Oh dear!. It appears that yet again I may have been ripped off by an unscrupulous seller on Ebay :-(
Why?
Because i had been naive enough to think that being unable to buy my son the Fallout 4 Pipboy limited edition (pre order) from GAME, due to greedy others buying the whole bloody lot within hours to sell for inflated prices on... yep... ebay!! :-/
All seemed well until the release date was upon us. We had received a tracking number from the seller a few days earlier and were assured that the item would be posted on the 10th November to be with us (special delivery) on the 11th....It never arrived. I checked on the Royal Mail website for progress using my tracking number and was asked to "come back later" as there was nothing to track.
Unfazed I wrote to the seller via both email and via ebay messenger inquiring as to if the item had been sent and if not could they advise as to the status of the order....Nothing.
Eventually i tried to call the number they had provided on both the Paypal and ebay account details...unknown or incorrectly dialed number i was informed by the robotic female voice...Bollocks!!
I did get to speak to Paypal who informed me that i would get a refund...eventually, if it was a scam....but could take some time.
I asked if they checked their members address details were genuine...apparently not...obviously!!.
So when i asked how they intended to recoup the lost money (which amounted to several thousands of pounds) and they told me that "We will if necessary appoint a debt collection agency".....i pointed out that if the address that the paypal member supplied was false....were exactly are you going to send the debt collection company too ? I did not get a believable answer :-)
Seller is in Wendover near Aylsebury in Buckinghamshire. Put picture of invoice from GAME on the advert which showed he (allegedly) purchased 10 of these items for £999 in June...or did he?
Been Affected ?
Please leave me a comment
Thanks :-)
UPDTAE 14/11/2015
Details known about the thief.
Different addresses were used as business addresses.
155 Witchell
Wendover
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP22 6EG
United Kingdom
AND
29 Maunder Road
Wendover
London
London
W7 3PN
United Kingdom
155 Witchell and 29 Maunder road do NOT EXIST. According to Zoopla the house numbers only go up to 19 on Maunder and 41 on Witchell!!. Although on both occasions Wendover is included in the address.
The Postcode is in London but the address places the location in Wendover several miles North West.
The telephone Number
01296 340428 when dialed returns an "Incorrectly dialed number" message.
The Email
danielcooper55@outlook.com WAS valid a few weeks ago. I spoke to a seller who sent an order via email to this address.
I have contacted GAME and the Royal Mail to see if they can identify the invoices or the postal details (sender). Game may be able to identify the buyer by the Date/Time/Amount on the invoice. Assuming that the con artist actually made the purchase in the first place their can't be many people who went into a GAME store or visited a GAME wesite on the 16th June 2015@ 1.24 and spent £999.90 using a card. Worth an inquiry and so i have sent a copy of the invoice to GAME to see if they can validate the details.
Is this a coincidence? Either this is the seller or the seller is using this guys info to defraud a lot of people!
Check out this link:
http://ukbizcheck.com/company/09209562/warlord-brewing-limited
The very likely bogus Tracking number was AE803127387GB. I would guess this was sent to ALL buyers?
If all those buying got nothing then this scam artist cleaned up a cool £8000+ from his little sting....and even though Paypal have suggested they will refund me.....I don;t think scum like this should get away without me making some effort to catch him(her!).
This individual increased their positive feedback by BUYING 5 STAR feedback via Ebay! This type of sale needs shutting down NOW as it is exactly the sort of mindless selling that allows scammers to flourish and extort money from other ebayers!!
 | Excellent eBayer!!! | Buyer:
5***e ( 17 )
| During past 6 months |
| 5 star feedback (#252035085316) | £0.99 |
They also purchased of a REAL ITEM (which would have had to be posted to their address) from a seller callled Reptileshopper about 6 months ago, So it follows that somewhere along the line a genuine address has to have been provided if the item was actually sent!!
| The item was great! Fast to send. Exceptionally ideal packaging. Recommended. A+ | Buyer:
5***e ( 17)
| During past 6 months |
| Last Action Hero (DVD, 2004) Brand New (#252006065244) | £5.00
|
Update 17/11/2015
eBay
As per usual they are working hard to erase all traces of this disastrous sale!
Record of the ENTIRE listing has been erased
eBay messages too and from the seller have been erased and his account although still viewable is no longer registered with eBay. Not had ANY correspondence from eBay to date.....seems they prefer to keep this sort of scam quiet and probably don't want the Police Involved.....I DO!!
GAME
Spoke to the manager of a local GAME store who examined the "invoice" and suggested it was actually a screen shot from their web page on-line order facility. And the order never got any further than the basket (Not to the checkout!)
Thinks that the scammer has a GAME account as he appears to have used a known credit card.
Appears to have received an email from the site so could be legitimate email address.
May be able to search GAME on-line order records and cross reference DATE/TIME and TOTAL which are STORED even if the transaction is canceled :-) (Stores IP Address in case of attempt to use a stolen credit card! Might prove VERY useful :-)
Royal Mail
I spoke to the Royal mail to try and establish how the scammer managed to supply a bogus TRACKING number which it appears was sent to all of his victims. It was a GENUINE number which was probably purchased on-line using an ESTABLISHED account with Royal Mail. She suggested that they could backtrack the tracking number to the account with which it was purchased :-)...Result !!
Will be passing all this info onto the Police at the end of this week. You never know..maybe this fella might get caught yet :-)
UPDATE 18/11/2015
Reported to Police Fraud Unit :-)
Update 21/11/2015
It appears that Mr Cooper is heavily involved in the Brewing industry...but is this the fraudster or is he a victim of identity theft? As you can see from the address and details below a lot of the info supplied by dvdandvideogames2015 appears to match!
| Cooper'S Brewery Limited |
| Register Address | 15 Witchell, Wendover, Aylesbury (area code: HP22 6EG) |
| Company number | 08259594 |
| Status | Active |
| Incorporation date | 2012-10-18 |
| Company age | 3 years 1 month |
| Type | Private Limited Company |
| SIC Code | 11050 |
| SIC Category | Manufacture of beer |
I was also contacted by the Fraud department of GAME today. I have sent them a copy of the "invoice" to assist with their investigations.....watch this space :-)
