Firstly, the 'fake' is an online storefront apparently for retail sales, representing a real company based in Germany who I'm fairly certain only sells wholesale without any online, retail presence except through other companies, like sellers on Amazon. The URL for the 'fake' is a .us as opposed to shop.company.com or .com/store and is run through Shopify.
The amount was for $30+ (it's not the money necessarily that bothers me, I can live without the $30... it's the principle of the matter and maybe shutting down a potential scam and saving people money) on June 9th, charged to my credit card at BofA.
I've emailed/contacted the store via the email (essentially company@gmail) and the online contact form a total of 3 times without a response. I emailed the German front office without a response (I could try contacting someone specific in the company). After looking up the URL's Whois info, it appears to be registered by someone unaffiliated with the company, but I haven't emailed this person directly.
Now, I should've done my due diligence and looked into it more but I was so excited at the thought of their whole range of products up for retail sale that I threw caution to the wind... At this point, is it safe to assume the store is a fraud? Should I email the URL registrant directly? Can I request a chargeback at this point? Is it appropriate at this point to file a complaint with the FTC without having exhausted all means of communication, e.g. emailing the URL registrant directly?
I haven't provided the URL of the store but I can add it if it will help.
Submitted July 01, 2017 at 03:13AM by Blukoi http://ift.tt/2tArwLT
