report it to the police, Facebook etc. but it’s whack-a-mole with these companies. If there is any presence in the UK when something gets serious they’ll fold the company, and move to another company. But I doubt there’s any actual UK presence so you don’t unfortunately have any more leverage with them. 

It’s the same sort of stunt Temu and Wish pull - you order a cracking deal of a laptop for £60, with £10 delivery taking nearly 2 months to come. When you open the box it’s missing it’s battery/screen/keyboard. They may offer to refund you but you have to pay to get it to China and at that point it’s not worth the effort. 

When buying online - if it looks too good to be true it probably is. A rotating 6 shelf cabinet for under £30 does sound like a cracking deal! Let’s hope it turns up and is what you expected it to be! 

On an aside - if you paid with your card on a site you don’t know - be sure to check for any unknown purchases. Could also ask credit card company for a new card to be sure it’s not compromised. 

P2P_Expert

fallen121 said:

Ok so I admit I was foolish enough to fall for the Facebook ad that promised a 6 shelf self assembly rotating bookcase for £24 + £7 P&P. And to begin with everything seemed fine. I paid by credit card, I was given an order confirmation and tracking for the shipment. The company, according to the order form was based in London and would be shipping from London. The credit card receipt showed a company based in London. Everything seemed above board.

Alarm bells began to ring when I tried tracking the shipment. For one thing it was coming from China. Not a huge issue as loads of companies do source products from China. And the tracking updated regularly every day, showing the package moving from a warehouse in China to another Warehouse, then to Hong Kong, eventually two weeks later, arriving in London. It was at that point alarm bells began to ring. Have cleared Customs in London, it then seemed to arrive in my home town, where for over a week it moved randomly from warehouse to warehouse, always in transit, but never to my house. Then yesterday, I was informed it was out for delivery. I remained at home, saw the postman who delivered some letters and the Parcelforce guy who delivered a parcel, and several couriers who dropped off Amazon and BooHoo parcels for my daughter. But no bookcase.

Then at 8.45 my phone pinged. Your bookcase has been delivered. I hurried to the door. No van in the street, no card, no package. No item left at the front door, round the back of the house, in the safeplace, behind the bins. Nothing. I consulted with neighbours each side and over the road. I walked up to the same numbered house in a similarly named street on the same address. Nothing. I hadn't been out. My neighbours who have a clear view of the street confirmed the road had been quiet for over an hour. If this parcel was delivered, the delivery guy was stealthy and on foot. And it wasn't any of the regular guys.

So I started emailing. Which was when I noticed none of the email addresses matched the name of the company. Who are "westarshop.com?". And on the Facebook page, bizarre images from the American Store Bed Bath and Beyond, who I am sure have no association with this company. And numerous messages from people asking "Where is my bookcase/". And the same on Trustpilot. And others saying they had ordered a bookcase and received a pair of sunglasses instead. Scam? Probably.

I've raised a chargeback with the credit card company. Who are experiencing a "huge backlog" apparently. And I've had a reply from "customer services" at Leadyle using yet ANOTHER email "after-sales@uprofficial.com" saying,

"We checked,your order has been delivered successfully. Please enter your tracking number:AG225767859CN
Here: https://t.17track.net/en to confirm your order.
We are so sorry to hear that you do not receive it.
In this case, could you please check your mailbox or go to the post office to check it.
Any feedback, please contact us anytime.

Tracking says delivered, so that's it, apparently. But there's no photo, no signature and no evidence that anything was ever delivered. And the weird tracking that doesn't seem to be Royal Mail or any delivery company I recognise and weird non specific references to location. I just get the impression the whole tracking business is a huge scam to prevent chargebacks by claiming the item was delivered. When I'm not convinced that anything ever left the warehouse. There's no proof of who carried this and Royal Mail and certainly not going to be delivering twice in one day at 9pm at night. 

HOW DOES THIS TRACKING SCAM WORK and how do I convince my Credit Card Company to take this seriously? Is this a chargeback or is this some kind of Fraud?

I also ordered the bookcase. An item was delivered and it fitted through my letterbox. It was a crummy phone charger which certainly wasn’t worth £35. I have emailed them but don’t expect any refund. 

