Is bigwinterdeal.com legit or a scam?

Question

Their prices are too low to be believed and they have a $500 minimum order limit. They are supposed to have the ever elusive Playstation3 in stock.

Answer 1

BEWARE. It's a scam. I came across them this morning - they have an iPod nano for $80, which is too good to be true. I did a "Who Is" lookup on them and discovered that the website was registered on Dec 1, 2006 - just 4 days ago. It's registered to Winter Sale, Inc.
Michael Connelly
203 N Washington St
Los Angeles
CA,90428
US. Tel. [phone]
[e-mail]

So all the stuff on "Site news" dating back to August is obviously fake. The other thing I looked into was "EICA-FRAUD" certificates posted on the site. EICA is supposed to be a European Internet Security organization, but the three EICA-FRAUD URLs I found have all been registered within the last two months and are registered to people in Maryland, Virginia and Florida. If you do a Google search on EICA FRAUD you will come up with a few hits relating to a previous scam they've been involved in - www.discounts-webstore.com. So the whole EICA-FRAUD thing is obviously part of the scam as well.

BEWARE!!!!

Answer 2

I saw the site too, and was looking to see if it was a scam.

I called and left a message, to have them never return it.

I did write them an e-mail, and I got a response. This was the communication:

I wrote: How does this work? Is their a minimum I have to order? How are your prices so low? How can I pay? Thank you.

They wrote: "We manage to offer our customers these low prices only by using Western Union Money Transfer Service® (to avoid taxes) as payment method and the minimum order policy. We cannot process orders with a value less than US $500 because we have too many international orders and it is easier for us to process less orders with higher values. We are sorry for this inconvenience."
Thank you for your interest in our products!

Best Regards,

Lawrence Roberson
Customer Service Department
Big Winter Deal, Inc.
phone: [phone]
fax: [phone]
http://www.bigwinterdeal.com

All I have to say is that thank god they had a minimum of $500 because I would have chanced $80 on the Nano. I planned to order that and then if it was legit, order a lot. What a bunch of scammers (and idiots!. They almost had me on the $80)!

Answer 3

I came across this website while browsing for desktops, and was quite surprised that any place had any PS3 (US version) in stock. Did not notice the Western Union payment method (since I was still not convinced enough to buy anything yet). Was impressed by their prices ($120 PSPs, etc). Anyway, I wonder if anyone has tried calling the toll-free number, just to give the criminals a hard time, you know, pretending to be a very earnest buyer who of course has never heard of Western Union. It's probably not a bona fide number. The WHOIS info posted on Craiglist was brilliant. Tells us all we need to know. I sent them an email and received the follwing reply:

From "Lawrence Roberson" who seems to be the only other employee there besides "Maria"

Message

Subject: Product version
Body: Is the PS3 60GB unit the US version or Japan version?

Hello,

The PS3 60GB in stock at this time is US version.

Thank you for your interest in our products!

Best Regards,

Lawrence Roberson
Customer Service Department
Big Winter Deal, Inc.
phone: [phone]
fax: [phone]
http://www.bigwinterdeal.com

Answer 4

If you got this far and still don't believe they aren't fake... thats pretty bad. I've done business with ABT before and even checked with the guy I usually buy from there. He's verifying that these guys are not associated with ABT in any way, and you can even see they even lifted part of ABT's site among other ill advised things. No company should ever require you to pay only with money order only, let alone pay by western union to an overseas address. If they wanted to avoid charging you tax, they could locate in a state that you do not live in and not charge tax to you.
And the other big one, yeah, if they have the PS3 in stock, gotta be fake. They had the VP for Sony North America in ABT on the release date, and I couldn't even get one. Gaming stores that have consistantly given good business to Sony got more and easily sold out, so stick with the companies with reviews on www.bizrate.com, www.resellerratings.com and the like.
Just because it is posting online doesn't mean that the company is legit. There are plenty of companies we see online running multiple websites out of the same address, lying about their credentials. Some manufacturers are a little more strict on who and what is said about their brand than others, so its only a matter of time before they are pursued with legal action for misrepresenting good lines or products. Do your due diligence and you can feel safe about your purchase and if the price is too good to be true, check with the BBB and or the manufacturer, it may be too good... By the way, the guy who mentioned that bigwinterdeals lifted other companies' site info on here is right... check the link below and then check www.bigwinterdeals.com.... they even cut and pasted the exact thing off ABT's site and left in ABT's name.

