Hello fellow gamers. I am writing this post to ward anyone away from a Scam that i'm sorry to say myself and a friend have both fallen for.

I looked on Amazon.co.uk to try and purchase a Wii. They said out of stock - but please try our sponsored links. There was a link to a company called www.instockconsoles.co.uk I called and spoke to a very convincing man who told me he could do a great deal. I've subsequently realised this is a scam company and am gutted that I have fallen for it. Needly to say I never got my wii, nor did my friens. They are still operating!! I've been in contact with the police, trading standards people, website hosts, phone number hosts and i'm trying my best to bring them to justice.

Their numerer is UK 0700 5947 445 Please feel free to call and give them a peice of you mind, (if you call about an existing order they hang up, but if you start by saying you want to place a new order, they are nice as pie). I called saying I was going to find them and they had the arrogance to say "good luck" and put the phone down on me.

Also I am reaching out to the web community to try and find if anyone has any advice of how to nail these people who have really made my angry and upset. I have their webhost details, their phone host details, addresses, names - and they are all being investigated, but its bound to all be fake. Any techy's out there, anyone with similar experiences, i'd love to hear from you. All help and advice welcome.

Lets stop these kind of rogues together...

Kind regards

Jools

Sounds like a nightmare, have you tried contacting any consumer rights bodies or the office of fair trading?

If you purchased the goods with a credit or debit card try contacting your bank as i believe they have a system in place for matters such as this.

thanks for your respose iOn. I feel like such a fool. As the link came from Amazon I assumed legitimacy.

So far i've -

Contacted my bank: Investigating
Contacted Tranding Standards: Investigating
Contacted Police: Investigating
Contacted Amazon: No help what so ever
Contacted web host: Investigating
Contacted phone company: Helpful but need police intervention.

Sadly this matter is not important enough so is sitting in a very large pile of investigations. Meanwhile these people are still scamming now. My friend called just a few minutes ago and pretended to place an order, they were really nice. Then he asked for VAT numbers, courier details, and various other legit info and they hung up on him.

Anyone out there who knows about IP. Address tracking, aliases, phone triangulation, (I know i'm getting ahead of myself).. but anyone who can help.. please do!

Because Amazon provided the link and sponsor them does that not make Amazon partly liable?

I think Amazon is sue-able.

Grrr Toad... Amazon has nothing to do with the link and isn't responsible for this 3rd party's actions. Amazon simply displays the links that people pay to put on there, and usually companies use a 3rd party ad service.

As for the rest, definitely contact your bank and ask to do a charge back on your credit card. I'm not too sure how legal systems outside of the US work, but I would file charges with the police and ask if they can subpeona the records and info from the phone company.

The whois info is a good idea, however I'm 100% sure it's all fake. I think the only ones who have their real information are going to be the phone company, and even then it could just be a random phone somewhere with the operations in another place. This is a nightmare, good luck to you. =X

This is not cool at all. Why not post everything you have on them including the mailing address. I know I can't do much from here. But maybe someone else lives near one of those addresses. It's worth a shot.

Very very sorry to hear about this... I suggest everyone call them to give them a piece of your mind.

wow that sucks man
however, i do hope your issues will get resolved. you have to be careful who you buy from on the internet. there are a lot of people out there who try to rip you off. you must use discretion, especially when it comes to things like consoles that are hard to find.

Hey Jools - you properly haven't tried calling them but I suggest you should - because nothing gets the job done quicker than TV cameras.

I suggest you call Watchdog - you know the BBC consumer report program. They would properly love to jump on this story.

Well first off, my condelnces that sucks man.

Unfortunatly, the site is down and the who-is only turns up this:

WHOIS information for: instockconsoles.co.uk:

Verio Inc. - Growing Your Business, One Click At A Time

The next step would be contacting the host, Verio, and explain to them your situation and see if they will give you any info on the registrant. It's a long shot, but you got screwed out of a good ammount of money it's worth a try.

Here's Verio's contact info taken from: http://www.verio.com/support/files/contact_support.cfm

e-mail: support@verio-hosting.com (Please include your domain name in the subject line of the e-mail) or use our simple on-line form.
Phone: (800) GET-VERIO
Phone: (561) 912-2555

Hmm.. that totally sucks. These companies that open up just to scam others... wack... I am not sure how the UK works, but hopefully you will be able to prosecute. GL

I agree!!

Amazon's A to Z guarantee saved my ass a time or two with matters like this.

If it's a no go, file a chargeback. {Hopfully you used a credit card}

thats a total bummer. I am going to go contact those 2 guys in the Wii commercial and tell them to go kick their ass.

Jools,

I completely empathise with you on this - I tried to buy one on ebay before xmas for £310 - paid with paypal straight away and the next day once the payment had gone thru, ebay contacted me and said the account had been hacked and to cancel the payment "we accept no liability for payments already processed....." Thanks ebay you're nearly as helpful as Amazon apparently.

I was lucky this time and just managed to get my cash back via credit card fraud division stopping and investigating and, strangely enough out of the blue, ebay informed me that the payment had been reversed by the hacked accountee! Although I will say that paypal didn't even respond to my attempts to email or ring them!?!

COULD THE MODS PUT THIS AS A STICKY TO HIGHLIGHT THE SCAMMER DETAILS PLEASE...

Good luck. It's a crappy feeling getting ripped off, especially for something you actually want!!

Yeah defiantly file a claim with Amazon, I would have thought the A to Z should cover this type of incident(I have used it before for items not received).

Amazon must be held responsible. These companies that allow scam artists to advertise on their site are secretly making money and looking the other way. Amazon made money from your loss. I suggest finding a lawyer who is willling to start a lawsuit or class action lawsuit. Write a letter to Amazon and see if they can refund you the money you lost from "trying their sponsored link". The fact that the Amazon site says to "try their sponsored link" means they are responsible. A sponsorship is a partnership.

I've nearly been credit card scammed, and here's a helpful FYI for next time. Do not do any phone orders or give credit card/debit through the phone. Only trust sites if it's PayPal certified. And if it is, and it happens to be a "scam", you can simply contact PayPal and they would deal with the rest.

l2p newb even the name is scammy like: winafreeipod.com