ConsoleFever is a SCAM.

Console Fever - Fraud. Warning!

Description:

The way they this scam work is that these scammers set up a store on a new domain. Domain costs today have dramatically fallen and are as low as $7 US for one year of dot.com registration. The second step is they create an affiliate program and lure unsuspecting webmasters into their net by offering promotional items or free stuff for holding competitions and so on. In fact they do send some items out and so they get legitimate websites linking to their site. (Gameboy Power got fooled this way).

Now they do have a small stock of items to sell and new customers coming to their site every day. At firs to get positive feedback and to grow some uses confidence they work for 3-6 month as a normal business avoiding any suspicion.

The SCAM starts:

They run out of stock but do not show this on their website. Customers start complaining because ConsoleFever (or another one of their stores) is still taking orders and billing customer Credit Cards but isn't shipping any of the sold items. Your normal e-mails will be ignored. If you start threatening that you will contact your bank to reverse the charge on you credit card - the usual auto replies are:

• We were mowing servers and there was a problem with the database.
• During the server change over, we had a lot of email come in that we could not reply to. We are working hard to reply to all email.
• Due to the recent server change, we have lost a very large number of emails. We apologize if your email was not replied to previously. It most certainly was as a result of *not* receiving your email.
• Because of the server change and having to ensure everything was 100% up and running, we have also had a large number of email messages which we have received and we are working very hard to reply to them in a reasonable amount of time. Because of this we are having to catch up on our email and our regular response times of 24 hours or less are not possible.
• ...some other lame excuse for not replying and not sending the items on time.
  (if you would check the IP address of the srver you will see that it was not moved for the last 12 month)

As you understand this can not go on for too long and if the user keeps on mailing they usually send the next lie, that buys them some more time:

• We have already sent out you ordered - wait for 3 weeks. We stated on out TOS that shipping can take even longer.
• your package was returned / rejected -  maybe you were not home when it arrived.
• We received defective stock from the factory, which resulted in a slight delay (about 12 days until replacements came in).
• A large volume of orders had to be caught up on due to this bad batch of units, therefore we have been working as hard as possible, each and every day, trying to make sure we can get all of the goods out to all customers.  We did send an email out to all customers who were affected by this, I apologize if for some reason you did not receive it.
• ...some other excuse that you have no way of checking if it is true.

Final step in the fraud comes when too many old customers are unsatisfied and they can no longer sell the normal products. Now they start taking order on stuff they do not have. They choose some new "hot" product and add it to their store - tell you they have it in stock and ready to ship, but after you enter your Credit Card details they have done their job - taken the money from your bank account and now they will start telling you that they just run out of stock or that the item will be shipped next week - just wait or even will show on their site that item was shipped to you - as you could guess you will never receive it.

An example of this can be seen with ConsoleFever.com selling Nintendo DS NeoFlash development kits. We have contacted the makers of NeoFlash and they confirmed that they have never received an order for these DS flash cards from ConsoFever.com and that this store is NOT a NeoFlash reseller.

ConsoleFever.com is not the only website of these scammers. We will try to find all of their fake stores and ward our readers.

Our Suggestion:

• If you have placed an order with ConsoleFever and they have not shipped it within 24 hours - cancel the order. If the item shows up as shipped on their site, but they have not provided you with any THIRD PARTY TRACKING information they are most likely trying to scam you.
• If your item is shipped but has not arrived for more than 2 weeks you can be sure they have faked the record on their site.
• If they have already billed your credit card - call your bank or credit card company to cancel and reverse this transaction.

DO NOT BUY FROM CONSOLEFEVER.COM

There are many other legitimate online retailers. If not sure - go to the ones that have good reputation. Trying to save a dollar by dealing with an unknown retailer could be dangerous. But there is no sane reason to buy from a store like ConsoleFever.com that has a long record of negative.

SEARCH the Google for another store that sells the same items and do a background check on them before you buy!

Don't just take our word for it - red feedback from other who have been scammed by ConsoleFever.com

Negative and neutral Console Fever feedback.

Please contact us if you have been scammed by ConsoleFever.
Include the following information:

- Item you ordered
- Date of purchase
- Correspondance or feedback from CF
- Name and email

If you have a website or a blog and would like to inform more people about ConsoleFevercom activities link to this page with the above CONSOLEFEVER EXPOSED banner or a text link.

http://www.gameboypower.com/consolefever.htm - "ConsoleFever - CSAM Warning"

GameboyPower Cybercrime Unit

The growth of the Internet has provided criminals with the ideal vehicle to perpetrate old frauds using new technology.

GBP Cybercrime Unit staff use their knowledge of fraudulent behaviour to identify new scams and issue warnings to members. The Unit also provides commerce with several essential services:

• Tracking and tracing bogus websites
• Alerting ISPs that their systems are being used for illegal purposes
• Alerting banks and businesses to the existence of copy-cat sites
• Identifying criminal interference in computer networks
• Providing advice on the security of information systems

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[ Feedback -- Link to the Buyers profile ]

No item rcvd. PayPal refunded part of my $$, then he filed on me!! Buy elsewhere -- Buyer   spencer_n_cen_cal

Never got item. Never got refund. Only got 1 answer WE RAN OUT. 98 avail at end! -- Buyer   macadoe1

Wrong color, item defective. Offer replacement with shipping Fees. Never again -- Buyer   lenrage

Tried e-mailing and calling, never got the info on how to use the NES player -- Buyer   mercurymp

Got them a week late, didn't work. maybe fakes. returned them. no response -- Buyer   major_jedi

Pessimo venditore, ho pagato e non ho visto un cavolo!!! Non comperate!!! -- Buyer   ivcarb