Certifieddigital.com aka Certified Digital: Beware!

Certifieddigital.com pops up with the lowest prices on Google Products.  I’d be very, very careful in dealing with these guys.  Their “policies and services” web page is blank.  Their mailing address is a post office box in Brooklyn.

Resellerratings link.

 

PriceGrabber link.

Note that the reviews allegedly written by Paulpaz and Federico are identical on both resellerratings and pricegrabber.  Are we to believe that these guys were so ecstatic about their “deal” that they posted on two different websites?  Me thinks not.  I call bullshit on what I believe are fake positive reviews.   If you have a return address for these guys, please send it to dave.michael@rocketmail.com

 

Lycos shopping lists their address as follows:

Corporate Address: 1414 Ave P

Brooklyn, NY 11229

Check out a photo of their headquarters here. 

Company Website: http://www.certifieddigital.com

Sales Phone: 800-458-1885

Sales Email: sales@certifieddigital.com

Service Phone: 800-458-1885

Service Email: support@certifieddigital.com

Fax: 718-645-1664

 

Per this website, certifieddigital was registered to:

Certified Digital

Moshe Adinyayev

1414 AVE P Suite 300

BROOKLYN, NY 11229

718-872-8724

 

CellXpo: Bait and Switch Alert!

CellXpo utilizes Google Adwords to defraud consumers over the Internet.  Read the reviews here.  They actually sell used and broken items.  Read this person’s miserable experience here.  Read the Better Business Bureau Report here.

CellXpo.com

1261 57 st

Brooklyn, NY 11219

Their “customer service” number is registered to:

Rivky Kremer  

(718) 435-3938  

1261 57th St,  Brooklyn, NY 11219

 

Per the Better Business Bureau:

Consumers report to the BBB that they order “100% new” products from CellXpo.com but when the products arrive they are used and in poor condition. The company maintains that the products are “new and 100% original” and under a 1 year warranty with the manufacturer. However, complaint details regarding orders include: poor packing of products, missing instruction manuals, unsealed boxes, products that have been broken and repaired, dirty products, and imitation products. Consumers are unable to effectively contact the company for refund or exchange of their products.

Joel Kremer is listed as the owner.

Avoid eGlobalWireless aka eGlobal Wireless

Looking for a Bluetooth headset for your iPhone?  Don’t trust Google search results!  The sponsored links include eGlobalWireless.  Per these reviews, they appear to sell defective, used products. Their world headquarters?  A UPS store in Florida. 

Headquarters:

7040 W. Palmetto Park Road Suite 4-445

Boca Raton, Fl. 33433

Phone Number:

877-345-6225

Top Bait and Switch Site of the Day

By nearly a four to one margin, Skypointdigital.com is definitely the top bait and switch website right now, based on statistics relating to visits to this blog.

Bait and Switch: Jumbopackages aka Jumbo Packages

Despite glowing (fake) reviews on resellerratings, Jumbo Packages is yet another bait and switch site. Here’s what you can expect, as detailed here:

 

I ordered two Nikon lenses from Jumbo Packages at low cost. Received Email asking me to call. Then was told that the credit card that the web site had accepted was not being accepted anymore so I had to use a different credit card. Then was told that there would be a insurance/handling charge that the web site and the invoice I received via Email did not disclose. Also pushed to sell me other items, some of which were listed as being included with the lenses.

Even after talking them out of the insurance charge and agreeing to buying a couple of warranties they still failed to ship the products which the web site indicated they had in stock. Finally got tired of waiting and Emailed them with a cancellation notice, twice, and asked for confirmation which I never received. Received two more Emails requesting that I call to confirm my order, called and cancelled the order again. The person on the phone said that calling was the only way to cancell an order, but they could have Emailed me back and told me that. Along with the hasselling and the delay in filling the order I cancelled it by phone.

 

Here’s a link that shows a picture of their glorious world headquarters.  If you have any alternative addresses/phone numbers for them, send them to me at dave.michael@rocketmail.com.

