UPDATE 2011-10-12: After Electronic Megastore seemed to be offline for quite some time I received an email last night from someone claiming to be the new owners of the site. Apparently he bought the site and/or business from the previous owners, and agrees they used to be very dodgy. He (the new owner) claims to be an honest businessman, and quite frankly I have no reason to doubt it.
There’s none of the evidence I list in my original post (kept below), and the domain ownership and other contact details have certainly changed. While I have no first hand experience of buying from this site so cannot recommend it personally, I don’t see any reason not to use it. If you’re still wary they accept Google Checkout (properly it seems, unlike the dodgy claims of their predecessors), and Google Checkout look like they have a good mediation process should anything go wrong. You can also rate the company once you’ve bought from them.
I’ve kept my original post below (I don’t like to delete things), but please be aware that as far as I can tell the complaints are for a totally different company which doesn’t exist any more.
The only slightly dodgy thing I would point out, is that the comment from a supposed satisfied customer (youngbuck) came within half an hour of getting the email from the new owner. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me, but you can hardly blame him for trying to undo the negative publicity!
Original (now out of date) post continues:
I watched last week’s Gadget Show last night (I’m a week behind), and saw their review on the Sanyo Xacti WH1 waterproof camcorder. They listed it as “from £165” which sounded amazing value, and considered buying it. Unfortunately it looks like they made a mistake on the price, as I couldn’t find a price anywhere near it.
I did find it at £189 however on a site I’d never heard of: Electronic Megastore electronicmegastore.com. I’m not sure what first made me wary of this site. Probably the fact it was at such a great price, and I’d never heard of the site before.
A quick Google Search came up with a page of customer reviews on Shobby. Some are great, but appear to be from similar IP addresses. The rest all talk about them being a scam run from a petrol station! This could be innocent and just a disgruntled customer/employee trying to spread rumours.
I decided to do my own investigations into the site, and have concluded that in my opinion the site is a scam, for the following reasons:
- A banner proudly states they accept PayPal and Worldpay, but when you go through to the checkout it asks you to enter your credit card details into their own form (which has a slightly suspect security certificate). It also has a logo for Paypal Virtual Terminal, which is a product meant to taking order by phone/fax!
- Another banner says you can “Shop without sharing your financial information”. Proved false by the above.
- There is no postal address displayed on the site!
- Images on the About Us page show reviews from Kelkoo, Shopping.com and Pricerunner. This is clearly a fake as there is no record of Electronic Megastore on any of these sites.
The links to Internet Shopping is Safe (ISIS) and Safebuy seem to be legit, which gives me little faith in those schemes. The McAfee Secure badge is real, but all that means is the site can’t be easily hacked, it doesn’t mean the people running it are for real!
I am not 100% that the site is a scam, but I wouldn’t place an order there. It will be interesting to see how long they last!
[Update]: I’ve had quite a few comments on this post, mainly from disgruntled customers. It seems in at least these cases that money has been taken by credit card, but when a refund is requested they ask for a bank account or Paypal account to return the money to, and don’t offer to refund the money back to the credit card (sounds odd to me). Experience of actually getting a refund seems mixed.
One thing I am able to learn from the comments, is they do actually have some products to ship, although the person in question received the wrong product!
Of course a post like this is only likely to get comments from the people who have had bad experiences, and it is possible there are some people who have had good experience.
I have also had a comment from Louise who works for the company. Obviously not pleased about this post, but fails to address any of the points made. The “customer” reviews she refers to are suspicious to say the least.
I would love for this company to be legitimate, but they need to make some serious improvements to convince me.
[Update 2]: See the top of the post (in case you haven’t already) – they seem to be under new ownership and none of the above applies.
43 responses to “Electronic Megastore (electronicmegastore.com) Used to be a Scam”
There’s definitely something a bit weird about this company. I ordered some equipment and gave my visa card details. However, “my account” for the next seven days showed that “assessment by fraud risk team”. After the fifth day I rang and queried it. I spoke to a friendly operator (who was probably Indian I would have said) who would only apologise for the delay and put it down to their new site – she said it had only opened the week before. However, on the seventh day I received an email to say that the risk team had rejected the order. So I accessed my Experian file and found nothing untoward at all. So I’m left genuinely mystified. I buy binfuls of stuff on the internet and nearly always pay either with paypal or my mainstream high street visa card – which I have always settled on the nail. I don’t have any credit at all – and nor have I ever had since I bought a pocket watch out of Kay’s catalogue at the age of fifteen for 6/6d a week !
