I bought from a bogus online shop, be vigilant...

Antidentic

I was tired, it was late, I thought I was getting a bargain, I should have known better...

I recently ordered a pair of runners from an online sportswear store. After making a Visa debit payment I knew that something wasn't quite right, no green padlock in the address bar, no Paypal option although the logo was there, there was nothing I could do about it at that time of night, I knew I had been 'had'.

The following day I checked my transactions and noticed that an additional payment had been made which I didn't recognise.
The amount was similar to the website payment but the references were different so I called BOI. This suspicious payment was taken 5 minutes after the website payment and lead to the same merchant account.
They cancelled my card and after a few days of investigating, thankfully, BOI managed to return the 2nd payment to me.

After sending emails to the website and having them returned undelivered from mail servers, I did some investigating myself. The 'order confirmation' email I received from them contained the originating email address which again returned my mails undelivered.
Entering this address into a search engine found that a handful of people bought items from a former online shop and wrote reviews about items they never received or items that were of very poor quality and blatantly counterfeit.

Now, I didn't pay via Paypal or pay by credit card so probably don't have a leg to stand on. I haven't really looked into my rights properly but as it's been over a week my money will be long gone by now.

The online store has a good and very believable domain name, it advertises all the top designer brands, big discounts, no quibble returns, easy and reputable payment methods, all the big logos, - can't someone put a stop to this??

It caught me off guard.
If it can happen to me - it can happen to the majority of us.
Be vigilant.

Bank of Ireland: Sarah

Antidentic wrote: »

I was tired, it was late, I thought I was getting a bargain, I should have known better...

I recently ordered a pair of runners from an online sportswear store. After making a Visa debit payment I knew that something wasn't quite right, no green padlock in the address bar, no Paypal option although the logo was there, there was nothing I could do about it at that time of night, I knew I had been 'had'.

The following day I checked my transactions and noticed that an additional payment had been made which I didn't recognise.
The amount was similar to the website payment but the references were different so I called BOI. This suspicious payment was taken 5 minutes after the website payment and lead to the same merchant account.
They cancelled my card and after a few days of investigating, thankfully, BOI managed to return the 2nd payment to me.

After sending emails to the website and having them returned undelivered from mail servers, I did some investigating myself. The 'order confirmation' email I received from them contained the originating email address which again returned my mails undelivered.
Entering this address into a search engine found that a handful of people bought items from a former online shop and wrote reviews about items they never received or items that were of very poor quality and blatantly counterfeit.

Now, I didn't pay via Paypal or pay by credit card so probably don't have a leg to stand on. I haven't really looked into my rights properly but as it's been over a week my money will be long gone by now.

The online store has a good and very believable domain name, it advertises all the top designer brands, big discounts, no quibble returns, easy and reputable payment methods, all the big logos, - can't someone put a stop to this??

It caught me off guard.
If it can happen to me - it can happen to the majority of us.
Be vigilant.

Hi Antidentic, 

Thanks for contacting us on Boards. 

You can request a refund of this transaction by filling in a Transaction Dispute form. Please find this form on our website here. You mention that you tried contacting the company by email, please include copies of these emails with the form. 

Thanks,
Sarah