A deal too good to be true?

This article was written by an NCT member in Southampton detailing a story about a scam that he and his wife were subjected to whilst buying baby kit called, 'A deal too good to be true'.

Like many first time parents, my wife and I took an early decision that we would shop around in the used and second hand market for many of the essentials for our baby. Brand new items can cost many hundreds of pounds and with some careful looking around on online auction sites, free-ads and also at NCT nearly new sales items can be bought in excellent condition for half or less than the shop bought prices. As we prepared for our new arrival we managed to save hundreds of pounds on key items such as prams, breast feeding chairs and clothes most of which showed very little if any sign of use. We supplemented our purchases with the brand new essentials such as mattresses, bedding and feeding equipment.

All seemed well and we were very happy with our purchases and the savings until we had an unfortunate experience whilst trying to buy a bedside crib. We spotted an advert for the crib we wanted at a price close to a third of the retail price and in excellent condition. We immediately communicated with the vendor, (who seemed a pleasant and helpful lady) by email and text message to arrange to purchase and pick it up.

It was arranged that the crib would be delivered by a well know courier and that we would need to arrange payment direct to them. The courier would deliver the crib for our inspection at which stage if we were happy they would arrange for our money to be sent to the vendor. In order to send the money to the courier we were advised to purchase a UKASH voucher, available in many shops and convenience stores for the agreed amount and asked to send the voucher code to the courier. Although a little suspicious, because we had purchased the voucher from a reputable chain of convenience stores and believed we were dealing with a “well known courier” we went ahead with the transaction and sent the voucher code off by email as directed.

A day passed after the expected delivery date and no courier ever called and no parcel arrived. We became suspicious and looked up UKASH vouchers on the internet. To our horror there were endless articles on money saving websites and forums warning that the same thing happening many times over to unsuspecting victims after responding free-ads and online sales forums. It quickly dawned on us that we had been conned. The courier and vendor were in fact the same person or persons unknown and our money was gone.

I contacted the Police, the free-ad website and others to detail our experience and sadly it is a well know type of fraud, having even appeared on TV’s Watchdog. The Police advised that the mobile numbers and email addresses were untraceable and that the perpetrators were more than likely overseas spending our hard earned baby fund.

My wife (who is 37 weeks pregnant at the time of writing) was devastated that we had lost the money and that someone could deliberately target pregnant mothers or expectant parents in such a cruel and calculating manner. All we can do is put it down to a life lesson hard learned and to draw attention to our experience so that others can try to avoid falling into the same trap.

The message here is simple, if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is… and if you are looking at buying used and nearly new items make sure to buy and pay for items face-to-face when you have actually seen what you are buying. There are great deals and savings to be made, but buyer beware and please don’t join us as just another UK crime statistic.

We have now managed to buy a crib, we are delighted with it and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby boy in 3-4 weeks time.

Remember, if you're looking for baby bargains, a great place to go is our local NCT Nearly New Sale. These take place twice a year. For details of our sales, see our events page http://elynct.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Events

 

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