michaeldb

I was looking for some parts and came across a website (MySport) with prices to good to be true, so before making an order I did a general search to see if they were real legit site. they weren't, so buyer beware. Their game is to take your money send you a fake tracking number, then say when you complain you never got your stuff is that they can only give you back part of your money because your order was lost in the mail and they can't afford to have the loss which we all know is BS.
Here's a copy of what I found, SO check the links, or customer service addresses first to be safe. If they look like the ones below, ride away quickly.

The website, customerservicehome.com, is associated with a lot of fake online stores. The fake stores use customerservicehome.com as a customer service platform to communicate with their so-called customers. Therefore, online users should be careful of online stores that use an email address at customerservicehome.com.
Here are some of the email addresses at customerservicehome.com being used by some fake online stores:

• cs14@customerservicehome.com
• cs15@customerservicehome.com
• cs1@customerservicehome.com

masi61

This is good to know. I found a cycling apparel store (don't remember the name of it) while surfing used bikes for sale on Facebook marketplace. They listed all the current 2019 Sidi cycling shoes at ridiculous low listed prices. Their ad copy made the claim about good quality parts don't have to cost a lot - the page was very slick and tempting. I could just tell that it was a scam...

But its me 

Always why it is good to use a payment form that offers buyer protection, as most credit cards offer.

MattTheHat 

And then you have an unscrupulous individual with your card info. The most likely end to this scenario is that your card number is also used to make all kinds of fraudulent purchases which you’ll have to dispute. Then you’ll need to get a new card issued. Lots of fun.

It’s best to just avoid deals that seem too good to be true.

-Matt

veganbikes

Maybe then go support your local bike shop. Less likely to be a scam and you can likely get the part right away rather than wait for shipping. People are so cheap these days that online scams sites are so easy to keep going.

MAYAM

Thanks for the heads up.
buyers beware

burnthesheep

Some LBS are using non OEM sources for parts.

I ran into counterfeit KMC links on Amazon. Went to LBS for them after, LBS had identical card of links I had and none of them worked. All horribly loose and bad fit. LBS had clearly also gotten counterfeits from somewhere. Not directly from KMC.

Tossed the chain and got an OEM chain with link included.....voila. Works.

veganbikes

That is an odd one. At my past two shops we have gotten everything from our distributors and I have never really had any problems of them selling non-OEM parts. QBP does a fantastic job of selling the correct parts. Same thing with Highway Two, Merry Sales Co., BTI and others I have dealt with for years. Are you sure the links were for your chain and speeds?

If they were correct it sounds like something went wrong somewhere either on their end or your end. Would love to know what shop that is you got fake KMC links from, that is a brick and mortar shop? It is a very curious situation since most shops wouldn't likely buy a whole lot of fake stuff being that most cycling distributors offer terms and such so you don't have to pay right away for stuff and can get discounts on stuff in some cases. Way better than paying full price for Amazon or Alibaba crap.

jefnvk

Yep, because so many bike shops in Detroit carry front racks*.

I would know, because I've tried to buy that before. A dozen shops asked, one result. And even that was because someone special ordered it and then never picked it up.

*also applied to triple cranks, most varieties of bottom brackets, mens shoes to fit my midget feet, anything but whatever the latest and greatest cassettes are, tires in pretty much anything but 700x25, panniers, and bicycle bells that fit oversized handlebars

Lucillle

I use PayPal on Ebay backed by a card. I have had to deal with some scammers over the years, but PayPal has never let me down when I had to open a dispute. I just use a card on Amazon, so that the seller does not get my card number. But Amazon's A-Z process is cumbersome, I recently had horrible customer service from a store which sent me the incorrect handlebar, and I am still waiting to see my refund.

MattTheHat 

Yes, by all means dispute your card when something goes wrong. Absolutely.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is the scam the OP describes isn't simply a one-shot-deal for a single transaction. The whole point is to get your card info so they can go try to use it to purchase other items. The likely end scenario is that you'll get to dispute *many* charges in such a case.

-Matt

StephenH

In years past, this type of thing came up periodically.
In the case of businesses offering complete bikes at too-good-to-be-true prices, one way to check is to go to the bike manufacturer's website and look up dealers in that area. So Acme Bikes says they'll sell you this Specialized bike at a great deal, but they aren't a Specialized dealer, so there's a good scam alert.
It can be informative to try to relate an online business with an actual physical address and an actual working telephone number. If those seem not to exist, it's a good sign that there's not any actual inventory being moved and not an actual customer service being performed.

hschonzeit

I also saw a rediculus price and found the site was a fraud. Instead I went to my local bike shop for my new tires. The next day my bike fell and bent a handle and screwed up the derailleur. I brought it back to the bike shop, they worked on it for. 30 minutes. No charge. They have now a very loyal customer

veganbikes

That's odd. I mean I can understand some front racks because they aren't as popular but are getting there now but no 700x25 and bottom brackets? Come over here we got some old ISIS Downhill crap and enough italian octalink to sink a ship plus a wide variety of other stuff that should satisfy most aside from the hundreds of press fits nonsenses that are coming out.

jefnvk

No, I meant there are plenty of 700x25, not much beyond that size reliably available most shops. 26" will generally maybe have one Chinese slick and knobby option, because as one shop owner told me "people balk at a bike tire costing more than $15, we won't sell them".