RefluentBeans

P2P_Expert said:

fallen121 said:

Ok so I admit I was foolish enough to fall for the Facebook ad that promised a 6 shelf self assembly rotating bookcase for £24 + £7 P&P. And to begin with everything seemed fine. I paid by credit card, I was given an order confirmation and tracking for the shipment. The company, according to the order form was based in London and would be shipping from London. The credit card receipt showed a company based in London. Everything seemed above board.

Alarm bells began to ring when I tried tracking the shipment. For one thing it was coming from China. Not a huge issue as loads of companies do source products from China. And the tracking updated regularly every day, showing the package moving from a warehouse in China to another Warehouse, then to Hong Kong, eventually two weeks later, arriving in London. It was at that point alarm bells began to ring. Have cleared Customs in London, it then seemed to arrive in my home town, where for over a week it moved randomly from warehouse to warehouse, always in transit, but never to my house. Then yesterday, I was informed it was out for delivery. I remained at home, saw the postman who delivered some letters and the Parcelforce guy who delivered a parcel, and several couriers who dropped off Amazon and BooHoo parcels for my daughter. But no bookcase.

Then at 8.45 my phone pinged. Your bookcase has been delivered. I hurried to the door. No van in the street, no card, no package. No item left at the front door, round the back of the house, in the safeplace, behind the bins. Nothing. I consulted with neighbours each side and over the road. I walked up to the same numbered house in a similarly named street on the same address. Nothing. I hadn't been out. My neighbours who have a clear view of the street confirmed the road had been quiet for over an hour. If this parcel was delivered, the delivery guy was stealthy and on foot. And it wasn't any of the regular guys.

So I started emailing. Which was when I noticed none of the email addresses matched the name of the company. Who are "westarshop.com?". And on the Facebook page, bizarre images from the American Store Bed Bath and Beyond, who I am sure have no association with this company. And numerous messages from people asking "Where is my bookcase/". And the same on Trustpilot. And others saying they had ordered a bookcase and received a pair of sunglasses instead. Scam? Probably.

I've raised a chargeback with the credit card company. Who are experiencing a "huge backlog" apparently. And I've had a reply from "customer services" at Leadyle using yet ANOTHER email "after-sales@uprofficial.com" saying,

"We checked,your order has been delivered successfully. Please enter your tracking number:AG225767859CN
Here: https://t.17track.net/en to confirm your order.
We are so sorry to hear that you do not receive it.
In this case, could you please check your mailbox or go to the post office to check it.
Any feedback, please contact us anytime.

Tracking says delivered, so that's it, apparently. But there's no photo, no signature and no evidence that anything was ever delivered. And the weird tracking that doesn't seem to be Royal Mail or any delivery company I recognise and weird non specific references to location. I just get the impression the whole tracking business is a huge scam to prevent chargebacks by claiming the item was delivered. When I'm not convinced that anything ever left the warehouse. There's no proof of who carried this and Royal Mail and certainly not going to be delivering twice in one day at 9pm at night. 

HOW DOES THIS TRACKING SCAM WORK and how do I convince my Credit Card Company to take this seriously? Is this a chargeback or is this some kind of Fraud?

I also ordered the bookcase. An item was delivered and it fitted through my letterbox. It was a crummy phone charger which certainly wasn’t worth £35. I have emailed them but don’t expect any refund. 

Yeah I think it’s unlikely that anything will happen in all honesty. It’s more than likely illegal, but as these companies tend to be based in China, and the Chinese government seems to turn a blind eye to it, there’s not much UK law enforcement can do. 

It’s worth checking, for future reference, if there’s any options. In this case, it seems more than likely fraudulent, but in other cases they’ll advertise a brand new phone for £50, but the thing that’s automatically selected is a phone case of charger or something, and you have to select the phone (which is almost always just the RRP of the phone). 

I would avoid using sites like these - especially the Wish-type sites (and Temu as been as every other ad I see is for that site now); and exercise the if it looks too good to be true it probably is mantra. Unless you’re well versed in these sites, you’ll likely fall into a trap. Very little recourse when the company isn’t based in the UK unfortunately. 

fallen121

It never arrived. I got a refund. Several months later I received an empty Jiffy bag containing a piece of bubblewrap. Still a bit bemused. 

ArbitraryRandom

Not sure if this is a new thing, but if it happens again(!) you could try seeing if it's covered by facebook (it includes items not being as described) https://www.facebook.com/help/228307904608701