From A Different Angle

A while back I wrote a few posts about scam sites popping up all the time all around.
Yesterday I got a mail from a mate (he probably doesn’t even know he sent it, I’m gonna have to let him know still) saying he bought some stuff from a website called elesales.com. I tell you now to beware and do not approach. Don’t touch even with a stick! If you feel like you want to go have a look, do just that: only have a look.
And, before everyone runs there to check it out, let me emphasize that alarm bells should start ringing instantly if you see the following, on ANY website:

1) a page redirect upon load
2) super low prices, up to 80% cheaper than your regular retail prices
3) payment options only by money transfer or Western Union (DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!!)
4) a Chinese store with a web page completely in (faulty) English (only, and not in Chinese) and currency in €
And for the more advanced among you:
5) they claim to be around since many years and the web domain is registered just a few months or even just a few days ago.

This elesales is your typical example of a scam site, just like the Alihashop and Admreshop I wrote about in the other posts.
Prices are way way down (€1380 for a Nikon D3?? Yeah, right!).
The store is said to be Chinese (with 50 staffs 😀 ) and one of the first e-commerce stores in China (Yeah, Right!!) and in business since 2008 (one of the first, eh?). The domain elesales.com is registered on December 6th 2010, the redirect vigorg.com was registered on June 7th 2010. Website’s only in English, default currency is in Euros (but you can actually change that, wow!).
Payment is only via bank transfer or Western Union. They say they accept PayPal, but conveniently, that’s only for VIP customers, which I can assure you, is very hard to become and not as they say by just contacting them. So DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!!

Once again: if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
Better pay a bit more and be assured you get your stuff than paying a lot less and not getting anything.

Beware, always!