The Ship Model Forum

Just thought I would warn other shop colleagues...

There are criminals underways, who use fraud and cheat you into sending the items to them, and you never get the money. I was cheated like this just before Christmas, losing around 1000 euro, and a model railroading friend of mine also got caught.

They place a big order (in my case, several times larger then average) from you which is very consistent (kits, fitting photoetch, etc), in 1-2 scales. Several follow up orders are also coming, the emails are instantly answered. They claim to have paid the bills by bank transfer, and in case of my friend, they send you a low quality bank transfer paper photo (a fraud as it comes out). They start to tell you that they need the kits instantly as these are "Christmas gift for a brother"/"Birthday gift for a uncle", and urge you to send in-stock items. Dont do it! You will never see the items or money - since you send it, the mails are not answered, and it comes out that the people at the delivery address are other ones - apparently the parcels are intercepted before the destination adress and DHL post car

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Model kit manufacturer and distributor: https://b2b.modellbaudienst.de
Distributor of Very Fire, Snowman, Milania Master Korabel, Falkonet, Microdisign in EU
1:350 HMS Diana 1794 - nearly released
Further kits in preparation.

I'm very sorry to hear what has happened to you Peter.

I am quite inflexible about payment. It either comes through our webstore payment gateway or there's no sale. We sometimes get mails from people asking to pay by cheque, postal order, sending cash or whatever but we refuse to do business that way (mostly due to convenience - we haven't got time to go to banks to deposit old-fashioned paper payment techniques). We offer bank transfers with our trade suppliers, but they have to supply us with their company details so we can check up on them before dealing.

Is there any possibility of recovering these costs some how? To intercept the parcels would surely imply some liability on the postal company? I hope the German police are dealing with this.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

Thanks!

I reported this to police, but to be honest i do not have a hope to recover anything. Postal driver is not obliged to check the documents, except a paid "identity check" option is used. Most likely, the driver would remember something like "a plain looking mid aged man in red jacket and a moustache who was going to enter his car parked directly in front of this adress" asked him if he has a parcel for "L.W."...

I usually use paypal, cash in advance by bank transfer (for both shop and ebay shop), or credit card (shop only), plus a pickup at my store. Sometimes cash in advance by other means (like western union) for some countries where paypal or bank transfer are impossible or restricted (Russia, some Latin American or African countries), but always acting as cash here, parcel out. No idea why I acted like this this time, probably being in a christmas mood and willing to help someone to get the gifts in time.... I have a pair of very regular customers who are allowed to pay by invoice, but only after several orders with regular means are done.

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Model kit manufacturer and distributor: https://b2b.modellbaudienst.de
Distributor of Very Fire, Snowman, Milania Master Korabel, Falkonet, Microdisign in EU
1:350 HMS Diana 1794 - nearly released
Further kits in preparation.

I am very sorry to hear of your problem Petr and thank you for the warning. I hope you can find some compensation even if it sounds unlikely at the moment. There are hard lessons to be learned for all of us who are in this business sometimes.

Mike

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Starling Models

http://www.starling-models.co.uk

This seems to be happening more and more. Honesty and good faith are rewarded with treachery and deceit. For my part I would rather be honest and genuine than the sort of scum who do this.

It is not clever to rob people it is sad and pathetic and the losers who do this must have shrivelled up personalities and nothing to live for.

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In 1757 Admiral John Byng was shot "pour encourager les autres". Voltaire

What irks me is some shop owners who send you obviously defective items, and then, when made aware, don't offer replacement or refund.