Companies House shows an entry for a company of this name at a petrol station in Cheadle – this is probably just a coincidence however and what appears to be the company title may well be just a trading name for a registered company with a different name.
If you click on the SafeBuy logo you find it’s not valid. I emailed SafeBuy and confirmed that this was correct.
But they haven’t taken any money from my visa ,as I check online daily.
So what the scam could possibly be I’ve no idea.
But I don’t think that I’ll ever be going back though… no matter how reasonable the prices are !
Thanks for your comment Trog.
It’s interesting to hear from someone who’s gone as far as placing an order. I’m not surprised you didn’t get anything, but I am quite surprised nothing has been taken from your card. I would keep a very good eye on your statements – unless they are legit and just useless they must be doing something with the numbers they are collecting!
Dude – sounds like you just saved me money, dont know what made me google them but your result has made me go elsewhere. Thanks v mcuh for the tip off.
This is definitely a dodgy company. Have referred them to the Office of Fair Trading who in turn have now got Trading Standards involved!!
A basic lack of UK Consumer knowledge would indicate that this is either a scam site or someone pulling a fast one pretending to be a large organisation.
Cancelled an order for a camera after deciding that the payment process was dodgy. They didn’t cancel the order and my credit card (i was a clever boy using that) was debited.
Called them only to speak to a rude customer service advisor, who told me that i was not entitled to a refund. I knew that wasn’t good enough, i used their online customer services account to obtain a postal address for them, they reiterated the same as i’d heard on the phone, but this time, i had it in writing!!
Called the Office of Fair Trading, they were really helpful, said they’d pass it on to Trading Standards as apart from them not actioning my cancellation request, they have broken the law by stating that i’m not entitled to a refund.
In the UK, you are allowed 14 days to return any item and receive a full refund.
They do not provide any genuine addresses either. There is an address on the website that lists Leicester Sq in London but no building/office number. Leicester Sq isn’t small with many office blocks, so you’d never find it, so i believe thats a fake address. The other address i’ve been given is a Service Station in Chorley just off an industrial estate!
In addition to all the information that is provided on this site, their call centre is certainly not UK based, I’ve spoken to 2 people (or it could have been the same person) but the delay on the line and the tell-tale redirect when dialling is a clear sign that this is not anywhere in the northern hemisphere!!
Just wish i’d done a more thorough check on the internet first….will learn from my mistake.
Had to put my experience here to warn others about this company. I did place an order with them on 19 November for a Canon Photoshot G11 Camera. Paid £398.40 with my credit card. A week passed by and no camera. Ir was for a present so cancelled the order and requested a refund. Was told I could not have a refund as the camera had been despatched, yet I had an email from a Sophiya, Customer Services, stating that I should have a refund within 24 hours and if this did not happen to contact her. Needless to say today I have no camera and no refund whatsoever. It is nearly 4 weeks! I have reported this to both Trading Standards and my credit card company. I have had very few emails answered by the company. I sent an email day before yesterday stating that I had put the refund into my credit card company’s hands and had reported the company to Trading Standards. To my surprise, I received a reply to my email last night asking for my bank account details or my paypal email address. I replied stating that I wanted the amount refunded to my credit card which was the way I paid for the camera in the first place. Am waiting for a reply and a refubd but won’t hold my breath.
I ordered a replacement Canon G11 from a reputable supplier, albeit £100 more which did include a camera case, spare battery, 2gb SD card and camera kit which included a tripod. Ordered on the Friday and received Tuesday morning.
The moral of the story is if it looks took good to be true it probably is. I do normally buy from reputable suppliers and this is the first time I have been caught out having been seduced by the low price.. Please BEWARE!!!
