Ask him if any of his buddies know any princes and kings that are trying to sneak out of the country. ;)

Some of the responses were just too jumbled to read.

@jrlcopy: I meant sneak money...
Why is there no edit comment?

I'd like to say I feel bad for this person but I don't. Does a cheap price make people do such stupid things or is it greed?

Again, it's truly hard to feel bad for this person.

Is saving 20 bucks on S*** really worth dealing with all these fly by night sites and ebayers? I'm always happy to pay a buck or two more to ensure I'm dealing with a reasonably reputable site or person. This is why I rarely get anything from pricewatch, so many "companies" selling cheap goods on that site are just joe blow drop shipper in his mom's basement.

I feel for the victim but sometimes we dig our own holes looking for the best "deal".

You know how they say if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is? PS3 for $260 sounds something like that. Sorry to hear about your monetary loss; I'm sure you've learned your lesson.

this has all the hallmarks of a nigerian scammer. bad spelling, bizarre turns of phrase, Western Union, request to call some bogus number...

i feel bad and at the same time i don't.

scams like this prey on people's desire to get something for nothing. you should never be surprised when you end up with nothing for $omething.

Apparently that company is now on:
[www.omexelectronics.biz]

Please note that they are based in Spain (I'll have to assume that's the reason behind the poor english, a spanish guy that doesn't know english very good).

They provide with a new -yahoo again- e-mail address:

omexelectronics@yahoo.com

Could of gotten it for the same price from Sony. You get $150 off if you use the Sony Rewards card. Of course, you need to qualify for the card though.

That being said, i do feel sorry for the buyer. Regardless of the fact that most people would be a bit more careful and most wouldn't do a WU wire, it still sucks to be out that much money with no recourse.

At least, the economy inst so bad that we're back to bartering. I mean, imagine if you traded your last 10 chickens and one bag of rice and got nothing in return. That would really suck... worse.

Sliver lining.

the site isn't down, you just forgot the "R"

here is the link to the offending ad.

[www.omexelectronics.biz]

As soon as I saw omexelectonics.biz, I knew it was shady. How come she didn't either? More than $100 off a PS3? Really?

Sorry, I can't feel sorry for her because she should've seen all of the 100 extremely bright, blinking warning signs all over this one.

@halbowitz: i was just about to sign up for the rewards card and they knocked that $150 down to $50

@colinjay: Holy shit, really? That website looks like someone ate every laffy taffy they could get their hands on and then vomited into the tubes.

My god, I may have to clean my monitor- some of the pink and green is still stuck to it!

She goofed by going forward once she heard "Western Union". Time was, all the really low prices you saw at Yahoo shopping and the like were just the Brooklyn camera stores; worst case, you'd spend a couple days and about an hour of your time before realizing they weren't going to sell it to you unless you bought the overpriced accessories and warranties and non-gray-market units. But now it's gotten more sophisticated, now that people are greedier on both sides of the fence. But still, there's a golden stopping point: Western Union. They say good judgment comes from experience--and experience comes from (where else?) bad judgment. It takes only once. For a really good time, search for "p-p-p-powerbook" and see the story of a scammer scammed BIG time. It's hilarious. Revenge is indeed sweet.

@sven.kirk:

They sure did. Lets just imagine she bought it a few weeks ago when it was still at $150 so I'm still right.

It will do wonders for my self esteem. :)

good catch!

Don't be so hard on yourself consumerist. You even said to watch out and check resellerratings.com to be sure!

Not everyone is as savvy about vetting businesses as those who read and comment on the Consumerist. Part of the reason the Consumerist exists is to inform and educate those who don't know the ropes already.

This woman didn't do anything wrong, so let's not be so hard on her. Someone else committed a crime and she's going to lose money, but everyone blames her for not thoroughly investigating the store.

There are still some people in this world who are naive enough to think that stores (mail order or brick and mortar) are places where you give your money and get goods for it without having to do a background search to make sure they'll uphold their end of the bargain. It's not a sin to be so lacking in cynicism that you still subscribe to this belief, naive as it may seem to those of us who are old hands at scrutinizing the background of every web store.

Nice use of a UK Cell number too... For future reference, if any scammer gives you a number that starts +44 7 then it is a cellphone number. All UK landline numbers would start +44 1, +44 2 or (as of very recently) +44 3.

UK numbers are often listed with a leading zero which you would need to drop (which is why they are often in brackets) For instance +44 (0)10 111 1111

Everyone report this to Yahoo merchants and get them removed at least. The fact that they list under Yahoo merchants makes people think they are legit.