Answer 5

My opinion it's a scam. Not only because their email form for questions doesn't work, but also due to the following which can be found under the about us section:

- "BigWinterDeal.com was established in Europe to serve the needs of computer users, and today we are one of the industry's top computer and computer-product retailers...//..'Knowing what you sell is just the beginning. Sure, we can answer any question you may have about any item in our catalog but our goal is to make every customer feel at home. To be helpful and courteous. I've been working at BigWinterDeal.com for six years and I love it. I've met some great people. I have customers who call just me to say hello." Daniel Smith, Sr. Sales Agent.' "

How come Mr Smith been with the company for 6 years, when no one has ever heard of the before this posting. Furthermore, I have lived in central Europe for the last 20 years, and I have never even seen the brand before. Interesting and neutral name Mr Smith has...why not chose something more unique like Mr Doe next time. At least that would be funny!

Someone should report them to the District Attorney's office.

Answer 6

Yeah I was on their site today looking at a nice Canon Rebel XTi they had for sale at $500, which is $300-$400 cheaper than anywhere else. I was doing a mock ordering to see what final shipped pricing would be and before I knew it, it told me my order had been placed and to send western union payment to an accounted based in Italy (for tax purposes of course) lmao instantly at that point I knew it was a scam, did a search and found many of the same results you guys have. lol that is apauling serriously.

Answer 7

Wow...Maria...

You must have placed the first order on Friday, December 1st (because that's when the site was registered) Had it shipped 2 day express or over night so that it would arrive on Tuesday the 5th (when you posted).

It's also interesting that this is your ONLY POST on here.

Sounds like Maria is the Author of the scam trying to do a bit of Damage control here.

I hope no one falls for your stupid scam.

Answer 8

I'd have to go with scam. On their "About Us" page they list themselves as authorized resellers of Sony and Toshiba, among others. I checked out both Sony and Toshiba's reseller lists and BigWinterDeal was nowhere to be found. So, I took a closer look at the About Us page. Above the reseller images was a paragraph starting off with "Abt is authorized to sell most of the top brands...." Looks like they took the majority of copy for this page from the Abt Electronics site http://www.abtelectronics.com/about/authorized_dealer/authorized_dealer.php3
Then there's the fact that their IP is in Malaysia http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/rnr/244029567.html. While I haven't been able to find anything definitive, like a specific complaint, I'd say avoid them (thought $980 for a Westinghouse LVM-42W2 is VERY tempting.. ;)).


EDIT: Just a follow up to Mountain Man's post, I tried to see if more of their content was swiped, so I googled a phrase from the About Us page: "was established in Europe to serve the needs of computer users, and today we are one of the industry's top computer and computer-product retailers". The only result: www.discounts-webstore.com. I'd say that clinches it.

Answer 9

Before I drop $25M on 100,000 of these very nice 20" Samsung LCD monitors, I wonder if this is a scam or not. I can't believe they have 100,000 of these monitors in stock! And free shipping! I'm in luck!

http://vision.bc.edu/~dmartin/tmp/bigwinterdeal.jpg

I'm not sure if my video card (or Boston's power grid) can drive so many monitors at the same time, but I'll figure that out when they arrive.

Answer 10

Also, if you go to the FAQ page, some (perhaps all) of the links don't work. They redirect to a defunct scam site...

How did this apparently fraudulent site end up in legit places, like on PriceGrabber.com???

And who is Maria???