CoolStuff Onlinestore (Again)

[BigRonW]

I bought an (allegedly) 4-gig Ipod lookalike for my brother-in-law's birthday... my wife liked it so much that I got one for her as well - she got one with a 2" screen. The "MP3 Player Utils" CD that came with the gadget was so old that it was almost impossible to convert avi files to the right dimensions, so I looked around for a more recent version, and asked friends (on a technical support forum) for advice. That's when I discovered about "The Great Chipod Scam"... and that I was a victim of it. Could be worse: Coolstuff Online "recommend" delivery insurance... but it turns out to be compulsory - so at least I GOT the damned players (even of I had to pay extra) And they both turn out to be 2 gigabyte units hacked to give the appearance of holding 4 gigabytes. A quick study of the online petition (I'm signatory 543!) shows Coolstuff's name cropping up repeatedly - ALWAYS with the same complaint: "I paid for a 4 gig player, they delivered a hacked 2 gigabyte unit".

I wrote to them, made a formal complaint to EBay, and got exactly the same reply as shown elsewhere in this forum:

This mp4 is combined with 2 pcs. 2GB nano flash and one of the nano flash may have improper format or reset (disk error) by vibration during the delivery. So, you can return to us with full refund or we give you partial refund GBP6.00 for the resulted 2GB. Please confirm if it is OK. Then we will send you the refund.

We will also leave you good feedback. Thanks a lot.

I replied:

It's strange how this problem KEEPS ON happening: your name can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/eBay666/ a number of times - always with the same complaint: "I ordered a 4 gig player, they delivered a 2 Gig one". Strange also how "vibration" caused the player to become "hacked" so that it would mis-report the amount of Memory supplied. Please... I've been in tech support for both computers and mobile phones for over 10 years. And I've read the crap with which you've tried to fob-off other scammed customers. You are NOT fooling me with this rubbish: You hacked the memory (or paid to have it hacked) and you KNOW that the units you sell as "4 Gigabytes" are really only 2. You must also be aware that it's illegal to try and import radios into China. If I ship back the unit, it'll be impounded.

You behaved fraudulently... you got caught. Your first lie is implausible. Try a BETTER offer than £6.

EBay aren't going to do anything - why would they? They're "on a nice little earner", getting a percentage of the inflated price of each hacked player sold. SO can WE - the public - do anything? Only if we're prepared to make some kind of effort - even a slight one. For example, the Ebay system allows anyone to contact the (currently) winning bidder in any auction. There are hundreds of us who have been scammed: what if we each donated an hour of our time to contacting the winners of ongoing auctions and warned them that they were buying from a known fraudster who was probably going to supply inferior goods (with a link to this - and other similar - sites) If we could just upset commerce for ONE DAY, it would almost certainly put the fear of God into the scammers: What we did once, we could do again. If almost every transaction resulted in the purchasers looking very closely at what was being delivered to them BEFORE giving feedback... AND if every purchaser KNEW about the scam. then the vendors would be deluged with queries, complaints...and they wouldn't simply be getting away with it.

[BigRonW]

Coolstuff have just come back with an offer, improved to a very acceptable £15. (meaning that my 2 gig "Glacier" will have cost £20 - pretty good!) I accepted... but took the opportunity to point out that this was the SECOND time they'd tried to scam me, and it might save paperwork if they compensated me for BOTH transactions. Asking for a second £15 seemed a little greedy (It's the vendors whose greed this forum is about!) So I offered to accept "goods in lieu of cash" for the first player. I read somewhere on this forum that Chipods wholesale in HK for under £10...

[admin]

BigRonW,

The brand "Glacier" is an UXcell brand name. Coolstuff doesn't sell "Glacier" MP4 players.

I want to clear this up and that this has nothing to do with UXcell just in case others are thinking about it.

Keep us updated with progress of your claim against him.

[michiganjfrog]

Originally Posted by BigRonW";p=&quot

I bought an (allegedly) 4-gig Ipod lookalike for my brother-in-law's birthday... my wife liked it so much that I got one for her as well - she got one with a 2" screen. The "MP3 Player Utils" CD that came with the gadget was so old that it was almost impossible to convert avi files to the right dimensions, so I looked around for a more recent version, and asked friends (on a technical support forum) for advice. That's when I discovered about "The Great Chipod Scam"... and that I was a victim of it. Could be worse: Coolstuff Online "recommend" delivery insurance... but it turns out to be compulsory - so at least I GOT the damned players (even of I had to pay extra) And they both turn out to be 2 gigabyte units hacked to give the appearance of holding 4 gigabytes. A quick study of the online petition (I'm signatory 543!) shows Coolstuff's name cropping up repeatedly - ALWAYS with the same complaint: "I paid for a 4 gig player, they delivered a hacked 2 gigabyte unit".

