Psst... Wanna' buy a digital camera, cheap? Yeah, the new Canon Rebel XT. Eight megapixels, SLR, fully featured... A great piece of hardware. Going for eight, nine hundred bucks at Amazon? A thousand or more at big-box retailers?
I got here for just $449. Too much? You're breaking my arm! Okay, $399. That's as low as I can go!
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Google Adwords:
Digital Rebel XT New $449
www.InfinitiPhoto.com/Canon_RebelXT Canon Digital Rebel XT w/18-55 $549
Canon Digital Rebel XT
www.superhotdeal.com Canon Digital Rebel XT Bargain! Starting from $0.99.
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Amazon Reseller Marketplace:
entirelypets.com Canon Digital Rebel XT (Silver) New $540
Feedback Rating: 85 (97% positive)
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All fake. And that's just a tiny sample. There are dozens, if not hundreds of sites on the Internet making totally fraudulent claims to sell products at hundreds of dollars below the retail price -- often below the minimum wholesale price to the retailers!
I made two purchases through Amazon's marketplace, to see what would happen, and of course Amazon caught and cancelled both of them. (They don't want to have to pay me back the $600 when it all falls through!) These vendors sell tons of low-cost items to build up a positive reputation, then burn it with a few high-cost, high profit margin sales.
The websites don't even need to go to that effort -- a few hundred bucks to get a "credible" website, and per-click fees for Google ads.
I'd like to investigate this from any of several perspectives:
1. Con men -- how do they manipulate credibility to get our money?
2. What can organizations do to detect patterns of fraud? (How could Amazon keep its marketplace clean?)
3. What can individuals do to stay safe?
It's a fascinating subject.
(Read more for a list of websites that look fraudulent to me:)
http://www.expresscameras.com/prodetails.asp?prodid=306293
http://www.shopcartusa.com/Product/0206b001/Electronics~Cameras~Digital_Cameras/Canon_Digital_Rebel_XT_-_Body_Only/View_Reviews/
http://store.yahoo.com/royalcamera/dirext80me.html
http://www.pvdphoto.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1143
>> Check the testimonial!
>> "I was leary of using this site because there was no feedback from any of their customers. I decided to trust BizRite and went ahead and ordered. I was very pleased with the price, shipping and billing of the flash unit I ordered."
http://www.usaphotonation.com/
Notice that most of these sites share 'credibility logos' -- mostly from odd places.
Comments (1)
I remember President Clinton set up a website to see if an online vendor was legitimste.
Can someone /you / tell me the name of that website please.
IJ.
Posted by Igor | January 1, 2006 9:21 AM
Posted on January 1, 2006 09:21