Too good to be true, surely?

[Bert Coules]

This garden shed is listed on Facebook Marketplace in a post ostensibly from near where I live. I contacted the seller and he gave me a link for ordering: the price - for a brand new product with free delivery - is given as just under £80, reduced from £1,143 (and the same product is advertised elsewhere for considerably more).

What caught my eye is that payment by credit card is accepted, which in most transactions gives the buyer a good deal of protection, doesn't it? But if this is a scam, it is just a way of getting card details?

This is the ordering site:

Thanks.

[me9]

Need minimum £100 on card for protection! beware!

Bert Coules [e-mail]> wrote:

[Andy Burns]

I'd say bargepole required.

the green snowflakes scream "you are our lucky millionth customer"

all the links at the bottom at 404

[Andy Burns]

every item is the same price!

[Vir Campestris]

That site is a .co domain, which means Colombia.

I'll go with scam.

Andy

[alan_m]

Credit card protection are on purchases over £100.

All the 190 different sheds they have, irrespective of "the original price, are £77.84. That includes the sheds worth >£6.5K :) Some of these sheds may have to be the only load on a van - but hey it's free shipping to the UK, USA, CA and AU (order over $100)

Go down to the bottom of the page and check see that the links about the company, T&C, delivery, returns etc. etc. etc. and find they all don't work.

Check on whois - all details of the company are hidden.

Yep, it looks very legit :)

Brushing Scam?????

[Theo]

Oh dear.

That looks like a ripoff of an Amazon listing (with the same Q&A section) coupled with some made-in-China web design (it reminds me of Tmall or old Aliexpress).

The usual deal with Chinese web shop scams is they send you 'something', which is almost nothing like what you ordered. For example it could be a model shed made from some scraps of wood costing maybe a dollar. When you complain they say 'send it back if you want a refund'. They know it's very expensive to send back to China. If you do send it back then they'll claim they never received it, so no refund.

They may take payment through a card processor so it might be legit as far as the payment side of things, but the problem is usually with the goods.

Theo

[Rod Speed]

Bert Coules [e-mail]> wrote

Not really with some credit cards.

Corse it is.

Corse it is.

PayPal is much more secure and they do reverse scam transactions but the reversal isnt that quick, can take weeks.

[Bert Coules]

Thanks to everyone for confirming my suspicions. Some fascinating info there.

[alan_m]

It must be a good company

12,500 5 star reviews 0 4 star reviews 0 3 star reviews 0 2 star reviews 0 1 star reviews

How do they find all the lost packages? Doesn't lost often mean stolen in transit?

Quote "Every month hundreds of thousands of packages are lost and sent to us for safe keeping. If they go unclaimed for 3 months we sell them at 50% off. "