Setting up blogs like this are completely wrong i personally think your our competitor , I work from Electronicmegastore.com and how you can say these ridiculous things goes beyond me? our website has be live for over 1 year with over 20,000 customers and growing, if you check how long we have register the domain name for its 10 years ! how can we be around for so long ? also we have feedback on reviewcentre which is 4.7-5.0 with 100s of customers, also we accept credit cards , mcafree since april 09 safebuy and Internet Shopping is Safe (ISIS) please call our telephone number 9-5 UK and you will see we have agents or send us an email chat on live chat, this is completely wrong of you to do this!
@Louise
I am not your competitor. You will have to take my word for that, but this whole blog with many articles on different subjects would be quite an elaborate way of discrediting you if I were.
I make 4 points in my post, none of which you address. I will however address your points:
The length of time the domain has been registered means nothing
A phone number does not tell me either way whether your company is legitimate
The reviewcentre feedback is suspiciously all over a couple of days
All the McAfee badge means is that the site is secure from external hackers – it means nothing about your company
Having a method to collect credit card details again means nothing, in fact that’s part of the problem!
I would love for your company to be legit, and it is possible that you have had some over-enthusiastic designers using images and text they shouldn’t, and over-enthusiastic marketing people that think entering reviews themselves is a good way to improve the reputation, but I think it is unlikely.
If you changed your site to remove these inconsistencies I would be happy to alter my opinion. If you change your site to actually link to PayPal like normal I may even make an order myself, but until then nothing you have told me improves my opinion.
It is worth remembering it is just my opinion, but it is based on evidence.
Hi I recently ordered a Hello kitty mobile phone w395 i from this company who took the money from my account on the 9th Dec and suggested that the phone was ready for dispatch on the 12th.After five days and regularly after that I contacted them to find out where the item was.By the 21st I complained again and requested a refund as I would like to cancel the order over concerns it would not arrive in time for the Christmas present it was intended to be.A Becky White told me this would be possible but they could not repay my credit card , did I have a PayPal account or would I give them my bank account details over the phone.I refused to give out such details and they were informed of my PayPal account.No money was or has been returned instead on the 24th of Dec a FedEx parcel arrived and inside was a pink phone .Not the special Hello Kitty one advertised on their website but a different one .I phoned the company to complain and request an address to return the item and was told they didn’t have it and they would email me alter.Five days now I have been on the phone or emailing them to gain the address but to no avail.Trading Standards have been contacted and have informed me it is illegal to not supply and address and that according to the Distance Sellers regulations I have by law 7 days to return any item.I am most upset to have been so used and am currently trying other legal action to recoup my money.
This is an update to my previous post of 16th Dec 2009 regarding refund of £398.40 for a Canon Photoshot G11. I received a reply to my email where I stated that I wanted the refund paid back to my credit card and was informed that they could not do that as they were having technical problems and they again requested my Paypal details. I was also promised a refund within 48 hours. No refund received to date. When I emailed back saying I had not received the refund, I was asked “to give them a chance and be patient”. I have been more than patient waiting for a non-existent refund for over 6 weeks.!! I know mistakes are made but it looks as though this company have no intention of refunding. I have no doubt I will receive a refund but only through my credit card company which will take some time.
Since this has happened to me I have been checking out reviews on Megastore Electronics and have found the majority of reviews are far from complimentary and other people are having similar problems with refunds and the supply of goods. The few good reviews I found appear to have come from very similar IP addresses, with the reviews being written in a very similar manner.
If you value your money and sanity, do yourself a favour and shop elsewhere!
Apologies, in my above message I typed “Megastore Electronics” by mistake – this should of course read “Electronic Megastore”.
Follow up from my post dated 29th Dec…. I am in touch with Trading Standards who clearly state this company are breaking the law but without an address they cannot start legal action.Mega store are only offering me the address on their website which is an un complete address in Chorley.I did however manage to get the address for the company directors should any one want them .At the moment I am applying for a refund through my credit card company under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 .
Thanks Mark, let us know how you get on.
