my experience with a fraudulent merchant from Wisconsin
I was looking for a DSLR camera with a limited budget and I almost bought it from a prospective fraudulent merchant from Wisconsin. The deal was too good to be true. A DSLR Nikon D3100 was listed for $300 while its regular price was around $550. They go by the name Viable solutions. Their website show a physical address which turns out to be a luxury apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Despite the doubts, I called them at a phone no. listed in the website and asked if the item listed in website is still available. A guy with an accent (probably the owner) picked up the phone. The tone was rude.I heard keystrokes from other side which felt like he is trying to search the item from the inventory. After few seconds, he told me that it is still available and I could order from the website.
A quick check from www.scamadviser.com showed that their website was registered just 14 days ago at the time I was about to make purchase. Also, the site was plain & simple, probably hosted in enom.com (a cheap hosting provider) and constructed using template from highwire.com. So, basically anybody, even without much technical knowledge, can setup a site like that. It was huge red flag.
I read many stories of other fake merchants from Internet. Since this one was new, I could not find any stories on them. Despite the red flag from scamadviser.com and horror stories, the deal was too good to ignore.
So, I tried to make payment through their site using Paypal. It failed. I found a contact email address (of course from free email provider) from their ‘contact us’ page and informed him (probably the same guy on phone) about payment failing. He said that they are having issues with their credit card and Paypal payment processing. (I wonder why would he ask me to make payment from their website during phone call. Probably to show that they are legit.) So, he asked to make payment from Western Union and to find out a local Western Union agent. But, I asked him if I could make payment to his bank account or Paypal account directly. However, he was sticking with Western Union and offered me help to locate nearest Western Union agent. May be he thought I don’t know Google Maps :). He also mentioned that I could make payment from Western Union using credit card. I contacted Western Union chat support to know if payments made through them are revocable. The support guy said that they are in the business of securely transferring money but not in handling disputes and revoking. However, he mentioned a certain complex clause where I can raise a dispute.
With so many doubts, I asked the New Solutions guy that why he cannot accept paypal payment directly. I can understand technical problems with their slow website. He said that his Paypal account is under editorial review due to excess funds. He forwarded me a link to manta.com where his company was listed as a company providing computer related services in that area. He also sent me payment details for Western Union Money transfer. The receiver was an another new person from Alda, Nebraska. Totally different state than what Viable Solutions are supposedly located. That was also a huge red flag.
Knowing that there is less than 90% probability of getting the purchased item, I still made the payment through Western Union money transfer online using credit card. But, since my account was just opened and not verified the payment was pending. I was supposed to wait until a WU transaction with a code appear in my credit card (24 to 48 hrs) and use that code to verify my WU account. Only then my payment will be processed.
The delay turned out to be a lucky one for me. I get a chance to think it through. Earlier, I was so eager to get the camera in cheaper price before other gets it. I did some Google search and found out that the fraudulent merchants ask payment from WU so that, it cannot be revoked and traced back which is what exactly happened with me. I immediately cancelled the pending transaction from WU and wished the guy good luck with other stupid customers. :).
While doing further research, I noticed very few people have actually purchased from merchants like these. And very few of them actually got the right product. Many were sent multiple quantities of same product and charged for it.
I also noticed many websites with similar looks and feel and listing similar products from ‘Google Shopping’ search.They even have same names for online chat support person. Most of them are originated from outside US (like China or some south american countries) according to scamadviser.com. These are the sites which come at top in Google Shopping search with excessively low rate when you order the list from lowest to highest price. All of these clues clearly suggest that they are fake and waiting to get our hard-earned money illegally.
All these sites which list deeply discounted items are highly suspicious. It is likely that some few are legitimate but most of them are either bypassing taxes or screwing customers some other way. It is always a good idea to do some research on the physical location of the company, website review (from sites like scamadviser.com), other customers experience with them and payment method. Hopefully, Google will remove these sites from their search results in the near future. Happy shopping. :)
[Update] It turns out that a consumer is tricked to buy 4 TV's from them.
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1421928/viable-solutions-llc
