My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
Is this a LEGO scam site?
I’m a grandfather blessed with children and grandchildren. As with so many younger children nowadays, they’re mad about Lego, so what to get them for Christmas was therefore a nobrainer. Lego is a very good toy from a lot of perspectives but it’s also quite pricey, so it seemed only natural to look around the web to see if we could find it at some sort of discount, which is how we came across the site imagineeringweb.co.uk
Curiously, the site doesn’t work on my desktop browser, probably because my browser is armoured, but it certainly works on Android smart phones. At first glance, it looked to be a professionally put together site but it didn’t take long for it to raise an increasing number of red flags. It purports to sell branded toys and goods at a serious discount to the RRP in the shops. For instance, a Lego toy called “Lego city passenger train”, normally costing £150, is for sale reduced to £58. Speaking as someone with an amount of business experience, there’s simply no way anybody can sell branded goods at a near 60% discount to RRP and still make a profit.
On the basis of if it sounds too good to be true, then it most probably isn’t, I researched it for a few minutes. Scanning through it, I found a company name, but on checking it out at Companies House, it had ceased trading a while back. Not just a bad sign, but highly illegal. Most of the website content appears to have been copied from a defunct UK retailer. So much for cheap LEGO.
It also uses a payment system called “Stripe” which I’ve never see before, although there exists a company with the same name. Whether that’s actually the real stripe website on a mockup of it to steal customer’s payment details and then empty their account, I didn’t choose to click on it.
A quick response on my part was to email a few regulatory bodies and the tips hot line of some national newspapers, in the hope they’d both the manpower and time to investigate it further, but so far no response. They’re probably all busy doing their end of semester creative writing exams. In terms of effect, a deafening silence and inactivity all around sums it up.
The takeaways from the experience are if it’s too good to be true, it isn’t. Always visit the independent review site Trustpilot with any site new to you to see what its independent consumer reviews are like for the company. You can find there a suitably scathing review of imagineeringweb.
The image I can’t get out of my head is of some needy family buying a longed for present for a kid after a year of watching every penny, and Christmas arriving in lockdown without the toy and their hard earned money stolen. In the light of the disinterest on other fronts, I’d be obliged if you’d spread the link to this warning to all your friends who’ve young children and preventing a lot of heartbreak and a ruined Christmases.
©Pointman
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Legos, while pricey, are simply plastic. SO this may not relate.
But back in the 90s, I did as you are doing. I was looking for an HP LJ4, and found one at a place I no longer recall. I ordered it and got it (and it was the real deal). But then I decided to check the “Warranty”, and lo and behold, HP had a conniption fit. What I had bought was called Gray Market. What that is, HP ships and sells printers for a much lower price to poorer countries. They are supposed to stay there. But as you can see, they do not always do. Some enterprising Malaysian had bought some and figured it was cheaper to actually ship them to a broker elsewhere to sell to the 1st world countries at a reduced price (the price was about 25% less than any Legitimate one).
60% does seem to be a big discount, so I would avoid it like the plague. But the printer I bought was legal, (hence the gray part) and they did honor the warranty for the first year. But they were not happy it was happening.
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Big Tech fact checkers will be right on to this… Soon
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