[AOS]

I am just posting this up to maintain awareness (and to increase searchability on Google).

Don't buy from DiecastEnvy.com. Their page is not updated; the items you see do not reflect on its actual stock status. And despite there being a Contact Us page, there is no contact information.[/b]

I wasn't able to find much the legitimacy of this website on this forum aside from maybe one or two posts stating so, but I wanted to just reiterate other's stories on DiecastEnvy.com

The site is ran by Exoto's team... the payment recipient is an Exoto email address.... [email protected] to be exact. Just posting that email here so that it can at least be searchable on google for future researchers.

I had suspicions about the site prior to committing all the way, but my greed got the best of me and I went ahead and gave this guy my money.

__________________

The bait about diecastenvy.com is that there are some uncommon and discontinued items for very good prices, almost too good to be true.

Virtually everything in the store is "in stock".... but for all we know, the owner isn't updating their pages. There's even a FAQ stating that if things are indeed Sold Out, it will state so. I question that.

I placed an order on an Autoart that I cannot find on eBay (.ca, com, ie, co.uk, etc), modelissimo, CK-modelcars, Yahoo Auctions Japan, Global Rakuten, nicecardiecast, AmiAmi, Kijiji, nor 10 other lesser-known websites in a google search. Usually if I cannot find something on eBay, it's probably long sold out.
Here I found this one item for a price that it would've sold for during its released days; regular prices; nothing inflated on the second market. Sounds too good to be true, but I picked up on the habit of you people and banked on having Paypal back my ass up in case things don't go so well. No biggie I've heard and read about your Exoto stories with the dude and his questionable business practices.
I don't want to give you the impression I've been at it for months. It's only been 4 days since I hit that Buy button, but I already found the same items in another place; already ordered and being shipped at this moment.

Because there's no official contact email or phone number, I've sent a message to the email address my paypal funds were sent to, basically asking for a refund in 3 days. This is where the story will begin for now. I've also tried my hand at reporting it on Paypal, but I will disclose that info later after I hear back from them.

So yeah, this post was really just to announce not to buy from diecastenvy.com (tempting prices, but the website is a sketchy place), and to mark the beginning of a story; hopefully a very short and uneventful one.

_______________________________________________
April 19 update:

Lesson(s) to take away:
Before purchasing from a store you've never shopped from:
-Check webstores for contact info.
-Check for a year of when it was last updated
-If at any point you find yourself questioning the legitimacy of a product, contact the seller for information first.

And if you're filing a dispute, assume you only get one chance, so make it count.

_______________________________________________
April 26 Update:

Paypal reps don't do their best to really understand your issue.
If the automated bot you speak to on the phone doesn't get you to where you need to be, say "Agent" at each voice command until you're put in a queue. Took this from a moderator on Paypal's community forum.

Full story procedure of dealing with Paypal here.

 

[wonderdiecast]

Their FAQ section is interesting

Q. We just incorporate paypal website payment standard for more secure credit card payment for you. How to pay?
A: Credit card payers, first, please have your card present, to make sure correct card information is entered corrected. Select the following option during checkout. And then you will need to select "Don't have a PayPal account?" option in order to check out with your credit card. Finally you will be presented with secured credit card acceptance page that is familiar to you

Q. Pending, unconfirmed or unverified payment status?
A: If your very first order is unconfirmed or unverified, it may be held for up to 1 to 2 weeks for security reason. In order to avoid the delay and assist our effort of combating Card-Not-Present internet fraud, we need two forms of documents from you to prove you are the real credit card owner. 1. a photo of your credit card that you use for payment with blacking out the middle 8 digits.

Q. why was my credit card not working or declined?
A: Please make sure that you enter your credit information correctly. Sometimes if you have a different shipping address than billing address, your issuing bank or PayPal might not like it. For error 15004, PayPal claims that "The transaction was declined because the CVV entered does not match the credit card." For error 15005, PayPal claims that "The transaction was declined by the issuing bank, not PayPal. The merchant should attempt another card."

Yup, the site looks a bit on the sketchy side

 

[Uzair]

Thanks AOS for the warning. You are right, diecastenvy has always seemed sketchy, especially with the availability of Exoto models sold out everywhere else. Good luck with your PayPal case and I hope to hear back a happy ending on it.