I hade ordered Sanyo Camcorder on 10th Dec 09, supposadly packed up for shipment 12 dec not getting it called a week before Xhristmas told definatly packed, FedEx having problems would go out on FedEx for next day delivery, 23Dec still not recieved called to cancell, told I could not as it was despatched, last week of Christmas called again told I would get it first week of Jan. When It does not arrive I call again told cant cancell getting nowhare trying to cancell said don’t beleve you but give one last chance to deliver. 12 Jan insisted on refund, told it will show on 15th Jan, !5th no refund called again, this time they say tseveral lies, did not have stock as Sanyo gone bust! (what about packed up for delivery) it is not possable to make refunds to credit card and I would have to give my bank acount number and sort code for a refund to my bank! NO WAY SOUND LIKE HARVISTING BANK DETAILS FOR A SCAM! Having to contact bank acount
Apolagise for my bad spelling and gramer, combanation of Dyslexia and I’m a bit thick in the writing department! But I’m am real and what I wrote is true.
I have a similar story to previous postings….my recommendation….AVOID at all costs.
I ordered a camera on a credit card. Spent 3 weeks chasing for a delivery date and was told it had been posted, but they could not giveme a tracking ID.
Eventually cancelled order and was told they were having “technical difficulties” and could only refund to bank account or Paypal. Declined their offer to record my bank details, so gave them Paypal….and guess what…. nothing.
Now in hands of Credit card company…..and guess what….the item I wanted is STILL IN STOCK!!!
I reported them to ISIS and heard nothing back. This is a real shame, as it completely devalues that standard. If you are part of this organisation I’d complain, I’d not want to be tarnished by belonging to the same standards as this dreadful company.
Thanks for the info Neal
Interestingly the ISIS page for them now shows that the are “suspended until issue with refunds is resolved”. I don’t know if that’s since you complained.
Similar story – I won’t bore you with details. Suffice to say that they have £219.99 of my money and I don’t have a camera. I reported them to ISIS on 12 Jan which caused their suspension on 18th Jan. I too have reported them to Trading standards. Companies house lists a company with the name Electronic Megastore as:
ELECTRONIC MEGASTORE LIMITED
WHITNELL SERVICE STATION BOLTON ROAD
WITHNELL
CHORLEY
LANCASHIRE
UNITED KINGDOM
PR6 8BP
Company No. 06568990
I am initiating action through the small claims court.
Good luck everybody
Let me join the list of dissatisfied and frustrated would-be customers of Electronic Megastore. My Pentax K7 camera body was promised for Christmas, then the excuses began – different ones depending upon whether you e-mailed or phoned their London number and got diverted to a different time zone in who-knows-where. Also, whilst assuring me by phone there would be no UK duty to pay on the product, they delined to do so via e-mail. Looking at the glowing references they claim to have received, I can only conclude these originated from membres of the owner’s family or people finding themselves at gunpoint. Fortunately, RBS/VISA got my money back.
They owe me more than £700 in an unpaid refund of an order originally placed before Christmas but which, of course, didn’t arrive. I contact them nearly every day demanding my refund but I just get responses in bad English from someone called ‘Sophiya’ assuring me that I will ‘surely get my refund’ but that they are experiencing some difficulty or other causing a delay.
Rather amusingly I received a call from them once. The caller display said ‘international’ and the operator had a far eastern sort of accent. However, when I asked her from where she was calling she said ‘Manchester’.
My advice to any potential shopper is ‘do not use ElectroniMegastore’ – you may well lose a lot of money.
Just to add my four penneth to the conversation, I’ve joined what seems to be a growing list of unfortunates that got stung by this bunch of crooks.
I’ll not bore you with all the details, suffice to say that I kept a diary of events and it is now on its way to my credit card company, I notice that they have an unauthorised retailer stamped on their website. What I don’t get is why their site is still there? And what’s worse you can still place orders!!!
Just to give anybody reading this and insight into what bunch of low-life these people are. Tuesday last week I called them because they hadn’t refunded my money like they assured me they would. They told me that they were under investigation from the Royal Bank of Scotland and were unable to refund any money at the present time until the investigation was over. I asked how long the investigation would take. The replay was at least a week.
Twenty minutes later, I decide to use the online chat facility in the pretence of ordering something. I asked if they were taking orders, to which they said yes. I then told them that I’d heard somewhere that they were being investigated by the Royal Bank of Scotland, they immediately responded, by saying that the investigation is over now!
