Mike R.

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.