Scam Blog Found #5 – korea-geolens.blogspot

In Dec 2008, korea-geo-lens.blogspot was reported by May in the forum. She has paid SGD$39 for her 3 contact lens and for nearly 2 months, she did not received any updates or responses from the seller even she had mention that she will take legal action against seller.

The blog was abandon.

Shortly after, May updated that she has made a police report, and the officer called her to request for more information and transaction details.

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Scam Blog Found #4 – myxoxolovee.blogspot

Myxoxolovee.blogspot was first reported on 9 Mar when numbereighteen from SGclub has mentioned about seller claim to have lost mail and an amount of $97 was never recover.

Shortly, myxoxolovee.blogspot was officially known as ‘hacked’ by some people and has remained open as of current with the message below:

HELLO! HAHA I’M A SHOPPER (: (IF YOU SEE ANY LINK THAT LINK TO HERE ITS ME WHO WROTE IT)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FINALLY I’M ABLE TO HACKED THIS ACCOUNT & THEIR HOTMAIL AGAIN !
IF YOU NEED ANY HELP PLEASE EMAIL ME @ Im-maomaocong@hotmail.com (:

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Linking to Us!

Thank you everyone who is supportive in this site!

Thank you to those who have shown interest in linking to us, helping us to create the awareness.

We urge everyone or anyone who would like to help in this area, to email to us asking for permission and the banner link formally. We will be glad to provide anything require.

Please do not be eager to link us unknowningly.

This is also a note to all readers that we are not endorsing any of the sites now except for a sister site which sponsored in the contest of “Which is your favourite blogshop?”

We appreciate all cooperations given! Thank you once again!

Report to Police after been Scammed!

Yes, this post is dedicated to those who wish to report to the police but have no idea how to do so after been scammed especially to victims from cheapest-deal.blogspot.

Many of us who has been scammed by any amount of money should step out and made the matter known. No matter how small the sum is, it is still consider as fraud or cheating. As long as one person decided to let go, it means the scammer will return after one successful attempt. (I have relevant examples which I am still researching on it, so follow SafeBlogShopper closely.)

Do not be taken back by the tedious procedures as nowadays you can report your case through online! SPF has definately improved greatly from the past. So how do we go about it?

Make sure you have all the relevant documents like transaction slips with the proof of transferring a certain amount of money to the sellers’ bank account number, transaction reference number and any form of black and white documents like emails or SMSes.

Make a police report through the following link:

http://www.spf.gov.sg/epc/ePCLinks.html

The last time I’ve seen on forums, $14 is required for admin and handling charges, but now I believed it should be free as there is no mention about it in the FAQ. I shall let those who have experience to furnish the details over here.

From the FAQ:

**

Upon your confirmation of the ePC report online, the system will automatically send an email, to the address which you have indicated, with a copy of the Police Report attached.

This Police Report includes a system generated report number for your reference. Thereafter, if further assistance or clarifications if required with respect to your report, you may be contacted by our officers.

source: http://www.spf.gov.sg/epc/epc_faqs.htm

** 

These should form the basis of the reporting procedure. If more than one victims are found, you may quote the report number from each other to support the case.

The Officer Inspector (OI) can retrieve the bank account holder details from the bank and trace who is the bank account holder.

A successful case was known during Dec 2008 when the suspect seller actually refunded the full amount to the victim 4 days after the case was made.

Therefore, nothing is impossible.

I believe that once the report has made, investigations will be carry out almost immediately. To be honest, I do not have real experience in making police report, perhaps someone like Jacelyn from the K-sayuri scam incident can help to furnish the subsequent actions that the police may take.

(Offtrack: After doing so much researches, the number of scams going around is alarming. You will not believe in it.)

A Walkthrough of Blogshop Scams

Blogshop started to appear in the world of internet in or before 2004. And blogshop, particular in Singapore, took off in 2008 or even earlier in 2007.

In early days, most people sell in Yahoo Auction as it provided a business platform where bidding and buying is possible with a huge customer base.

When blogging grew in trend, the idea of selling on blog became very popular. Not only setting up a blog is zero investment, it also meant a personalised “E-Store” for many online sellers. Sellers can easily customize the look and feel of their own ’store’ and update their products readily.

With the growing number of blogshops, scams and frauds are inevitable. The absence of a safe payment gateway made immediate payment so convenient through Internet Banking Transfer or ATM Funds Transfer. In another words, cash payments are now faster and easier to obtain.

Between September to October 2007, more than 40 victims reported making payment to seller for cheap jeans or accessories purchased over the internet from nice-spree.blogspot.com and nicespree.blogspot.com for over SGD$6,299. The goods were not delievered and the seller remain uncontactable. The seller was jailed for 24 months.

At the end of 2008, Chantal Ng was reported in the forum as a scammer for shopper-gal.blogspot and shoppingcouture.blogspot (closed) , but on the New Paper in 04 Mar 09, she was interviewd and revealed that she only know about her being flamed online when a friend told her about it. 