 

[Dave7872]

Good luck with your situation mate, Either way, I hope you get a refund or a nice model.

But thanks for the warning.

 

[StratosWRC]

well I certainly don't umm... envy... your situation lol

 

[AOS]

Paypal got back to me on my weak attempt at playing off the purchase as an unauthorized purchase, that someone jumped on my computer when I had stepped away. I don't know what tools they use to determine such a thing, but that didn't go through. Heh.

If anyone knows how to reach out to this guy, please hook me up with an email address so I can continually nag him for a response. Paypal allows a dispute 180 days after purchase (fffffuuuu) to contact the seller directly, and a claim if the dispute goes under. That's currently my last thing I will try, but I'll be nagging Paypal as well to inform them of the situation.

 

[Dave7872]

So you have paid with PayPal? You of course now have to play the waiting game, If the seller fails to post and it doesn't arrive by the sellers stated ETA, Then you can of course open a dispute.

 

[Craig]

I hope you get refunded soon.

In cases like this, with non updated websites, it's always best to contact them first. I know you said there was no info, so it's better to be cautious and not buy there.
One example from me, years ago I found a BMW place online selling a lot of hard to get E30 M3 race cars I was looking for, for the normal prices. I thought Christmas had come early! I called them when they opened, only to be told they sold out years ago.

 

[BaseGTR]

FYI - They do have a contact email. It's [email protected] but it's under the 'FAQ' page rather than 'contact us' page as that would make too much sense.
When I was looking for the white RX-7, they had them in stock so I emailed them to confirm if it was, actually, in stock and guess what?

It wasn't.

 

[AOS]

So you have paid with PayPal? You of course now have to play the waiting game, If the seller fails to post and it doesn't arrive by the sellers stated ETA, Then you can of course open a dispute.

On one end, there's the idea that we can only open a dispute AFTER 180 days, whereas there's another interpretation stating that you need to open a dispute BEFORE 180 days.

Right now, Paypal has no direct line to call to speak with someone. The phone number takes you to a bot that directs you to the Resolution Center, where I am currently stuck because the page just keeps insisting "there's an error opening up a dispute on this page. Please try again."
I imagine this is only the case because I had previously opened a dispute which got denied. I think this is where I may have screwed myself the hardest.

I've tried filing a dispute by phone and the bot has denied me of going any further because I already tried to dispute this. I was really hoping there would be such a thing where you can open a second dispute with Paypal on one transaction, but I guess they don't care enough if they denied you the first time.

As of right meow, it looks like I may have to absorb this, as I was too stupid to verify if there was any way to contact the seller.

Lesson(s) to take away:
Before purchasing from a store you've never shopped from:
-Check webstores for contact info.
-Check for a year of when it was last updated
-If at any point you find yourself questioning the legitimacy of a product, contact the seller for information first.

And if you're filing a dispute, assume you only get one chance, so make it count.

 

[juju396]

I don't think it's time to give up hope and "absorb" anything yet. Did you pay PayPal with your creditcard? If yes, file a dispute with them claiming the item purchased was non delivered. A couple of months ago, I had a seller ship a 1/12 model very poorly causing damage to it and PayPal was dragging their feet saying I have to pay the high cost of return shipment back to China. In my mind, that wasnt gonna happen - as the cost of the shipping was about half the model's value. So I filed a dispute with amex and voila, complete refund. My cc told the seller if they wanted the item back, to either provide a prepaid shipping label or forward me the funds so that I can return it. Seller ignored them and that was that.

PS: my interpretation of PayPal buyer guarantee is you can file a dispute anytime within 180 days from date of purchase

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-safety-and-security

"... a dispute be filed within 180 days of your purchase or payment."

PayPal Customer Service
1-888-221-1161

1-402-935-2050 (if calling from outside the U.S.)
Customer service hours
Mon-Fri 5:00 AM to 10:00 PM PT
Sat-Sun 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM PT

 

[AOS]

PayPal Customer Service
1-888-221-1161

This is a bot speaking, and I have not figured out a way to get past the part where they either direct you to the Resolution Center, or simply tell me I cannot file a dispute as there is one that is open (which is actually closed now).