Beware of Okay Store (aka Okaystore)

OkayStore is showing up on Adwords offering unrealistically low prices.  From their site:

 

www.okaystore.com is a professional supplier of electronics to worldwide, owned by OKAYSTORE LIMITED. OKAYSTORE Limited is a China based company, Register in Hong Kong(No.1131156) and China Mainland(NO.68376337-X), our business office locate at Room 18D, Building A, HanGe100, ZhongHua Road, QrungJin North, Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

 

I’d be very, very careful handing these guys over any credit card information.  Save your time and money and buy from adorama.com or bhphotovideo.com.

Compilation Video of Insurgents Being Killed

SCAM ALERT: Legacycameras aka Legacy Cameras

Despite the recent crack down by the State of New York, the bait and switch websites are out in full force. The newest is Legacy Cameras, the latest incarnation of the Brooklyn-based criminals. I'll update this post as I confirm their try identity, but please post any dealings that you've had with them. If you have a return address or other phone number than that listed on their site, then email me at dave.michael@rocketmail.com.

The Worst Apple Product of All Time

The Apple Component AV Cable is without doubt the worst product ever designed by Apple.  At $49.00, it’s a cable that connects your iPhone or iPod to a television.  Here’s a link. With the release of the iPhone, older AV cables no longer are able to work with it, so you are forced to buy this cable. The Apple store describes the cable as follows:

Easily connect your iPod or iPhone to the component video inputs on a TV. The cable also features audio and USB connectors, and a USB Power Adapter is included in the box.

The design team at Apple definitely made it look cool, with polished aluminum cylinders at the connectors. While it is easy to attached, the description fails to mention that it’s impossible to grip them when you want to detach the cable from your television.  I’ve actually ruined the AV ports of two televisions.  The problem is not just that they are impossible to grasp; the connection is also too tight.  Even if you are able to grasp it, using pliers, you’ll damage your television yanking the thing out.

This is definitely an example of form over function.  Not only do they force you to buy a special chord, the chord itself is essentially unusable.

Busted! A Bait and Switch Website Operator Caught Asking Me How I Track Them

I received this email today:

Hi Dave,

I have been researching a new camera for a while now, and I came across your website while I was checking out the reputation of one of the “virtual cybershops”. I must say, the information you write is very informative!

I was wondering how you can tell which companies are safe to buy from and which ones are connected to other fraudsters? All these stores look the same to me, and I don’t want to get burned!

It seems like there are new cybershops sprouting up all the time. If you could tell me how you were able to tell which ones are related, I would be grateful. I would hate to make a big mistake on a large purchase.

I look forward to hearing back from you, and also look forward to your future posts.

 

Taking a look at my site visitor logs revealed at the exact time that the message was sent the following visitor was on my site:

 

Domain Name		xchangetele.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address		66.128.5.# (Technet International)
ISP		Technet International
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  New York City  :  Brooklyn Lat/Long  :  40.6525, -73.9554 (Map)
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009073022 Firefox/3.0.13
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution  :  1600 x 900 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Aug 5 2009 12:50:55 pm
Last Page View		Aug 5 2009 1:15:32 pm
Visit Length		24 minutes 37 seconds
Page Views		3
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...8L1KyXf75AuCmS7L1NPA
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		thoughts of dave
Visit Entry Page		http://thoughts-of-dave.blogspot.com/
Visit Exit Page		http://thoughts-of-dave.blogspot.com/
Out Click		dave.michael@rocketmail.com mailto:dave.michael@rocketmail.com
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Aug 5 2009 3:50:55 pm

 

I guess I’m starting to affect their business, because I’ve had over 20 visitors from Brooklyn today alone.  If you are reading this and you operate a bait and switch website, I can assure you that I’ll leave you alone the minute you stop defrauding people.  Until then, I’ll track down each and every website that you put up.  How I do that will remain my little secret.