In 2009 Jan, shopping-rule.blogspot (only for invited readers) which sells contact lens was reported in Cozycot forum. It is Apr now and in my list of researches, there are more to come.

As a matter of fact, we cannot stop scammers. But we can take preventive measures by shopping with reputable blogshops. Thus, if you had a good experience with any blogshops, write it down in the Report Stories section. Spread the words around.

Source:

http://www.asiaone.com/Digital/News/Story/A1Story20090304-126013.html

http://www.spf.gov.sg/mic/2007/071024_internetsellercheat.htm

Scam Blog Found #3 – theonly-detour.blogspot

The blog, theonly-detour.blogspot was reported as scam on 21 Mar, by deesummergal on SGclub forum.

A typical case of paid-and-run, when payment was made, goods not received and blog was closed.

Deesummergal was asking for assistance to find out if more people was scammed like her but till date no one has formally reply with more information.

I have personally did a search on this blogshop and found the ‘remainings’ of the deleted blog.

See it from here.

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8 tips when shopping with blogshop sellers

I know, many of us love to shop online, especially participating in sprees and buying from blogshop sellers with products that are either at rock-bottom rates or products that are not available for sale in Singapore.

But there are risks involved. Due to the nature, blogshops are easy to set up, anyone can start selling anything online. At the same time, this gives a lot more room to unethical sellers who close their blogs immediately after receiving payments and simply refuse to answer to any emails, SMS or calls.

Despite knowing that there are black sheeps around, many of us are still unable to resist the attractive items offered online. So how can we shop smart? Read on.

1. Buy from Domain sites – As much as possible, buy from sites that ends with a .com. These sites are usually registered and paid, personal details and credit card details are also kept with the domain hosting sites. 
2. Check Feedbacks – Feedbacks are the first stop. The amount of feedbacks they have say most about their business and helps in evaluating. I do know that there are dishonest sellers faking comments and tags just to have a sale or two. Follow SafeBlogShopper.com and we shall see if we can deal with them later.
3. Read About Page, Terms and Condition, Privacy Policy – Most reputable websites have the mentioned pages. When payment is involve, always take the extra caution in reading them.
4. Read Archieves – If a blogshop is filled with many pictures with pre-orders and the history of operating is not long, you do have to be careful and pay extra attention to it. Find out from other forums or SafeBlogShopper.com if anyone has any dealings with this blogshop.
5. Ask Questions about Products and Services – Do not be tempt by their slash prices. Instead, ask as many questions as you can before making the buying decision. Remember, use emails! Emails allow you to keep a record of the intented business transaction.
6. Keep Transaction Details – Other than emails, keep your SMSes as well. If you have made a payment, record down the transaction reference number and the bank account number until you have decided to close the deal.
7. Request for Confirmation – Most bank transfers never go wrong. Request for confirmation about receiving payment and check that they have your mailing address correct. Be sure to ask seller to write down their return address on the envelope. Again, use email or SMS to keep a record.
8. Stay Alert – While waiting for your items to arrive, monitor the activities within the blogshop closely. If sellers did not reply you on any emails, but is active within their blogs, something must be very wrong. For benefit of doubts, leave them comments and feedbacks if they only check their blogs. Even if they close a blog, you are able to response in a quicker way.

We hope that online shopping can be better with lesser scams around. We will be coming up with more tips soon. If you have any tips to share, do leave a comment or drop us an email.

May all the black sheeps be gone. *pray*

Scam Blog Found #2 – Cheapest-Deal.blogspot

I first saw the post on SGclub forum regarding on cheapest-deal posted by Pinkyceline, Apr 3. She was mentioning about two sellers claiming to have sent out the order on 26 Mar but did not received them till date.

No replies to email and cheapest-deal blog was deleted. Another girl who purchased from the same sellers also contacted her on email regarding on not receiving her items as well. No amount was mentioned.

Subsequently, someone, named Conned, posted on tagboard of K-Sayuri-Scam blog (which was posted earlier on) asking around if anyone was conned by the same blog on 8 Apr. Conned had transferred SGD$89 to POSB Savings and seller disappeared into thin air with no response. On 9 Apr, someone replied the tag, giving the link of another victim.

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Complaint Filed: Exquisitelady aka The Missy Inc at LiveJournal

This was found in Cozycot forum on 6 Apr regarding on a particular spree organiser who over-charged spree-ers on shipping charges in a spree.

Spree-ers have to pay the shipping charges which cost more than the products they have bought! Below is the original post from one of the victims, tingzx88:

Scam Blog Found #1 – K-Sayuri Scam

I started going through forums and blogshop reviews during the setting up of this site. My objective is to be able to compile as many recent stories as possible, so as to keep a central area with all the information collected.

While going through the Flowerpod forum, I came across some replies which lead me to K-Sayuri Scam related blog. Apparently, a blog named K-Sayuri was created in blogspot and was selling some of the Victoria Secret collection and other branded perfumes at slash prices.

The blog was deleted on the day when the seller claims to have migrated elsewhere. Her contact email was deleted and the number that she has left to contact her so-called partner, has only a permament engaged tone.

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