@ShariC: Naivete is not a sin, but it sure is expensive!

@miguelggarcia:

I did a "whois" search on the domain and got the admin contact name and address (the phone number is one digit short).

Consumerist staff, is it okay to post that information here? I don't know if admin contact information can be faked in a domain registration or not.

@Raekwon: I would report them to the fraud department at Yahoo with all the emails that you have. At least they'll get shut down.

@CyrusOpeth:

P-P-P-Powerbook is an excellent example of how one gets the scammer back. It was a fun read a few years ago.

Moral of her story: Don't buy stuff online via western union.

@MyPetFly: Post it. Screw it. They scammed someone, and that information is public.

Besides, it should be rule number one to NOT deal with a vendor, that has their own FQDN, but uses a yahoo.com or hotmail.com free email address.

@Raekwon: Yahoo merchants are still shady.

@Rawkus: I would assume the scammer is a little bit smarter than using his/her own real name and address. The look-up information can be forged.

You know, I don't want to blame the victim, but come on! I saw the web page and it stinks to high heaven. The page isn't even secure! If you're going to buy on the web, you need to be web savvy. If the price is too good to be true, it is!!

@ShariC:

For the sake of counterpoint and to avoid a disemvoweling,

The victim is a reader of this site. It's not a stretch to assume that she chose her desire to save over her desire to have a safe transaction.

The silver lining in this is that she has now made alot of the readers of this site more informed not only about omex, but also about beatmyprice and western union purchases.

y cld lwys drv t NJ. wld ssm ths s th prsn s w
Dmn Nm: MXLCTRNCS.BZ
Dmn D: D27203752-BZ
Spnsrng Rgstrr: MLBRN T LTD
Spnsrng Rgstrr N D: 13
Dmn Stts: clntTrnsfrPrhbtd
Rgstrnt D: C122192776969346
Rgstrnt Nm: Dvd Tgr
Rgstrnt rgnztn: Dvd Tgr
Rgstrnt ddrss1: 868 Rdgwd Rd.
Rgstrnt Cty: Mllbrn
Rgstrnt Stt/Prvnc: NJ
Rgstrnt Pstl Cd: 07041
Rgstrnt Cntry: ntd Stts
Rgstrnt Cntry Cd: S
Rgstrnt Phn Nmbr: +1.212543234
Rgstrnt ml: mxlctrncs@yh.cm

Wht pgs:

Dvd Tgr
hm
868 Rdgwd Rd
Mllbrn, NJ 07041-1450
(973) 258-1184

@Rawkus: Um, more likely the actual scammers are in Africa or some shit and they're using someone's identity on the reg.

@miguelggarcia: OMG... if this is what the site looks like when she ordered.... It screams scam, fake, set up last minute... Haha
I love the fake 'ecommerce by yahoo' link on the lower left side.

@MyPetFly: The contact info is supposed to be legit. But of the several companies that I've registered domains with, none verified the contact info, other than the e-mail address.

Now if you request a HTTPS security certificate, then more vetting is done.

Randy Cassingham of This is True tells the story of a registrar "catching on" to fake info at [www.crankycustomer.com]

I blame the victim for not giving listening ears.

@jrlcopy: I love this item [www.omexelectronics.biz]

It doesn't even say what it is you're expecting to get. Or maybe, we're buying all the 3 companies!!! ZOMG, WHAT A DEAL!!!

Man....it amazes me what some people will fall for.

"Due to the new president elected..."

Financial crisis, climate change, skyrocketing health care costs....and now limiting shipments on PS3s.

Obama is going to have a tough time come 1/20

"the Minimum Unit that can be allowed to enter into your Country is 5Units due to the new president elected"

Are we sure this isn't just the Republicans trying to screw people for voting Obama?

Ah, greed and stupidity. What a tasteful combination. Throw in a little naivety and it adds the final kick. Some people just shouldn't be shopping on the internet. It's that simple.

@miguelggarcia: '...a spanish guy that doesn't know english very good'. I hope you appreciate the irony in that.

I just have a hard time believing someone would see that website and whip out a credit card. guess that's why so many of those sites exist--someone bites the bait.

That godawful pink color should never be used that way.

@macdude22:

fly by night sites and ebayers?

Grr. As someone who sells on eBay occasionally for some extra money, I hate to be lumped with "scammers". Most sellers on eBay are decent, and if you know how to protect yourself you can get some decent deals on the 'bay.