HP's Internal Software Disaster

You’d think an information technology company that is ranked #9 on the Fortune 500, with over $118 billion in revenue would have a cutting edge internal computer system. Not so, according to this article in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“Problems with an in-house system named Omega have kept about 2,000 of H-P's more than 23,000 salespeople from getting their proper monthly commissions for much of this year, according to current and former H-P employees and recent company emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Omega calculates commissions for many salespeople in H-P's business-technology group, which sells back-office computer equipment. But the system, which H-P inherited in a 2002 acquisition, has struggled to handle H-P's growing mounds of data.

Omega has repeatedly malfunctioned since November, according to company emails which show that some salespeople have waited as long as seven months to get their correct commissions.”

HP hired Randy Mott away from Dell back in 2005, paying him as much as $15 million a year after taking into account bonuses and stock. In 2006 he whined in this article that HP was paying too much for IT, and wanted to cut the number of IT workers from 19,000 to 8,000. He continues to brag about what a great job he’s done.

Prior to Dell, he spent 22 years at Wal-Mart, working his way up from a programmer to CIO in 1994.

The king of high tech sales is Oracle. They consistently blow their numbers out. Why? Because they have the best sales people, and they take care of them. HP’s failure to fully compensate their sales people is inexcusable, and is costly. A poorly motivated sales person is an ineffective one. Perhaps Mr. Mott should focus more on fixing this system and less time cutting IT staff and budget.

Update: I'm not too optomistic that anything will change. It was just announced that HP hired Mott's old boss, Linda Dillman, as SVP of Global Information Technology.

Take Revenge on the Bait and Switch Website

Click on the following hyperlinks, and then click on the bait and switch websites that appear as sponsored links.  It’ll cost them money, and once they hit their daily budget on Google, the ads will disappear.

 

Link.

Current bait and switch ads: skypointdigital, elitecamcorders, lcdplasmadeals.

 

Link.

 

Link.

 

Smartchoicecameras.com: A Warning.

Now appearing as a sponsored link is smartchoicecameras, aka Smart Choice Cameras.  They are brand new, but I’d be very, very careful in dealing with them.

 

Their “Volusion SSL” certificate has the following contact information:

Smartchoicecameras

Address:   73 cedar ave Suite 14

long branch, nj 07740

US

The address is an apartment building.

 

Googling 954-554-0593 reveals the following Craigslist ad from Long Island, New York:

High quality paint job for lowest prices starting at $60 per room & $799.00 for Entire House Speak To Jack 954-554-0593 (Mobile Number) BestPricesPainting

Their “About Us” page is exactly the same as numerous other bogus websites, including stopandshopdigital, sonic cameras, big camera deals,

 

Finally, their “customer service number” is 888-123-4567.  Good luck trying that one.  I’m guessing that this a Brooklyn based site that is trying to appear as if they are located in New Jersey to avoid prosecution.

 

Bait and Switch? LCDPlasmaDeals.com aka LCD Plasma Deals

Based on the information below, it appears that lcdplasmadeals.com is a bait and switch website.  You likely will be unable to purchase the item for the advertised price unless you buy overpriced items/warranties.

 

Check out this Better Business Bureau report:

Company Rating F

Our opinion of what this rating means:

We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.

Contact information from BBB:

19901 E. Country Club Dr., Suite. 504

Aventura, FL  33180

Tel: (800) 662-2450

Google it…it’s a condo.

 

Here’s their horrible reviews on resellerratings.com.

 

Google their service number and you’ll find that it’s the same number that was used by American-deals.com.  Check out the American-Deals reviews on resellerratings.com, a now defunct bait and switch website.

 

If you’ve dealt with these guys, please send me any contact information/phone numbers, etc that you may have received, including return addresses.  I want to see if they have any links to the State of New York.  Send your email to dave.michael@rocketmail.com

 

 

Today's Top Bait and Switch Websites

Based on Google searches that result in visits to this site, the top scam bait and switch websites today are:

Bingo Cameras

Elite Camcorders

Delta Camera

Camerakings

Stop and Shop Digital

Jersey Shore Digital

Beware: Central Digital ( centraldigital.com)

I would avoid Centraldigital.com if I were looking to buy a camera online.

Link.

Link.

Link.