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.