I wrote to them, made a formal complaint to EBay, and got exactly the same reply as shown elsewhere in this forum:

I replied:

EBay aren't going to do anything - why would they? They're "on a nice little earner", getting a percentage of the inflated price of each hacked player sold. SO can WE - the public - do anything? Only if we're prepared to make some kind of effort - even a slight one. For example, the Ebay system allows anyone to contact the (currently) winning bidder in any auction. There are hundreds of us who have been scammed: what if we each donated an hour of our time to contacting the winners of ongoing auctions and warned them that they were buying from a known fraudster who was probably going to supply inferior goods (with a link to this - and other similar - sites) If we could just upset commerce for ONE DAY, it would almost certainly put the fear of God into the scammers: What we did once, we could do again. If almost every transaction resulted in the purchasers looking very closely at what was being delivered to them BEFORE giving feedback... AND if every purchaser KNEW about the scam. then the vendors would be deluged with queries, complaints...and they wouldn't simply be getting away with it.

eBay's got that worked out. If they see people sending too many emails to winning bidders, anyone other than sellers that they are in a transaction with, they will block your emails to them. Get in the way of eBay and their money, and its like trying to wrestle the pipe away from a crack whore.
In other words, yer gonna get scratched...

[BigRonW]

Originally Posted by michiganjfrog";p=&quot

eBay's got that worked out. If they see people sending too many emails to winning bidders, anyone other than sellers that they are in a transaction with, they will block your emails to them. Get in the way of eBay and their money, and its like trying to wrestle the pipe away from a crack whore.
In other words, yer gonna get scratched...

As I posted - just yesterday - on another sub-thread within this forum, this is not an original idea of mine or rather, it IS, but it's one that other people have reached independently and before me. It's a suggestion that gets made periodically right here. And - as one mischieviously imaginative poster has already pointed out, all you need to sign up as a prospective Ebay buyer is an EMail address. True it gets more complicated if you want to actually BUY something, but if all you wanted to do was stir up trouble by contacting other winning buyers... then using a number of "personas" created especially to do just that (and kept quite distinct from the identity you use to really buy and sell) wouldn't requiure you to be a rocket scientist. So... sure, maybe "you" get "scratched".But if you've got two brain cells to rub together, exactly who that "You" would be could vary on an hour-by-hour basis. Am I "stopthescam@lycos.co.uk?" "Mp4robbery@yahoo.com?" "Krooks-R-Us@hotmail.com"? Or maybe ALL of the above?

[michiganjfrog]

Oh, you're using that angle... I'm sure it would work to an extent, and I'm all for screwing with eBay and helping people not get ripped off, but what I said in the last message was that eBay will allow you to contact the seller, if you are a bidder. So, fake account or not, you will find, as I did when I tried this, that they will block you from contacting other bidders, after so many efforts. Yes, you might be able to increase that if you have numerous accounts. But keep in mind that eBay knows your IP address. I dont know when and where they check it, but if you are not changing it between accounts and it raises a flag within their system.... well, I suppose they can shut down all your accounts at once. Not trying to discourage anyone from trying this though, because if you want to spend the time, it will likely give some result.

[BigRonW]

Originally Posted by michiganjfrog";p=&quot

I'm sure it would work to an extent, and I'm all for screwing with eBay and helping people not get ripped off, but what I said in the last message was that eBay will allow you to contact the seller, if you are a bidder. So, fake account or not, you will find, as I did when I tried this, that they will block you from contacting other bidders, after so many efforts. Yes, you might be able to increase that if you have numerous accounts. But keep in mind that eBay knows your IP address. I dont know when and where they check it, but if you are not changing it between accounts and it raises a flag within their system....

I'm a broadband user, and I'm theoretically connected 24/7 - but I DO take care to change my IP periodically by disconnecting briefly every 12 hours or so - and by making use of proxy servers.

The smartest anti-piracy move Microsoft ever made was shipping their products on 1.68megabyte floppies. To the non-technical, formatting a floppy disk (normally 1.44meg) to 1.68 was beyond their capabilities, so copying the disks which contained (for example) Office v4.3 was simply impossible. On the other hand, if you were technically competent (or knew someone who was!) copying the disks was simple. It's the same old story. "They" raise obstructions... others find a way around, under or through those obstructions. And "they" are constrained by the SAME budgetary considerations that motivate their actions.

[BigRonW]

Stop Press!!!

"Item number: 300088294392 (2.0" TFT 4GB MP4 MP3 PLAYER Wedding Birthday Gift 1U)
Storage Capacity: 1-9 GB "

If the auction has already ended when you read this, then look for any auction of a 2" player (which looks like the one UXcell markets as "Glacier") with FREE postage. It'll be a "Coolstuff" auction. And they've started admitting that the capacity of their "4Gig" players is 1.9gig! Note that this wasn't a "One Off" - ALL of their auctions I've looked at today admit that items described in the title as "4Gig" have a capacity of 1.9Gig.

[BigRonW]

Originally Posted by admin";p=&quot

BigRonW,

The brand "Glacier" is an UXcell brand name. Coolstuff doesn't sell "Glacier" MP4 players.

I want to clear this up and that this has nothing to do with UXcell just in case others are thinking about it.

I just spotted the following item on Ebay:
i-Glacier 2GB MP4 MP3 Pod 2" TFT Player w Nokia Battery Item number: 290091686176 tghe vendor is "Sicilydreamer". It looks like "Glacier" is turning into a generic term, like "fridge" or "Hoover".