Square taper BB aren't hard to find, but beyond that and whatever is new and hot, I've had issues (including Octalink last summer). I'm guessing the fact that you have buttloads of the old stuff is why no one stocks anything but the absolute most common options!

Truth be told, my biking needs are increasingly filled by REI, they're often the best option to find what I need actually available on the shelf.

eshew

Is their website still around? Just had a similar experience yesterday with another site. Should have known better, but I got the site shut down.

Not sure which email got the job done, but I did 2 things.

#1 I noticed that the website had a McAfee Secure badge that was obviously fake, emailed McAfee secure to let them know about the fake site

#2 I did a webhost look up on the actual site & emailed the web hosting service about the fraudulent site. Essentially I did a google search for " webhost lookup for website " and used the 1st 3 options to cross reference.

The site was down within 24 hours. Same & similar email addresses for customer service.

If there are any of these sites still operating lets take em down. Just takes a few emails & a few minutes.

Rollfast

Since I ride old bikes I tend to get stuff from people I know that sell old parts, NOS or used. Not many of them use Paypal or if they do they take alternate forms of payment as long as you are good.

I think that other bike site was 'hijacked by something like ISIS' briefly once but our webmaster got that taken care of...ain't nobody in Libya needs Colson parts.

Lemond1985

I got scammed a couple weeks ago buying Ecco shoes online. I went to the manufacturer's website first, but didn't see the style I was looking for, apparently it had been discontinued. So the very next site that came up when I searched for "Ecco Shoes" was named the "Ecco Shoes Outlet Store", with a .us address. I found the style I was looking for. The prices were not any different than the ones at the official site, so no red flag there.

I entered my address and credit card info uneventfully. The next day, the entire website was gone, apparently taken down. So I looked at my bank statement and there was the charge I authorized plus an "overseas transaction fee" of $3-4 for buying from a site in China. Nowhere during the checkout process did the site say they were in China. Got an oddly-worded email saying my shoes were on the way in 2-3 weeks, but if I had delivery problems, to contact the vendor, not them. I will consider myself lucky if I get even a cheap pair of knockoffs.

I naively thought there were safeguards in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening, but apparently not. Be careful out there! Assume every vendor is a crook until you're 100% satisfied that they are legitimate.

UPDATE, 9-27: Received cheap Chinese knockoff shoes today, wrong style, pathetic quality, counterfeit box. Worth about 1/10th what I paid. The Chinese have a saying, that there are three paths to wisdom.

1. By imitation, which is easiest.
2. By reflection, which is noblest.
3. By experience, which is bitterest.

Looks like I have experienced path #3 .

m3tal070

Caveat Emptor.

PDKL45

Look out for Malaysian and/or Indonesian online sellers. They often seem to have legit websites, but they also hit up Craigslist and Facebook. They will spam bike sections and FB bike groups with pictures of new bikes that are years old and claim to have all sizes ready to go. I live in another Asian country and they like to hit up our local sites with their scam ads, because of the fact that postage within Asia is usually nice and cheap for legitimate purchases, so people here are often more likely to buy from another Asian country. For some reason it's usually non-existent mountain bikes being "sold" by scammers in that region, so their email addresses and names can be a good indicator of a possible scam. Of course there are legitimate sellers from those countries, but it pays to be aware of the scam.

robnol

amazon or ebay you can find most anything there

michaeldb

true but not always the best deals.
and now ebay is being forced by most states to charge sales tax, I've found by asking for a 10% discount to sellers because of the added tax, they are more than accommodating.

BlazingPedals

Are you kiddin'? I can't get anything from my bike shop without it being ordered for me. It's the same wait as if I ordered it myself, except that I have to go back to the shop to pick it up instead of it showing up at my door.

Milton Keynes

I would suspect that all these fake sites are being run by the same people, since they're using similar email addresses.

eshew

You are correct, the sites are all run by the same organization.

Reason I attempted to purchase at the same site was price, that's how they get you.

I was searching for dust caps for a 40 year old ish Specialties TA crank. Fat chance the bike shop is going to have it.

That and I do all my own wrenching, bike shops are slow and it's so easy to fix a bike I wouldn't do it any other way.


Found another 10 sites with the same design & email addresses. Emailed McAfee & the website host Datashack / Nocix. Datashack owned by Nocix hosted the last site I had shut down, Not sure if these scammers use this host exclusively as some pages didn't show any host info. Would be nice to knock em all down at the same time. I might get someone on the phone to escalate this as I'm not really sure if they do any research of just shut down one site as a time. I've also reported tehse to google via their rebort abuse page. Will see what works to shut em down. https://safebrowsing.google.com/safe...t_phish/?hl=en

I found the other pages by doing a google search with quotes around a few paragraphs in their about us section. Seams like the just copied and pasted in all on all the pages they operate.

https://www.neosolchemicals.co m
https://series.godoggroom.co mhttps://www.hunterpvpspec.co mhttps://newbrand.aehealthy.co m
https://www.hellohearing.ca https://jeremarimoveis.com.br
https://www.inforoca.com/
https://www.trevino-lawfirm.com/ https://www.allpurse.ru/ https://efunnyshop.com