really weird online vendor

[Pat]

I was looking at shopping services online for computers the other day and came across a Sony model that was $1999 at Sony and close to that elsewhere and only $1250 at vencoelectronics.com.  Big difference, so I looked at Venco to see what's the catch.  Reading their terms and conditions is a strange experience.  They do not accept credit cards, despite the fact that they have VISA and Paypal pictured at the bottom of their opening screen.  You have to send cash via Western Union or another mentioned service.  They do not specify how much of the original purchase price they'll refund and are vague about when they'll ship (after they have received your cash, though) and when they'll refund.  They do not have a phone number or address, because they want to "keep prices down by not running a store or paying people to man phones." 

Scary.

--pat

 

[Karl]

Pat,

That is strange. What's stranger indeed is that I couldn't find a website for vencoelectronics :-\ Are you sure you have the name right?

 

[Pat]

Karl:  Let me check.  I did printscreens and may have copied a letter or two wrong.  It's vencoelectronica.  The fuzzy "a" looked like an "s", which would have made more sense. 

--pat

 

[Carl L]

They do not specify how much of the original purchase price they'll refund and are vague about when they'll ship (after they have received your cash, though) and when they'll refund.  They do not have a phone number or address, because they want to "keep prices down by not running a store or paying people to man phones." 

Scary.

Scary is Nature's way of a saying,  "Get the hell out of there!"  Go with your instincts.  That guy is a thinly disguised ripoff relying on the Internet delivering him enough of the one sucker out of 10,000 to make a real killing. 

Of course I could be wrong, but I won't bet on it.

 

[Karl]

Pat,

Ah, that makes all the difference in the world

It appears that VENCOELECTRONICA may be a recent subsidiary; selling computers, cameras, and other consumer electronics, of VENCOELECTRONICA, S.A.; a company that has been in business for about 20 years selling commercial and industrial electronics. Have no idea whether they are reputable, but fronting cash to a company with offices in Rome, Italy; Castellon, Spain; and a warehouse in Greece, without recourse as you would have with a credit card, sounds kinda risky. You may also run into 'Gray Market' warranty issues too.

 

[Ned]

Run, don't walk, from those deals.  It's a very good chance that you'll never receive any product and will have no recourse as they don't have any offices in the US.  I would check in a week or two and see if the web site is still up.  It's a good bet that it'll be gone, along with the suckers money.

 

[Wendy]

What's the old saying about "If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't"???

 

[Mike in Texas]

Pat - I buy a LOT of things from online sellers, the biggest being a golf cart on eBay, but have a couple  of rules that I religiously follow.

- Buy from known reliable vendors if at all possible (newegg.com, amazon.com, buy.com, homeclick.com, etc).

- Avoid anyone who will not accept a credit card or Paypal, especially if they want payment via western union or money  order. With credit card or Paypal you have some protection.

- Check out any vendor on resellerratings.com. Venco only has one feedback, posted yesterday, from someone who lost $1000.

    http://www.resellerratings.com/seller13283.html

They recently operated as elettro-ok but there is no feedback for that one. Interestingly, if you went by the resellerratings you would not buy from dell.com as they have a 6 month rating of 3.47 out of 10 and lifetime rating of 4.37, mostly due to poor service and the use of phone support people located in India.

- If it's an eBay seller, check his feedback rating and carefully review his feedbacks. If the rating is not 98+% or if they have few feedbacks beware. Some unreputable sellers load up their feedbacks with reviews from friends for very small purchases to get their ratings up.

- Check out the product on amazon.com. Lots of good customer reviews.

I agree with wendycoke on what she said. Just remember "caveat emptor".
-

 

[blueblood]

The web site was registered by a guy named Kenneth Coffman 1916 Edwards St Madisonville, KY .

The registration for company gives same address. Checking in white pages that turns out to be home of Kenneth and Joy Coffman
Phone 270-825-4754

Could call them for what would probably be an interesting story.

 

[Bob Zambenini]

Pat - I buy a LOT of things from online sellers, the biggest being a golf cart on eBay, but have a couple  of rules that I religiously follow.

- Buy from known reliable vendors if at all possible (newegg.com, amazon.com, buy.com, homeclick.com, etc).

- Avoid anyone who will not accept a credit card or Paypal, especially if they want payment via western union or money  order. With credit card or Paypal you have some protection.

Yes, you do have a lot of protection with PayPal.

I do a fair amount of Ebay selling and buying and now only deal with cases where I can use PayPal.

Some time back I was looking for a specific pair of Footjoy Golf shoes and found them on a site that looked totally reputable.

They did not arrive and checking and checking it appeared the site was bogus. My son asked if I used PayPal and I said yes. He said they will cover your loss. Sure enough, I reported the situation on line to them and in a week they credited my account for the full amount of purchase.

Bob

 

[BernieD]

- Buy from known reliable vendors if at all possible (newegg.com, amazon.com, buy.com, homeclick.com, etc).
-

FYI, buy.com is no longer on my list of reliable vendors. Last November I purchased a software title from them. in January 2 fraudulent charges were made to my credit card account, one on buy.com, the other on Amazon. Amazon immediately credited my account. It took over 2 months and lots of phone calls before buy.com acknowledged the fraudulent transaction. They sent me a copy of the fraudulent invoice which had my name, address and credit card number correct, as I supplied buy.com. However, the phone #, email address and ship to address were all different. Still needed my credit card company to beat them up to refund the charge.

 

[Jeff]

CitiCard is always trying to get me to sign up for Virtual CC numbers. It is software installed on our computer that issues a random number in place of our CC # for each online transaction.

Listening to all this has convinced me to sign up tonight!

 

[blueblood]

CitiCard is always trying to get me to sign up for Virtual CC numbers. It is software installed on our computer that issues a random number in place of our CC # for each online transaction.

Listening to all this has convinced me to sign up tonight!

That type of service has all ways been available on MBNA CC - it's called Shop Safe. You set the time for the number to remain open and the amount of the charge. Use it every time I make an on-line purchase or even a reservation hat requires aCC

 

[Ian]

So I put the name through Google and came up with this very interesting thread at slickdeals.net.

Note where they rang the supposed contact address of the local contact?
"I called up Kenneth Coffman, and he said that I was the third caller. He does not own a computer, nor an email address. He also said that he doesnt know who venco electronica is, but it must be some mistake."

and the emails from the company Customer Service:
"We have temporarily suspended payments by Credit Card/PayPal due to fraudulent transactions from some countries.
Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience. Please check us back next month."

My advice, don't go near that place under any circumstances.

 

[OldSoldier]

As predicted earlier in this thread, I tried to open the website and it nolonger responds.

Bye-bye bad guys.

 

[Carl L]

As predicted earlier in this thread, I tried to open the website and it nolonger responds.

Bye-bye bad guys.

One can only hope that their departure was assisted by a bunch of bureaucrats with badges.  ;D

 

[Pat]

Needless to say I never had any intention of buying from them, but I thought the website was appalling.  Then a couple days later I read somewhere aobut the multimillion dollar business internet fraud is becoming. 

Have had two good experiences with Newegg.  Amazingly meticulous people; although, she promised to refund my return shipping cost and instead, she deducted my outgoing shipping fee.  Doesn't matter.  I felt both fees were warranted, and I got the opportunity to test the product.

--pat