It's a shame that scammers have made eBay synonymous with scam. Granted, eBay Inc. hasn't helped.

"Please i will not take such word from you anymore SCAM how and when have you getting to just conclusion,listen we are real and qualify legit company you can go as far as doing what you wish to do,the deal btw our company and you is too open that any one esle can come in to judge for us,it was not our fault and i went as far as expalining to you but it seem you are not giving me any litening ears trying to take judgement into you hand which may turn out to a total lost to you at the end of the transaction and if you wish to have your money back that will not be any problem ok but you will need to give sometime to us to get read of these off."

Sounds really legit, huh?

There was a warning in the beatmyprice post about checking out the seller you are buying from before actually buying the item, so consumerist did warn the buyer. I have been on beatmyprice several times since the post and found very few legit sites through it, most were sites that I would not order from because they were places I have never heard of before.

I am all for a search engine that gives you a price comparison from reputable dealers (amazon, buy.com, etc.) but this gives you results from what seems like a bunch of fly-by-night companies.

Absolutely a scam company. The www.omex-es.com site is clearly a fake bank, and a google for "omex-es.com" shows one page related to the site: One that in the cache is a weirded up version of the google page. The omex-es.com is from their email address.

Try emailing that omex-es.com address and see if you get a response from the company. If so, check the headers. The MX for omes-es.com is hotmail, so you will find an IP address in there in the X-Originating-IP line. Check the other emails for a similar line, they seem to love hotmail. That IP address is the IP of the scammer at the time he sent the email. Now here's the fun (?) part: Do with that IP what I'll show you for the omexelectronics.biz site, the IP address for which is 68.142.205.137. You can use web-equivalents of the utilities if you don't have them.

$ nslookup 68.142.205.137
Server: 206.248.154.170
Address: 206.248.154.170#53

Non-authoritative answer:
137.205.142.68.in-addr.arpa name = html1.store.vip.mud.yahoo.com.

In this case we're lucky, it clearly shows this is an IP yahoo.com serves. If not:

$ whois 68.142.205.137

OrgName: Inktomi Corporation
...

You now know the scammer's ISP, or at least the ISP of the proxy they are abusing (lots of scammers aren't *that* smart). Sometimes the nslookup will even give you enough info to geolocate the person (such as city/state/country).

Now comes the sleuthing: If it's not an open proxy, you've narrowed things down significantly. You'll need to discuss with the ISP what's going on, and possibly call the local police department for where the person is and have them investigate. If you're lucky, maybe you'll actually get someone that cares enough to do something about it! But, basically, this is probably as close as you'll get to the person.

You could try bugging the people in the whois for those websites, however, it's likely useless, and worse yet, probably an innocent person's stolen info (happened to me when I managed to get a bunch of credit cards cancelled on a scammer--Did you know fraud departments at credit card companies don't [well, didn't 3 years ago] have any procedure for someone to report someone else using a stolen credit card? Seriously, every card I reported confused the hell out of their fraud departments...). One lists in the UK, and the other in the US.

Best of luck!

@weirdalfan27: "point of correction madam rebecca we are not SCAMM company ok.stop such words you are my customer and is my duty to treat you nice." See, it's not a SCAM, it is a "SCAMM". Totally different and 100% legit!

@shufflemoomin: I came here to say that. I'm very relieved it made someone else twitch, too.

@Rkwn:

jst dd tht. nfrtntly, hv n cnfdnc n Yh's wllngnss t d nythng bt t. Thy'r jst nthr vl crprtn. knw frm frst-hnd xprnc.

Dvd Tgr
868 Rdgwd Rd.
Mllbrn, NJ 07041
973-258-1184

Ironically, woot.com had PS3s for less than that just last night.

One of my golden rules: Never do business in the .biz domain.

@miguelggarcia: i don't understand why rebecca doesn't just follow their clearly stated refund policy:

REFUNDS ARE MADE ON GOOD NOT DELIVERED IN GOOD CONDITION AND CUSTOMERS CAN CALL FOR REFUNDS IF ORDERS ARE WROUNGLY PLACED WITH 14 WORKING DAYS AFTER RECEPTION OF GOODS.

ok, now if we canonly help her figure out wth that means. anybody?

O.o

@weirdalfan27: It looks like someone retyped "Ulysses" by James Joyce after 12 Limoncellos and a line of cocaine.

@Rawkus: Better let the "registrant" know anyways if it is a real # or person. No doubt they don't want their name out their for someone not as critical as yourselves.