Cfitbeats.com

[Bodger7]

I have come across this seller on the internet and wondered whether anyone else has had any dealings with them. They can be found at https://www.cfitbeats.com. They offer various items for purchase including some tools etc that may be of interest to woodworkers/turners. For example they offer an Axminster SK100 chuck package for £71.31 which is less than half of the Axminster price. I am aware of the maxim "if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is" but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has bought, or tried to buy, anything from them. A dry run by me caused concern as the payment would have gone through a bank(?) called UniCredit and I was not confident that I wasn't being scammed. My payment would have gone to someone called "Guan Shilun". I will try and check this out with my credit card company and update if any more info is forthcoming.
From the above it will be appreciated that I am conscious of the risks of buying on line and the potential for fraud so I am only asking for any actual experience with this website or any that may be similar.
Thanks.

 

[paul-c]

hi looks a bit iffy to me.
just looked at the section
Mowers & Outdoor Power Tools
and it looks as though every third or fourth item is £71-31
which in itself would be enough to raise my suspicions.

 

[D_W]

There is a rash of pop-up sites that are disorganized and somehow get past authorization to use a payment system, but they don't ship anything or they provide a fake tracking number.

I got snagged by one last year that was selling a koch sharpener which I wanted to look at based on a buffer article, but the fake site was smart enough to list obscure things and only some cheaper than woodworking retailers (not half, more like 15% lower). I got a fake tracking number, the sharpener got "delivered" and I called paypal customer service and they looked at the transaction and immediately said "it's fake - we'll have you refunded in the next 15 minutes" and they did and that's that.

They'd had a rash at the time that someone figured out how to get past the UPS tracking system and falsify records (as in, the key was that UPS was hacked along with the normal scam) so that when you checked tracking on ups, your item showed up as being on the way and then being delivered.

The site that I used gave a physical address, too, phone, etc. But it was still fake.

 

[RichardG]

Definately a fake site, I don’t believe Axminster sells through third parties.

 

[Lard]

It looks much like the ‘normal’ Chinese mass selling sites to me. It also shows the PayPal logo at the bottom too which, should you decide to buy, would be how I would choose to pay.

I'm also wondering the name somewhat gives it away as another Chinese copy site ie Cfit…….counter-fit??

 

[RichardG]

For info I reported it to Axminster, they confirmed it shouldn’t be selling its products so they’re either stolen, fake or none existent. They’ll be reporting / taking action.

 

[D_W]

For info I reported it to Axminster, they confirmed it shouldn’t be selling its products so they’re either stolen, fake or none existent. They’ll be reporting / taking action.

Non existent 99.9% of the time. It's an exploitation of some kind with payment services and tracking shipped goods, but nothing comes to you, either way.

PayPal is the way to go if you're going to chance it, though, and credit card backed within PayPal, not bank / cash backed.

 

[Sauter Shop]

Any company selling through the internet based in Europe is required by law to give addresses, directors / owners names, some company details like Registration or VAT numbers etc. Also serious companies based futher afield will normally have these details on their site.
If you can't find any company details on a website...STEER CLEAR!! 99% of deals that are "too good to be true" are! Be warned

 

[D_W]

Any company selling through the internet based in Europe is required by law to give addresses, directors / owners names, some company details like Registration or VAT numbers etc. Also serious companies based futher afield will normally have these details on their site.
If you can't find any company details on a website...STEER CLEAR!! 99% of deals that are "too good to be true" are! Be warned

A step further than this - the company who got me on the koch sharpener (i'm still stunned that someone would pick something so obscure unless they were just ripping off item listings from woodcraft in the US) had an address, phone number, etc, all of it.

it's worth looking on google earth to see what the address shows.

The other give away is that the sites often don't have a well-formed index. Any permanent site will take you to a listing through a google link, but you should also be able to go back to the initial site home page and work through an index and find your item (and it shouldn't be absurd to do it, but relatively clear). the site that "got" me (in the end, I wasn't out anything, but I thought their use of paypal, statement of an address, and not that great price break on something that was losing distribution in the US was good enough to buy - or to be clear, sometimes, sites like that get the last of a distributor's stock and slowly sell it off vs. the $700 phone for $150 that's never believable at any point. My ripoff artist was so greedy that they were asking something like $350 "clearance" price on something that was already $440 at woodcraft).

When I later went back and checked the address, it showed a shipping point, but there was no evidence of the business at the shipping point. If someone is distributing from a corporate center in the US (where they only lease part of a business), there's usually a sign with the distribution businesses located in the building, if not a sign of the businesses on the buildings. This test has saved me more than once.

 

[danst96]

thats the contact on their site, think it gives it away. Sounds very China.

 

[Bodger7]

I contacted my credit card company, Nationwide Bank, and provided details of the trading company and their "bank" and offered to forward to them a copy of the email from that bank confirming cancellation of my intended order. Much to my surprise they weren't the slightest bit interested and claimed to have no resources for checking whether this was a scam or not. I had expected some advice but none was forthcoming. When I looked at the web site again I noticed that, as far as I could see, there were no details for the Axminster chuck package. For example there was no spindle thread size given and no written details of the package contents. As a matter of interest I was not interested in the chuck package and only cited that as an example of their prices. I believe that my original suspicions are now confirmed. I will give them a wide berth.
Thank you for all your comments and suggestions.

 

[D_W]

It's too high in volume. They can't bother with individual sites unless one of them strikes a whole bunch of customer, and they really have no authority or reach overseas.