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Press release
Cloned companies in the web
www.agelettronicait.com is just an example
When our colleagues from the ECC of Vienna where asked to give some information about the company above, at the beginning nothing seemed particularly strange to them. The online shop, whose website is available in Italian and English language, sells electronic products to very competitive prices and is based at the following address: AG. Elettronica-70051 Barletta (BA)- 247, v. Madonna della Croce- contact@agelettronicait.com.
A fast look at www.infoimprese.it confirms that this company really exists on the named address. There is, however, a small difference where the activity sector is concerned.
The first doubts arise. They grow after reading that the consumer never manages to reach the seller by telephone and after realizing that the phone number given in the various e-mails has a prefix number corresponding to Milan and not at all to the area where the firm is supposed to be based. In order to establish a telephone contact, the consumer is furthermore asked to give his own phone number.
Although the firm tells him not to worry, the consumer is already very suspicious and therefore asks the European Consumer Center of Bolzano for assistance.
In Bolzano, we detect a few other inconsistencies: the homepage has been registered quite recently by an online service which doesn’t permit to trace the real promoters.
Moreover, the seller invites the customer to pay using Western Union whose money transfer service is said to be the safest although Western union itself warns to pay attention: indeed, even if you need to show your ID to pick up the funds, a fictitious name doesn’t grant you against robbery as well as the arrangement of key questions (www.westernunion.com).
Furthermore the online directory shows that the telephone number given to the consumer doesn´t correspond to the firm AG Elettronica but to a person who had already reported it to the police.
For all these reasons, we advise the Austrian consumer to place any order only if he can pay by cod (cash on delivery).
It is anyway always very important to pay attention by shopping online and to be aware of the fact that in many cases people purchase and pay items in the internet without never getting anything. Once they have paid, their contact person completely disappears and when they try to get in touch with the cloned firm the latter doesn’t have the faintest idea about the whole issue given that it has never been online.
For further information please contact us via e-mail info@euroconsumatori.org or via telephone +39 0471 980939.
05/05/2005
Addition June 2005
Please notice that another Italian company, namely Computer Market snc has presumably been cloned:Dates of the "real" company
Computer Market snc
Via Ravenna 83
65121 Pescara
tel 0039 085 4216007
Online company, which uses the dates of the real company:
www.compmarketit.com
Via Ravenna 83
65121 Pescara
tel 0039 0295441891
Neither in this case the real company does sell its products online.
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