Keep clear of Digitalhousesa.

[Boeriemore]

I was corresponding via e-mail with the “Sales Executive”, one Leticia Meyer, regarding the purchase of a Sony AV receiver. She confirmed that they had one in stock, price R4300 + R220 delivery charges. She confirmed that the moment payment confirmation was received she would dispatch the item and I would have it within 24 hours. She promised to inform me the moment she received this confirmation notice.
I did an EFT and forwarded her my bank’s payment confirmation.
My bank did likewise.
From that moment on she stopped
communicating with me, ignoring my e-mails. My bank managed to recover only R503 from their account because the moment
the money is received they transfer it to a private account.
The complaints web site, Hellopeter, currently has about a dozen posts from people who have also been caught by these crooks.

[desA]

Ouch!

[Justloadit]

and with the recent spate of accounts being put on hold because the FICA documents are outdated, so how do these perps get away with it?
Or is the FICA registration purely to irritate the law abiding citizens?

[Houses4Rent]

Or is the FICA registration purely to irritate the law abiding citizens?

You hit the nail on its head.

[Slow Blow]

You hit the nail on its head.

Dead right

[Dave A]

One of the things that fascinates me is the issue of online credibility - which is particularly critical when it comes to ecommerce.

How did you find them in the first place, Boeriemore? Ads they had posted or via search?
The nearest I could find to a website "of their own" was a wozaonline hosted site.

[adrianh]

What does FICA have to do with any of this?

[Justloadit]

What does FICA have to do with any of this?

To open a bank account you are required to provide personal information.
In a case like this, which seems to be fraud, and creating a criminal case should then allow one to follow the recipient bank account details should yield the perpetrator.

[Boeriemore]

In reply to the two posts above.
I googled Sony STR - DN 5010 AV receiver and digitalhousesa popped up.
They also have a standard bank account into which I paid my money, but
as I previously stated, based on Hellopeter posts, they immediately transfer the money into a private account.
It is for this reason that the bank could only recover R503 for me {they charged me R264 to effect this recovery}

[Justloadit]

SO the bank knows where your money went to then.

[Houses4Rent]

Sure they must know, but I doubt they have much interest to pursue this.

[Citizen X]

The things actual people do to make money, from the charlatan pyramid scheme crowd, to the’ we'll sell you a nice camera,’ online bunch , to my personal favourites ‘the cast a spell,’ bunch...



You know I would even respect someone who tells me that they sell sweets and such other commodities on a very small scale but they actually a real business, but not this crowd

[Boeriemore]

SO the bank knows where your money went to then.

Certainly. I had to have their banking details to deposit into their account.

[adrianh]

Knowing their address is great but the fact remains that their is nothing you can do other than complain and take them to court. We all know that taking people to court over such matters is a long and costly process. Who will go through the effort to take a guy to court over a R2K hifi on the off chance of getting their money back. He will simply plead poverty and agree to pay back R50 per month. You might argue that he has done this to 50 people but I cannot see you taking the guy to court on behalf of all his defrauded customers because the pay out would be bigger than what the small claims court can deal with and that you will have to take on a lot of legal admin & red tape to do so.

My personal opinion is that the only thing you can really do is to make as many people as possible aware of his antics and to learn that you don't part with your cash unless you are 99% sure that you will get your goods.

[Justloadit]

mmmmm an interesting idea here. Have a Trust account in which the funds are deposited into, and when the goods are shipped, the money is transferred to the supplier.
Using the Trust account, shows the supplier that the customer is willing to purchase the goods, and is sure that the money is available, and the customer is sure that his money is safe, in that if the supplier defaults, he will get his money back.