www.streetdeal.sg Premium Membership Scam

"I was charged $88 on my credit card by Streetdeal.sg so I called up my bank to check what transaction this was as I did not recall having made any purchases recently on their website. Was informed by the bank that this is the membership fee that they have imposed on all their "premium" members which I never knew I was. Did not receive any notification from Streetdeal that they would be charging me. They just went ahead and did it. Emailed them to request for a refund as I had no intention of being their premium member, and this was their reply:"

Greetings from StreetDeal.

As per the company's discretion, the membership has been revised and there has been a change in the membership fee effecting from 1st January 2014.

As such, all our Premium customers are changed from the annual membership fee to the quarterly membership fee.

Thus, you are charged for the new quarterly membership fee of $88.

In the meantime if you should have any inquires please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you,

Theepa Magantharan | Customer Service Executive | StreetDeal Singapore Pte Ltd

W: www.streetdeal.sg | E: info@streetdeal.sg

T: +65 6361 0888 | F: +65 6535 7882

305 Alexandra Road | #05-15 Vantage Automotive Centre | Singapore 159942

The email stated that this $88 is a QUARTERLY fee. I have since cancelled my card and requested my bank to do a chargeback. Googled online and realised that many people have been cheated already, so want to spread this to as many people as possible. In addition, I have been leaving comments on their Facebook page for them to return me my money but they have been deleting my comments and blocking me from seeing others' comments.

As reported in:
http://therealsingapore.com/content/streetdealsg-still-scamming-customers-charging-99-their-credit-card
https://www.facebook.com/StreetdealSingaporeConsumersInterest
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/customers-complain-about-streetdeal-singapore-%E2%80%98trap%E2%80%99--company-responds-093640798.html

Beware of Online Selling Scam from Foreign Countries

Recently, there is a growing number of advertisements from suspicious users posted in our local forums for sales of photography gears. The prices that they have offered are quite amazing and the items are new (the forums' sections are actually meant to be for sales of refurnished items). Their member accounts are also new.

When we tried to clarify with one of them, the person told us we had to make payment online while the actual item is located in foreign country.

As a matter of fact, parallel import goods may be cheaper than local ones, partly because of non-local warranty or lower tax; however, if the item cost less than 50% of local price, you should really beware of the catch.

As our local police force may not be able to deal with criminals in every foreign country, we advise everyone not to try luck in all the cheap offers. If it happens that you send the payment via online transfer and the seller does not mail the item over as promised, it may be beyond anyone's help.

Will you purchase electronic items via online from Kazakhstan or Pakistan?

If you have purchased items from such sellers and realised you have been conned, do post your encounter in the comment section below. Meanwhile do spread about this and encourage your friends many things are too good to be real.

Another Online Shopping Scam

We have seen a scam alert posted by Facebook user Joan Ter who is a victim of an online shopping scam.

Please beware of the scammer. As extracted from the Facebook post:

Hi All,

DO NOT buy anything from the seller holding bank account no. 073-27352-8.

PLEASE SHARE THIS MESSAGE ON YOUR FB PAGE TO PREVENT OTHERS TO FALL INTO HIS/HER TRAP !!! THANK YOU
...
This happen on myself on 02 Sept 12, I've ordered a luggage from Hong Gadget. Till now I still haven't received the item and I'm blocked from his/her FB right after payment was done. After few of my friends trying to help me to PM him/her, my friends was blocked as well and he/her change her FB name to Sumiko Gadget.

We spread the picture around and today we found out that he/her created another FB account to con buyers. I add Loewe Sim as friend after I suspect he/she is Hong/Sumiki Gadget coz all the pictures of the items are 100% similar from Hong/Sumiko Gadget. Immediately he blocked me. So I ask my friend (which is already in his new FB account) to purchase an item and ask for bank account number for payment.

And confirm that he is the same person who con me. I have already made a police report, I hope those who have conned by him/her will also make a police report and have this person nab!

Online Scams Targeting Blogshop Owners

This is similar to another Customer Scam on E-Commerce Website.

Blog Shop owners should take note of this.

Here is a Credit card scam that they are doing. They order from 1800.00 to 5000.00 dollars worth of product off your website by credit card. The billing and shipping address match. As soon as the order it, They want you to ship it immediately, and wear you out daily about getting the product shipped asap. It is obvious now that it was a stolen credit card because 30 days later, you will get a no authorization to purchase against your shopping cart. I was using pay-pal pro processor for my shopping cart which handles credit cards but does not give you any seller protection which I found out later.They only do seller protect on Pay-pal only and not all the time. Once the no authorization hits, pay-pal takes that amount out of your account immediately. They then fight for you to resolve the issue with the credit card company. With out letting the whole world know the outcome, the bottom line is the scammer has the product. You paid for the product and then your account gets hits for the entire amount when the no authorized purchase contacts pay-pal which puts you negative for what ever the amount was. If you send some product out, they tell their buddies and what happen to me is that 5 of them ordered product all before the first no authorization hit which means there was money and product going everywhere and in the end you have no protection on the orders, the product that did get sent you will no longer see and you will be responsible for the money on it. This has been a horrible and very expensive scam that was done to me and all I did was have products to sell on the internet from my website. My site has some very expensive items , so it did not take many items to really rack up the money which has all fallen on me. Now, I can no longer take a order from a legitimate customer because my pay-pal is in the negative. If a order comes in, it just makes my account less negative. Then you would have to try and chase that money down. It has been a nightmare to say the least. A lot of the times they ask if you take credit cards as the first email. Be very careful as these Singapore scammers are probably from Indonesia or Malaysia using freight forward addresses at the airport in Singapore. All the address's were on Airport Rd, Bldg. what ever. BEWARE..

