Thebiglot.com aka Longwood Industries Inc. telemarketing rip-off! Roanoke Virginia
Received a call from a person stating they saw my ad in a local newspaper of a vehicle I was selling and was told the local newspaper was not a place to sell a vehicle. (This call was picked up by my voice mail and saved) and was promised I would sell the vehicle fast and get the price I was asking.
I returned the call and asked to speak to the gentleman who left the message on my voice mail. I was told by the woman I spoke to that she could help me. I asked several questions concerning their company and told the woman I would check them out and get back with them as I was not ready to spend 89.95 to sell my vehicle.
I checked out the website www.biglot.com and looked at the vehicles listed on their site, specifically the vehicle I was selling. I decided that the site was legitimate and I liked the guarantee and placed an ad online and paid the $89.95.
In the first week I received only 1 email. It was from a scam artist wanting to send me a $7000.00 check and send him the difference of the price of the vehicle. This is the only email I have received as of 08/23/04
I decided to try lowering the price of the vehicle. There is a hit counter on the ad and I noticed that before I reduced the price the counter was at 35. After I lowered the price I noticed the counter went to 295 within 2 hours but still no email. I again lowered the price of the vehicle to a ridiculous price of $1,500 for a 4000.00 vehicle. The hit counter went to over 500 in under an hour and and still no email! I knew something was wrong. I decided to test the "Ask seller a question" link on the ad page. I filled out the form and hit the submit button. I received the following error:
We're sorry, there has been error sending your email to the customer. Please call our
Customer Service Dept at: 1-800-430-1965 ext.4
I called the customer service and was told they were not aware of an problem but they would look into it. I decided to follow up with an email to their technical support - web@independentsystems.com. I received an email stating:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Delivery to the following recipients failed.
web@independentsystems.com
Link to my ad on www.thebiglot.com - http://www.thebiglot.com/ad_auto.asp?AI=270156&MK=Ford&MD=Taurus&PN=1&YL=1998&AT=1
I tried asking questions on other ads placed on the site but got the same error. I am a sucker :(
Ken
NORTH PORT, Florida
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Renee
Bedford,Virginia,
U.S.A.
Correction: Longwood Industries
#4REBUTTAL Owner of company
Wed, December 07, 2005
As Director of Longwood Industries, Inc., I would like to take this opportunity to respond to the above comments.
Ken, it is certainly unfortunate that you received a scam email. We have done everything in our power to provide as much information as possible to the authorities in an effort to capture these crooks who prey on innocent online consumers. In fact, to counter the scammers' efforts, we specifically warn every customer who receives an inquiry about their vehicle about this very scam by appending the following to every email:
IMPORTANT ADVICE FROM THE BIG LOT! - We're sending this alert to you to ensure that you have all the necessary information to make your experience with The Big Lot! a positive one.
As far as the technical errors on the site, we apologize for any inconvenience they may have caused you. We assure you that we immediately correct any errors on the site and stand by our commitment to provide an excellent service to all parties selling used vehicles online. Please visit the site to see the improvements that have been made.
Sincerely,
LONGWOOD INDUSTRIES, INC
Renee Fisher, Director
S
Ft Worth,Texas,
U.S.A.
I wish ripoffreport.com could afford to publicize so more consumers could be informed like I was
#4Consumer Comment
Mon, September 13, 2004
Ken,
More people might report their incidents if they knew about this website. I had no clue about it until I tried to do a search on Longwood Industries so I could get their actual physical address instead of just a lousy P.O. box.
I left my ad on & modified my photo. I don't know if it worked because I haven't checked it yet. I lowered my price to $0 & put across my photo a text box that states that they wouldn't refund my fee after receiving only counterfeit check from a fraudulent buyer.
Kenneth
NORTH PORT,Florida,
U.S.A.
thebiglot.com - Site now says Server is currently busy
#4Author of original report
Mon, August 23, 2004
On Saturday and Sunday Aug 21 and 22, 2004 and shortly after posting my first report, the website www.thebiglot.com website now says the "serveris currently busy" and is not accessible. I posted the vehicle on their site on 8/2/04 and they have done nothing for me except take my money and offer me a place to list my vehicle which happens to be non functioning. I can not get email and now no one can see my ad or anyone elses for that matter.