On my search for an outboard motor I was directed to this website.onlineoutboardshop.com/ (A sponsored google site). The prices were incredible and the site looked highly professional with a compliance certificate and various appropriate content including Terms and Conditions/International Shipping, etc. I made an email inquiry into purchasing a motor and received an immediate response with requested information. After doing some research (obviously not enough - I should have checked phone numbers and used Google earth on the addresses)I decided to go ahead and purchase the outboard using their credit card cart system. I received an automated response stating "Our bank merchant credit card company (MIDTRANS PAYMENT GATEWAY) unable to charge credit card at this time". I contacted them again through email and was asked to use a bank transfer payment method which I was hesitant to use due to the high difficulty in receiving a refund if the transaction was fraudulent. I felt reasonably confident although hesitant, however, they offered a 15% discount which enticed me to go ahead.
A bank transfer of $950US was made and an automated reply came stating that the outboard had been ordered. A further email came two days later offering a monthly promotion of a second motor for an extra $650US which made me awfully suspicious and declined their offer. Two more automated emails were received stating 'awaiting shipment' and finally 'shipped'. After a few days I sent an email inquiring about a tracking number that was supposed to be sent - no reply. I sent another two emails with no reply. I asked a friend to send them an email inquiring about purchasing an outboard to see if they were scamming me and sure enough they replied immediately telling him that they shipped from their warehouse and it would take 5 days to arrive. It has now been over two weeks with no contact or outboard and I attempted to contact them using their phone numbers with no success - they are not connected.
I did a thorough Google earth search and it appears there is no Tradehub11 (building) in that area. I used a website www.scamadviser.com which gave me quite a deal of detail and it appears this site is a scam. I want this site closed down so no other fool is duped into throwing their money away. I thought I would test out the authenticity further and created a Hotmail account for my wife under a different name. She sent an email saying that their phones were not working and was interested in buying an outboard for her husband (me). He promptly replied with “the network may be down, contact me on +6283 1616 7 9695”. We tried the number with no luck and sent another email to which he requested my wife’s number and low and behold he actually rang. The conversation was extremely ‘dodgy’ and when my wife said that she had a friend in Singapore not far from their address who would pick up the item, he became rather flustered and we have not heard from him since!!!!