(Now bear in mind that only 20 minutes ago on the phone I was told that the investigation would take a least a week)
To me this is a highly unsatisfactory situation; something needs to be done immediately to prevent other people from purchasing anything from them.
My final thoughts are that they have set out to deliberately defraud people, which to me means someone needs to be facing a prison sentence.
Thanks for the heads up. Was looking at this site and did a search, found this !
Hi,
I saw an item online via google and after searching I found out that Mega-Store had it £40 cheaper plus free delivery. I had decided that I would make the purchase in a few days time but I always like to check out the background of any company I deal with by checking for customer reviews about the site.
I am so glad I did cos the comments I have read on this site and other review sites have been mainly negative! I think I’ll pass on this company, I dont mind paying a bit extra for the item elsewhere but I really hope that they sort themselves out ASAP!
Thanks
Hi all guys!! I have had a very pleasant experience with the store in opposite of what you say! i ordered a Nokia 5310 from the electronic mega store and i was surprised to get it on my doorstep within a day. i personally have found the service very good!
Visitors should be aware the above comment from Shyna originated in Pakistan. In the interests of fairness I am not going to remove it, but I think it is unlikely (although not impossible) that someone in Pakistan would order Electronics from a UK website!
Update: Still no refund or camera. I would like to encourage all people who have lost money through this apparent scam to contact the government’s Consumer Direct service on 08454 040506. If a significant number of people have had problems with this company operating illegally, then UK Trading Standards will investigate and potentially prosecute to close them down.
Thanks, Rob, for providing a forum and helping prevent others from getting caught out by this.
This is an update to my last update of January 3 2010. Just to let you know I finally
received a refund through my credit card company a couple of days ago. The whole thing
has taken nearly three months to resolve but I am very relieved. I hope you all receive your
refunds soon.
Wow, was just putting my card details in and thought i should check if it was a safe site.
Thank god i found this! you lot saved me a bundle!!
although checking back i noticed a badge on the site saying “unauthorised retailer”
and the lack of their capital letters in the address clearly shows a problem.
Glad peoples issues are beginning to resolve though!
Hi everyone… I know I’m very stupid to read all these after being cheated… but could somebody help as I have lost over $10,000USD to this god damn company….
I have reported them to trading standards…. I was soooo stupid that I sent the money thru wire transfer and now I have no way to get it back since the bank said they don’t authorize the recall…….
If anyone could help me out, I would be very appreciated.
Placed an order on Friday, went to check on the delivery status at lunchtime today to find that the website has been suspended. Phone Barclaycard to stop the transaction and they said no money taken, but will not stop the transaction!
Looked up details on Nic.com to find contact details, a recorded message giving out a number and saying no messages will be taken.
Now found this blog… !
I ordered a guess watch of electronic megastore on the 14th of feb and has still not arrived when i checked the status of the order it said risk assesment team processing so i used the live help and they said it was to do with their site and it would be posted within days..2 weeks later its still not here and now the websites been suspended.
A group has been created in Facebook for all victims~ “Electronic Megastore Scam!!“
I ordered a Seiko watch from this website on 3rd March for £125.00. I since found this thread after concern of the status of my order “risk assessment team processing”. The site looked genuine and was sucked in like a lot of people seemed to have been!
After finding this I got worried and tried to cancel my order but can’t seem to. Their site has been suspended. I phoned my credit card company as I was worried I’d thrown money away. They hadn’t taken payment from me… YET! So on the phone the assisstant at my credit card company was very helpful. He cancelled the card with immediate effect, thus rendering the details electronicmegastore.co.uk have for my payment totally useless; so they can’t take my good money!
I thought I’d post this as I see some of you had the same concern ”they haven’t taken payment yet but they have got my details so can do at anytime”. This is the best way of stopping them taking our hard earned money if you are lucky enough to find a post like this in time!
I have since ordered a watch from bodying.co.uk on 5th March and it arrived from them via DHL three working days later!
Don’t be suckered in by the slightly lower price (in my case the exact same product was £10 cheaper on “the con site”) and go for someone with a good reputation!