I don't think it's time to give up hope and "absorb" anything yet. Did you pay PayPal with your creditcard? If yes, file a dispute with them claiming the item purchased was non delivered. A couple of months ago, I had a seller ship a 1/12 model very poorly causing damage to it and PayPal was dragging their feet saying I have to pay the high cost of return shipment back to China. In my mind, that wasnt gonna happen - as the cost of the shipping was about half the model's value. So I filed a dispute with amex and voila, complete refund. My cc told the seller if they wanted the item back, to either provide a prepaid shipping label or forward me the funds so that I can return it. Seller ignored them and that was that.

Talking with VISA would be a good step I suppose.

Editing this in for consistency sake of responding to the post above: I did send an email to [email protected] as well. Zero response as well.

 

[AOS]

This will be a valuable lesson if anyone gets stuck in a situation where they can't get where they need to be when talking to the bot at Paypal.

Okay. Didn't talk to VISA yet. It seems like replying to one of those Automated emails of pointing users where to go paid off. They probably get a flood of emails and are doing their darn best to automate and triage to FAQs and stuff. I've sent them two separate emails under the category of disputes.

They give you the same auto-response with a general subject line such as "How do I go about filing a dispute?", even though I stated I'm past that stage.

The second time this happened, I replied to the message asking how I can speak to a representative. Got a response from a real person, but the body is the same:
Click on Contact Us, click on Call Us, call that number you see... the place with the bot, use this one-time code, and go for a 3rd round of doing the same thing!

Bloody useless support reps. Here's the trick a moderator in the Paypal Community Forum told me. When the bot waits for your voice command, say "Agent".

It's going to acknowledge you want to speak to someone, but will ask what the call is generally about: payment, dispute, etc.. The moment you respond to this, you're back in the bot's flowchart of responses, and you're now no longer on track to speaking to an agent. So at this point, it's back to where I was a few days ago. The bot tells me nothing can be done at this point....

Screw it, I say "agent" one more time. Now it puts me in the queue to speak to a real person. Yes. I'm halfway to getting my voice heard.

Nothing particular outstanding happens with my conversation with the agent. There's obviously the mandatory stuff:
-Name
-Purpose of call
-verify the ID of the transaction.
-Agent reiterating what's on the case already.

I don't spare him the opportunity to carry the conversation off like the bot did. There's no point trying to come out with something that sounds nice to get him to listen, so he hears the real reason why I'm filing the dispute. Despite mentioning that the seller may be known to not respond to messages and not ship either, the dispute got rewritten as Item Not Received. Well, that is technically true, but f-word it's pretty clear I'm not getting anything period.

He hears me out, acknowledging the reasoning I give him. Things seem to be going in a good direction...and then he probably gave me his cookie-cutter explanation of what happens from here on forth. I'm hoping any of you who have dealt with Paypal for disputes can verify if this procedure deviates from yours.

-In the next 24-48 hours, we'll send you an email detailing the escalation along with the case number in the subject line. (email already received during the time of this post)
-They contact the seller to push for the item to be shipped (or in my case, refunded). If no word is heard in 10 days, they will automatically pull the money from seller's paypal fundings. (checking the claim, May 6 is the due date seller has to respond by, way more than 10 days)
-Got a reference number in case this guy is full of baloney in his words.

We'll see what happens from there.

Edit: 9:50pm UTC -4:00

I'm checking webstore again. Looks like after Paypal spoke up, some action has taken place today. I captured this screenshot before I spoke to Paypal:

See how it said reversed, and not even in the correct amount either? That might've happened after I emailed [email protected] the first time that I no longer wanted the item. Not even a reply to that email. FFS. Oh And nothing refunded showing up in my Paypal summary despite that.

This is what I see now (note the time):

Reversed again. Guess that doesn't really mean anything. Refund though?

Checking Paypal now, the refund from Exoto Tifosing has been issued in full. I can sleep easier now. Jackass responded real quick after Paypal steps in. Not a single word from customers directly though. Hope he breaks his pelvis.

 

[mcaf123]

I was going to say that if you ever have trouble being stuck in a loop on an IVR, just keep saying "advisor" until you speak to a real person. I spent my placement year in university designing and building a system for a multinational and picked up a few tricks I use all the time

 

[slartibartfast229]

There must be an internet host for this site.
It might help to make a complaint to them.
We know that web hosts do have certain responsibilities related to the sites they facilitate.