Online Shopping Scams - Monroe Trends

One reader of ours is being scammed by a Facebook account selling MAC brushes and other cosmetics.

Be careful of Monroe Trends on Facebook selling MAC brushes and other cosmetics. Profile has been deleted but there might be similar scams online.

After transferring $, seller came back with an offer to buy 2 products at a discounted price. I agreed and transferred more $. Said delivery will take about 1-2 weeks as items are from Canada warehouse.

Seller then deleted facebook account and all I have is the account number. POSB SAVINGS :145-14097-8

Please be careful when shopping online, especially with individual sellers.

I got burnt this time :(

For online blogshop or Facebook page shopping, it is good to get recommendation from friends.

Customer Scam on E-Commerce Website

We have received this scam story from a visitor "Bouncer". He is probably a foreigner who owns an e-commerce website. The "customer" would purchase items from him, paying him via PayPal. After receiving the goods, the "customer" would file report that the purchase is unauthorized and thus getting back the money while able to keep the purchased items.

Blog shop owners should take note of this online shopping scam.

Below is the victim:

I have an e-commerece website, when they first contacted me and ask if I take credit cards which is strange because I have all (4) credit cards in a Logo on my front page of my website. When you say yes, they will order from 1500.00 to 4500.00 worth of product all in multiples of what ever product they choose. They are usually pick the very expensive items. They immediately start asking you to ship asap, i wait for tracking number they say. They ask everyday or every other day if you shipped yet. They wait until they know the package is shipped and in customs and then they report to the credit card company it was an unauthorized purchase. What stinks is , the scammer gets the product and if you have a pay-pal shopping cart like I do, pay-pal on this end takes the full amount of the order out of your account until it is settled. You have to go to the details link on pay pal in your account to see if you are eligible for seller protection when someone places an order. If not they take the entire amount out of your pay-pal account which puts you in the negative if you don't keep a lot of money in there. If you have seller protection, they leave the money in I guess and work out the dispute with the credit card company. These orders all have addresses that are shipped to a building on Airport Rd in Singapore, building No. whatever. This is most likely where the freight forwarders are to ship somewhere else. I shipped one order and the dispute ended in my favor but shortly after I received 3 other big orders all going to some building on airport rd in Singapore. They are telling there buddies they found some sucker in the states that will send out the product. I have since stopped all sales to Singapore and if I do get an order, I immediately refund the money right back. I hope this helps save someone from this scam of people ordering product off your website and then claiming unauthorized purchase after you have sent the product. You lose the product and your account gets all screwed up for up to 30 days until they get it worked out.

We would like to highlight that such scammer exists in every country. Even though large number of residents in Singapore are foreigners, the government is still able to reduce crime rate, such that Singapore is safer and more crime-free than most other countries.

Any victim from other country should try to contact the Singapore police force for assistance in any online scam. It would do you good while helping Singaporeans to remove black sheep.

Fake Distributor Online Scam

The emerging of internet has helped many businessmen to reach target audience easier. Selling products online means there is no need for a physical store, which will help to ease the business cost since rental is usually the biggest component.

However, there is an issue of reliability at stake. Many scammers have emerged to harvest in the large market with fake or imitation products, which are usually of lousier quality than the actual manufacturers'.

It is often difficult to trace the sellers when the online buyers face issues with the products.

In our opinion, it is worth the risk to try out non-consumable and non facial products; on the other hand, we should always exercise extra care in identifying the sellers' credibility. For products that you will put into your mouth or apply on your skin, you probably have to research more.

There is a compaint from a beauty products distributor that someone has been using her name to sell the products, which are supposed to be sold only through her.

"注意：很多卖家利用我们的名誉说是我们的代理和我们拿货，但是她们根本不是我们的代理却说是跟我们拿货。我们并不是他们的代理商。大家请小心！"

We do not know if these products really work. Our primary concern is that if you were to get them from unauthorized distributors, there is a high chance that they are counterfeit goods, which may harm your health. Secondly, if anything happens, you may not be able to pursue the matter if you get the products from an unknown online fake distributor.

It is therefore better for you to get any product from the appropriate distributor instead of getting them at discounted price from unknown distributors or people who claim to be representing the distributor.

A decent product that is allowed to be sold online should at least have a decent company website. Do check with them for more information when you are in doubt.

Online Scams - Branded Bags

Accordingly to CNA website, police had arrested a 22-year-old woman on 21 March 2012 who is believed to be involved in at least two cases of online cheating.

The suspect had placed an online advertisement on the website "Deluxemall.com" for the sale of branded bags, using the username "Bagjunkie".

The first victim made a police report on 03 March 2012 that she had been cheated regarding a branded bag. She had "bought" it from the suspect and transferred a sum of S$1,400 to a bank account provided. The suspect became evasive and the victim did not receive the bag. Preliminary investigations revealed that another victim was scammed for the purchase of a S$1,450 branded bag as well.

The lady would attend court on 23 March 2012. If convicted, she could be jailed for up to 10 years, and fined.

Anyone who has news to the final verdict, please update us.


Online Scams have become more common. The number of scams will continue to increase as more people begin to make internet part of their lives, including online shopping.

One tip that we can provide for online shoppers who like to shop on similar websites is to trust only shops/profiles that have more kudos or positive reviews/comments. Of course, not every shopping website would provide shoppers with the features to rate or comment. For newer shops, there are always higher risk.