HI this is louise i worked for electronic megastore, i asure you the site is NOT a scam we have traded successful and sent orders out i can give you customers emails to email them, We had major problem when our supplier went out of business which left us, Then the bank decided to Cut us from issuing refunds because if we refunded and the customer does a charge back we lose on double the price, please contact me (with order numbers) if you can’t do a charge back so we can refund you ASAP, Businesses as your well aware do close in the tough time, all this is out of my hands,
Thanks,
Louise
Hey Louise, if you said so why didn’t you never reply to ANY emails that we have been sending to you?? My order # is 21625. I tried to recall my wire transfer but the bank said you declined. Please send me back the wire or you tell your bank to allow the recall. How could we possibly contact you? Please give us your contact information here. Your prompt reply would be much appreciated. Thanks so much.
Hi Louise, if you said so why you have never reply to ANY of our emails? I have been trying to recall my wire transfer but the bank said that you declined. My order # is 21625. Please send me back the wire or tell your bank to allow the recall. And how could we possibly contact you? If you could leave us your contact info it would be much appreciated. Thank you so much.
You may well have seen they are now running an webdesign company webdesignmegastore. They have a rented mail box in London opposed to actual offices. They look like they are really based in India, dig further and you will find who really built the electronicmegastore website. Either they own electronicmegastore and ripped you lot off of know who did. So I’d be careful when buying from webdesignmegastore.
webdesignmegastore was registered by Lee Whitbread, the same chap who registered the site electronicmegastore. Is Lee Whitbread a real person? My guess is no.
Guys the owner of this site is trying to sell it on a popular site for buying and selling. The site lets the seller delete comments that he does not like, so any warnings will not get seen. See http://flippa.com/auctions/96787 he reckons it is Gross Revenue (per month): avg $166,970 Net Profit (per month): avg $48,314 have your say and shut this scammer down!
Are you sure these are actually True? I mean i ordered a camera it took a while to arrive 5 days! but i still go it, CANT COMPLAIN WITH THE PRICE Have you all contacted them?? as i got mine
I am the poor guy who unwittingly tried to buy his site on Flippa. After reading these comments, I backed out of the deal. Flippa refuses to relist it and did not charge me for fees. If anyone here wants to track him down, I have some info that might help. He has a Bermuda phone number, but I could never make it work, 441772499510. http://www.googlewebdesign.co.uk/ is the e-mail he uses and also lists webdesignmegastore@gmail.com If he has stolen all the money he has been alleged of stealing on here, then he deserves to be in prison. You guys make it happen. The only name I ever got out of him was Lee Jay. Good luck.
they had many convincing words before they got into me. i almost wired my money but good thing i kept on researching about them. they asked me to wire the money to them via western union and then i saw this site (thanks rob!). now they’re mad as hell as if they’re innocent! haha i told them to send the money first and i’ll be glad to add more money if in case i got the package first. i’ll keep you guys posted regarding our conversation via email. 🙂
I think electronicmegastore.com is under new management now! i guess someone bought the site and re designed it? Well either way I purchased a cell phone from them last week. It was delivered to me with no problems 3 days after I placed my order and it was for a great price. The customer service was great, the person I talked to was definitely American or had an amazingly good american accent. From what I can tell any issues with this site were resolved.
Having seen comments about this company now being legit. I placed an order for a camcorder on 18th July 2012. Their website stated the item was in stock. After a few weeks of hearing nothing I sent them an email, still nothing so I called, phone was not answered so I left a message, no reply was made by electronic megastore. I went on to their website and logged into my account found my order and the status was shown as “awaiting fulfillment”. I sent a stronger email pointing out that their policy stated that items would be dispatched within 3-4 days and as the item was “in stock” I asked why had it not been dispatched. Again no answer. Then a few days later I received an automated email saying the order status had changed. On checking the account the item was now showing as refunded. This was early August but no refund arrived. I paid through Paypal so I set up a dispute notice through Paypal, still no response so i escalated it to a claim. Paypal emailed them on 8th August 2012 and still have had no response. I shall be surprised if I get my money back so I think your original view seems to be still correct and I would not advise anyone to buy from this company.
I cannot find an address for them do you know how one can find an address for an online company?