E-screwed--any advice for a sucker?

[bozack]

Well here is the situation,

My gf got an email, which looked professional (had javascript and all to transport info) with the subject line of

"ANY PC Games for $30.00 - FREE SHIPPING!!!"

she looked at it and since she is not really into video games passed up on the deal but forwarded the message to me knowing that I wanted q3a for a while but didnt want to spend 50 bucks.

So I looked it over and saw that it originated from what I thought was pcgames.com, at least the sender addy was info@pcgames.com.

I decided to take a chance since they were not asking for cc number or anything they were just asking for a game title and a little info

I filled out the javascript template and sent in my info, a few days later I got this:

"i Merchant Inc. (i_Merchant0@DallasOffice.com) has just sent you a
Money Request with PayPal.

Amount: $30.00
Note: Available: Quake III

Thanks for your time and interest, it is greatly appreciated!

Thanks again,
PC Games"

So stupid me judging by the email address I thought it was a legit deal and decided what the heck I will pay pal my 30 bucks. They said shipping was free and I would get the game in 5-7 business days.

Well needless to say it has now been well over two weeks, I paid them on the 19th and it was confirmed allmost immediately, I have yet to hear anything and when I tried to email info@pcgames.com I got a bounced sender response saying the addy is invalid. I emailed the i_merchant@dallasoffice.com but I just realised tonight that that was a free email system and anyone can get an addy like that.

So right now I figure I am kinda screwed for the 30 bucks that I sent and I am kinda pissed but such is life, I should have known by the tell tale signs (eg. two different addresses, the odd way of emailing the promotion like that, and the whole paypal affair) but I wasn't thinking all I was thinking of was the money I was saving.

which is kind of ironic cause best buy had q3a for sale this week for 27 bucks and at first I thought I was still getting a good deal cause I would have had to pay taxes but now that I think I am getting nothing it pisses me off any more.

if anyone has any suggestions on anything I can do I would greatly appreciate it, thanks

 

[yakko]

No advice but I snacthed up that best buy deal this weekend. They also had Contact on dvd for 9.99

 

[DanC]

You can do lots of things.

First an email explaining what nasty things you are going to do.

A complaint to the BBB
Numerous postings to the usenet
A website touting their unfair treatment

Get creative -
It has never, even once failed for me - four times, always gotten satisfaction.
pm me for more details.

 

[bozack]

well I think this was an individual or a group of rouges pretending to be pcgames.com, since pcgames.com is no longer that (something I realsied after I placed the order) and they were unverified within paypal(something else I should have noticed and did but didnt think much of it)-oh well we will see if I get an email back tommorow

 

[perry]

Is the PayPal account verified? Doesn't that give you some sort of fraud protection?
edit: Woops. answered that as I was typing

Otherwise, I think you are pretty much screwed.. unless you can track down the sending IP of the email (I know you can do that with Hotmail, dunno about this freemail place), get some sort of legal crap to get the name/address of the person and then sue em.

Or contact the AG and see if there have been multiple accounts. State may be interested in helping out if a ton of people were screwed.

 

[bozack]

no the paypal account was not verified, which should have been a big tipoff, the email that I recieved from them was headered with a company called i Merchant Inc. but hell that could be some 5th grader in his basement, or like the simpsons when homer had the phone dialer (send one dollar to happy fun guy)

I think I am just screwed - oh well

 

[bozack]

any other options/suggestions would be appreciated thanks

 

[loogie]

tell their isp.