Saw this article on Wisebread today:
It seems a lot of those cheap iTunes gift cards on eBay or other auction sites are dodgy — probably bought with stolen credit cards. It's probably safer to stick to those deals instead. However, has anyone had any experience with similar scam on eBay/other auction sites (cheap gift vouchers at 30%-50% the price)?
Yep many giftcards etc are being bought with skimmed credit cards. My wife's work - large retailer has staff notices to carefully check all purchases for gift cards being made with a credit card even to point ringing credit supplier and or having manager approve purchase.- This policy also includes large IT/electronics items.
Reminds me of an offer I had for a laptop about a year ago (new) at 20% off. I looked at the laptop - out of curiosity as I am Mac user - and it had been bought from a Coles/Myer store (Officeworks Myer cant recall). It became immediately obvious when the "seller' was saying they had buyer remorse and needed the money and accepted they would lose some money like driving car off the lot etc…. Doh I thought why why when CM have full refund policy.
However it did introduce me to the world of credit card scams as the seller had a receipt - 2 days old with payment in full via credit card
There are plenty of good legitimate deals around. You need to keep your eyes open. Worth looking out for opening specials at new stores. I bought iTunes cards at half price at Big W Doncaster, VIC when it opened last year.
Australia post is another good source from time to time.
Coincidentally, US iTunes Gift Card,Up To 50% discount off, auto instant delivery was posted a few hours ago.
It might be legitimate, however the domain was created 4 days ago (5 Jan 2009) and registered from China.
LOL A Cobra - strikes fast - the deal is no more thanks
.
Scotty maybe we can move these scams to a section on scams to watch for. We can edit out the links so no one clicks on the links. As theer are some very valuable lessons that can be learnt with the comments by our knowledgeable members.
Possible ideas:
Specific separate forum, with websites banned from OzBargain and other confirmed problem websites as individual topics.
Wiki article listing the banned and problem websites, with brief (1 or 2 sentence) summaries.
Monthly "naming and shaming" OzBargain blog.
They have tried to post the deal on OzBargain once (from their rep user), but it was marked as spam and subsequently unpublished. Although they have tried to hide their WHOIS information, HueyData has grabbed it for us before they changed the info:
Registrant:
xianjie chen
rongyuan D203,xi nan cai jing da xue
liu tai da dao,wenjiang
chengdu, sichuan 611130
China
Domain Name: ITUNESVENDOR.COM
Created on: 05-Jan-09
Expires on: 06-Jan-10
Last Updated on: 05-Jan-09
Administrative Contact:
chen, xianjie
rongyuan D203,xi nan cai jing da xue
liu tai da dao,wenjiang
chengdu, sichuan 611130
China
8613400534317 Fax --
One word — dodgy.
They have tried to post the deal on OzBargain once (from their rep user), but it was marked as spam and subsequently unpublished.
That was this one.
Although they have tried to hide their WHOIS information, HueyData has grabbed it for us before they changed the info:
Heh, "Domains by Proxy, Inc." now. Glad I copied the information rather than just linking to it :)
I bought 2 ipods and an iphone for xmas for myself and my fiancé.
Doing exactly the same thing as described in the article I jumped on ebay and searched around for some itunes cards.
Rather than to save cash - I wanted a US store account and as itunes doesn't allow Aussie Credit Cards or Aussie Paypal accounts to be used to payment for a US account, I had no option other than to use a US gift card (or US code), as I also have a legitimate US address for my business - I felt it was my right to access the US itunes store.
So I bought US$200 credit for $75 AUD on ebay - thinking I had the bargain of the millenium.
When I bought the code, the next day the seller was thrown off ebay, but he offered me another code this time for $78 AUD - same bull… I have a few cards left and now I've been thrown off ebay etc…
I bought another card…..
Then I won a US$50 card from another seller for $30AUD that I had bid on.
Feeling pretty happy (all codes worked)…I have gone on my merry way.
Being a bit of a "business thinker" I thought that perhaps I too could sell these cards / codes on ebay and make a bit of extra cash as there was obviously a way to source these cards or codes cheaply and then resell them.
The more I looked into it, the more I realised it is a complete illegal SCAM, and as the end user buying a few codes after xmas, I was inadvertently part of the immoral activity and ran some what of a chance that itunes would cancel my credit / close my account or even put my account into NEGATIVE meaning I would need to top up the balance just to continue to download content AND keep content I already had (if you use your ipod with another itunes account, it wants to format existing content before installing the new content).
I consider myself lucky nothing has happened to me or my itunes store credit but i'm not feeling too happy about what i've been involved with.