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CB Online Scams Review of elmamall.com
elmamall.com

elmamall.com review: Gorilla Wooden Swingset / Play Structure 1

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Author of the review
8:10 am EST
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I responded by e-mail to a Craigslist post in San Diego in December 2010 for a wooden Gorilla swingset. I received an e-mail reply to my inquiry redirecting me to the online store for elmamall.com which uses a voucher for free Platinum Home Delivery on purchases over $500. The website looks legitimate, complete with e-mail and telephone information, the Visa, Mastercard and Paypal logos, etc. Before placing an order you must register with them and they give an option to subscribe to their newsletter during this process. Not until after the order has been entered do they instruct buyers to make a Green Dot Money Pack payment because of the high cost of Paypal chargebacks. i feel like an idiot falling for this, particularly since there was a similar set available through a local contact, but my husband and I preferred the layout of the one offered by elmamall.com. Everything about the website looks legitimate upfront and the company initially gives frequent status updates, but then there is no response to inquiries and their phone number says it is temporarily disabled. While elmamall.com claims to have its warehouse in Richboro, PA the phone number is supposedly a landline registered to Bethlehem, PA and I subsequently saw a Yahoo post claiming their website is registered to someone in the Bahamas. I did my research prior to purchasing but couldn't find anything either negative or postive about elmamall.com - now I'm out the money for the one thing my 6 year old really wanted from Santa, cannot afford a replacement, had to explain to my daughter who had a one-time opportunity to dance in the Disneyland holiday parade that she could participate but as a sacrifice to make the swingset happen for Christmas we would not be able to buy Disneyland tickets for the family to watch her dance (this would also have been my 6 year old's first trip to Disneyland and he was looking forward to it until we found a bogus excuse to explain why we couldn't go without ruining his "Christmas surprise"...of course he was angry and upset that we weren't going), and on top of it all I now have a dental emergency to find a way to pay for. What a bunch of ###-suckers...although it's wrong to defraud the public it seems like an even more heinous crime when it crushes a child's heart, especially during the holidays. Plus it makes us feel like jerks as parents being left to hold the bag and explaining to our kids why no Disneyland, why fewer Christmas presents, why mom's broken tooth isn't getting fixed, etc. And it's one thing for mom and dad to fall short of their expectations, but what about a little one who still believes in Santa...would Santa really go out of his way to let him down like this? You can look up their purported listing at http://elmamall.com/product.php?id_product=162

1 comments
B
B
Bizzy81
, US
Apr 20, 2011 5:00 pm EDT

I responded by e-mail to a Craigslist post in San Diego in December 2010 for a wooden Gorilla swingset. I received an e-mail reply to my inquiry redirecting me to the online store for elmamall.com which uses a voucher for free Platinum Home Delivery on purchases over $500. The website looks legitimate, complete with e-mail and telephone information, the Visa, Mastercard and Paypal logos, etc. Before placing an order you must register with them and they give an option to subscribe to their newsletter during this process. Not until after the order has been entered do they instruct buyers to make a Green Dot Money Pack payment because of the high cost of Paypal chargebacks. i feel like an idiot falling for this, particularly since there was a similar set available through a local contact, but my husband and I preferred the layout of the one offered by elmamall.com. Everything about the website looks legitimate upfront and the company initially gives frequent status updates, but then there is no response to inquiries and their phone number says it is temporarily disabled. While elmamall.com claims to have its warehouse in Richboro, PA the phone number is supposedly a landline registered to Bethlehem, PA and I subsequently saw a Yahoo post claiming their website is registered to someone in the Bahamas. I did my research prior to purchasing but couldn't find anything either negative or postive about elmamall.com - now I'm out the money for the one thing my 6 year old really wanted from Santa, cannot afford a replacement, had to explain to my daughter who had a one-time opportunity to dance in the Disneyland holiday parade that she could participate but as a sacrifice to make the swingset happen for Christmas we would not be able to buy Disneyland tickets for the family to watch her dance (this would also have been my 6 year old's first trip to Disneyland and he was looking forward to it until we found a bogus excuse to explain why we couldn't go without ruining his "Christmas surprise"...of course he was angry and upset that we weren't going), and on top of it all I now have a dental emergency to find a way to pay for. What a bunch of ###-suckers...although it's wrong to defraud the public it seems like an even more heinous crime when it crushes a child's heart, especially during the holidays. Plus it makes us feel like jerks as parents being left to hold the bag and explaining to our kids why no Disneyland, why fewer Christmas presents, why mom's broken tooth isn't getting fixed, etc. And it's one thing for mom and dad to fall short of their expectations, but what about a little one who still believes in Santa...would Santa really go out of his way to let him down like this?

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