Internet Scams – How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off
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Have you ever bought anything off the internet? Many many have. Usually you get what you pay for and everyone is a happy bunny but, occasionally we fall into the traps set by ‘scammers’ who want to rip you off for your hard earned.
THIS SITE reveals what are apparently the top ten scams you need to be aware of and, clearly, avoid.
I won’t waffle on about the top ten as you can just click the link and all your money will vanish and immediately appear in my bank acc – oops – I mean you can read all about these top ten scams for yourself. They include Travel, Business opportunities, Healthcare and many many more.
I recently got ‘scammed’ out of £75. Thankfully that’s all I lost. The classic ‘Hill Street Blues’ cop show from the 80’s has finally been released in full on DVD. For many years I had series 1 and 2 but that’s as far as it went. Delighted that I could get all the series now I headed for Amazon but, stupidly, checked for any cheaper deals and fell for one.
Hip DVD UK purports to be a UK based company selling ‘box sets’ of TV series. With hindsight, the website does look a bit ‘home made’ rather than professional but, excited as I was, I fell for it. They got my £75. Oddly I received a phone call from a woman with an Oriental / American accent the day after giving my card details requesting further information for approval of payment. I was suspicious and told her to ‘forget it’.
I also ‘forgot it’ and didn’t notice that, eventually, £75 went out of my account. I only spotted this several weeks later when I received clearly ‘bootleg’ home recordings of Hill Street Blues and checked my account on line.
I immediately made sure there could be no further access to my account from this company and was assured there wouldn’t be by my bank and then contacted them via their website asking – although certainly not expecting – a refund. I advised them that I had received ‘bootleg’ DVD’s from somewhere in China according to the senders details.
I waited several days and, after hearing nothing – surprise surprise – I messaged them with an extremely insulting and offensive message relating to certain oriental features of the Chinese and a desire for them all to catch a fatal illness and die.
Of course it did me no good what so ever other than making me feel a bit better.
In the meantime I have a ‘bootleg’ box set of the entire series of ‘Hill Street Blues’ that are for sale at the extremely reasonable price of £75 ($128.27) including shipping 😉
On the plus side, my daughter now knows what to get me for Christmas but, being far more sensible than I am, will purchase my present from Amazon.
Another plus is that I don’t feel half as daft as a Malaysian man who paid £180 on line for a penis enlarger and was sent a magnifying glass worth $9 with the health warning ‘Do Not Use In Sunlight’.
You live and learn eh?
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Internet shopping is really dangerous not only because you may get ripped off but many times you may also get a virus in your computer.
Someone once compared me to a virus….just saying… 😉
Unless of course you have an Apple computer. If you do you have no worries.
Norman, as you clearly know you got off really cheap! My lesson was significantly more expensive – I don’t even want to admit how much I spent – but what needs to be added is “just because you want it really, really, badly, all that means is that you really need to be even more skeptical!
To add to your warnings, do not buy anything from the Chinese site Alibaba.com I bought several things while in a shopping mood. Only one of them was as advertised, a leather guitar strap that was actually from Switzerland.
Of the rest, none worked as advertised, one was clearly a fake and not of the advertised quality. Others never arrived at all.
Alibaba has declined to do anything about any of it. I have bought from other Chinese sites with excellent results. Alibaba, despite being the largest, is also the worst.
Thank you so much for the warning James. I only shop at Amazon however and I’ve never been disappointed.