- Browse Businesses
- Guides
- Consumer Tips
- Write a Review
- For Business
- Request a Review
- Backed by the National Science Foundation
- Sign up
- Log in
Is this your business?
Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.
Claim Your Business
I responded by e-mail to a Craigslist post in San Diego in December 2010 for a wooden Gorilla swingset. I received an e-mail reply to my inquiry redirecting me to the online store for elmamall.com which uses a voucher for free Platinum Home Delivery on purchases over $500. The website looks legitimate, complete with e-mail and telephone information, the Visa, Mastercard and Paypal logos, etc. Before placing an order you must register with them and they give an option to subscribe to their newsletter during this process. Not until after the order has been entered do they instruct buyers to make a Green Dot Money Pack payment because of the high cost of Paypal chargebacks. I feel like an idiot falling for this, particularly since there was a similar set available through a local contact, but my husband and I preferred the layout of the one offered by elmamall.com. Everything about the website looks legitimate upfront and the company initially gives frequent status updates, but then there is no response to inquiries and their phone number says it is temporarily disabled. While elmamall.com claims to have its warehouse in Richboro, PA the phone number is supposedly a landline registered to Bethlehem, PA and I subsequently saw a Yahoo post claiming their website is registered to someone in the Bahamas. I did my research prior to purchasing but couldn't find anything either negative or postive about elmamall.com - now I'm out the money for the one thing my 6 year old really wanted from Santa, cannot afford a replacement, had to explain to my daughter who had a one-time opportunity to dance in the Disneyland holiday parade that she could participate but as a sacrifice to make the swingset happen for Christmas we would not be able to buy Disneyland tickets for the family to watch her dance (this would also have been my 6 year old's first trip to Disneyland and he was looking forward to it until we found a bogus excuse to explain why we couldn't go without ruining his "Christmas surprise"... of course he was angry and upset that we weren't going), and on top of it all I now have a dental emergency to find a way to pay for. What a bunch of scum-suckers... although it's wrong to defraud the public it seems like an even more heinous crime when it crushes a child's heart, especially during the holidays. Plus it makes us feel like jerks as parents being left to hold the bag and explaining to our kids why no Disneyland, why fewer Christmas presents, why mom's broken tooth isn't getting fixed, etc. And it's one thing for mom and dad to fall short of their expectations, but what about a little one who still believes in Santa... would Santa really go out of his way to let him down like this? You can look up their purported listing at http://elmamall.com/product.php?id_product=162
I responded by e-mail to a Craigslist post in San Diego in December 2010 for a wooden Gorilla swingset. I received an e-mail reply to my inquiry redirecting me to the online store for elmamall.com which uses a voucher for free Platinum Home Delivery on purchases over $500. The website looks legitimate, complete with e-mail and telephone information, the Visa, Mastercard and Paypal logos, etc. Before placing an order you must register with them and they give an option to subscribe to their newsletter during this process. Not until after the order has been entered do they instruct buyers to make a Green Dot Money Pack payment because of the high cost of Paypal chargebacks. I feel like an idiot falling for this, particularly since there was a similar set available through a local contact, but my husband and I preferred the layout of the one offered by elmamall.com. Everything about the website looks legitimate upfront and the company initially gives frequent status updates, but then there is no response to inquiries and their phone number says it is temporarily disabled. While elmamall.com claims to have its warehouse in Richboro, PA the phone number is supposedly a landline registered to Bethlehem, PA and I subsequently saw a Yahoo post claiming their website is registered to someone in the Bahamas. I did my research prior to purchasing but couldn't find anything either negative or postive about elmamall.com - now I'm out the money for the one thing my 6 year old really wanted from Santa, cannot afford a replacement, had to explain to my daughter who had a one-time opportunity to dance in the Disneyland holiday parade that she could participate but as a sacrifice to make the swingset happen for Christmas we would not be able to buy Disneyland tickets for the family to watch her dance (this would also have been my 6 year old's first trip to Disneyland and he was looking forward to it until we found a bogus excuse to explain why we couldn't go without ruining his "Christmas surprise"... of course he was angry and upset that we weren't going), and on top of it all I now have a dental emergency to find a way to pay for. What a bunch of scum-suckers... although it's wrong to defraud the public it seems like an even more heinous crime when it crushes a child's heart, especially during the holidays. Plus it makes us feel like jerks as parents being left to hold the bag and explaining to our kids why no Disneyland, why fewer Christmas presents, why mom's broken tooth isn't getting fixed, etc. And it's one thing for mom and dad to fall short of their expectations, but what about a little one who still believes in Santa... would Santa really go out of his way to let him down like this? You can look up their purported listing at http://elmamall.com/product.php?id_product=162
I was researching outdoor play sets through a variety of websites and thought I would try Craigslist. After responding to an add for a ridiculously cheap Gorilla brand (a highly rated national brand of play set), I received a quick response from the anonymous address that directed me to www.elmamall.com. Looking at the prices of the play sets and they were incredible.
I read the website's claims that they were liquidators and bought over-stocks and closeouts which allowed them to offer such pricing. There was an available phone number for customer service, various email addresses for customer service inquiries and a location and zip code for local pickup. There were some questions I had (and also some suspicions), so I called the customer service number to get a feel for the business before I spent my money. There were some red flags that were not blazing problems, but did raise some doubts:
1. None of my emails to the "service department" were answered.
2. An email to an email address that would supply an address for local pickup was returned as a dead address.
3. There is no physical address listed for the company.
4. None of my phone calls were answered, just sent to various voice mails and were never responded to, even though I was an interested customer looking to make a purchase.
5. Your options for payment were PayPal's GreenDot Money Pak or credit card. GreenDot is the equivalent of a Western Union, in which you would have no recourse to recoup any losses due to fraud and if you were going to pay by credit card, they required you to supply a copy of a utility bill for your residence so that they could "combat fraudulent purchases". What retailer has ever asked for a copy of a utility bill?
6. The play set we were interested in buying normally listed at approx $1800. 00 at various outlets, however they had the set on a "Holiday Special" for $600.00. But wait, there's more! With any purchase over $500.00, they would include their "Platinum Delivery Package" that included free shipping and installation, a $250.00 value. Doing the math, that means that I would have received a play set that normally costs $1800. 00 for $600, and they would ship the product from PA to FL for free and install it. A $600 swing set less the $250.00 shipping installation service means that they would be basically selling this set for $350.00. So in order for this site to make any money on my purchase, they would have bought this set on liquidation for less than say 250.00, in order to make $100.00 bucks off my purchase. There is NO WAY this could happen.
Digging further, the website of this "Established Retailer" was created in November 2010 with a Bahamian contact address and phone number based on the info below:
Domain elmamall.com
Date Registered: 2010-11-17
Date Modified: 2010-11-17... Expiry Date: 2011-11-17
DNS1: ns1.web-leader.net
DNS2: ns2.web-leader.net
DNS3: ns3.web-leader.net
Registrant
Technical Contact
Private Whois Service *******@qc8iazv4cbecce2a1df1.privatewhois.net
*******PLEASE DO NOT SEND LETTERS******
****Contact the owner by email only****
C/o elmamall.com
N4892 Nassau
Bahamas
Tel: *******0004
As this site sells deep discounted exercise equipment and furniture, I'm sure there will be quite a few people that will get burned by this obviously fraudulent business.
Gain trust and grow your business with customer reviews.
Is this your business?
Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.
