- Joined
- Jul 28, 2017
- Messages
- 2,574
Recently I bought two 10 foot kayaks from an online store, for what looked like a real good price. It turns out the price was too good to be true, so I had to dispute the charges with our credit card company (after the merchant totally ignored three emails I sent them). My credit card company contacted the merchant to resolve the issue, and the merchant did respond to them, with a USPS tracking number that purported to show that the items had been delivered just fine, thank you.
However. The tracking history shown on the USPS online tracking site doesn't show the actual address where the item was delivered, just which post office branch handled it. It was the same as ours. I went to our post office with the tracking number and asked if their system had additional information regarding the shipment history. They did: and it clearly showed that the items actually had not been delivered to our address. In addition, we found that the shipped item was a 18 x 3 x 13 inch box weighing 8 ounces. That seems pretty small and light for two 10-foot hard shell kayaks. So one simple way to call BS on this kind of deceit is to do a deeper dive into the shipping history.
Second, there is a web site that can look up domain names and IP addresses and provide information on the owner of the web site. It is: https://whois.domaintools.com/. When I did that, I found that the web site had only been in business for just 1 month, and all of the owner's information was withheld due to "privacy reasons". In other words, they are hiding their identity. That's a couple of red flags right there.
So the odds are pretty good that we won't be losing any money on this one. It's been a learning experience for me -- up til now I've had pretty good luck ordering stuff online. But for the most part I stick with pretty reputable merchants, ones that have strong customer service systems.
However. The tracking history shown on the USPS online tracking site doesn't show the actual address where the item was delivered, just which post office branch handled it. It was the same as ours. I went to our post office with the tracking number and asked if their system had additional information regarding the shipment history. They did: and it clearly showed that the items actually had not been delivered to our address. In addition, we found that the shipped item was a 18 x 3 x 13 inch box weighing 8 ounces. That seems pretty small and light for two 10-foot hard shell kayaks. So one simple way to call BS on this kind of deceit is to do a deeper dive into the shipping history.
Second, there is a web site that can look up domain names and IP addresses and provide information on the owner of the web site. It is: https://whois.domaintools.com/. When I did that, I found that the web site had only been in business for just 1 month, and all of the owner's information was withheld due to "privacy reasons". In other words, they are hiding their identity. That's a couple of red flags right there.
So the odds are pretty good that we won't be losing any money on this one. It's been a learning experience for me -- up til now I've had pretty good luck ordering stuff online. But for the most part I stick with pretty reputable merchants, ones that have strong customer service systems.
