Briefly, I purchased a "Vornado Heater" for $87.92 from "homebrands.com".
On October 19, $87.92 was deducted from my PayPal account by a "Metro Market Sales".
On October 31, I received a UPS notification that a "Gary Benson" entered a shipping bill for an 8 lb. Item.
As of November 11, the item has not shipped yet, as the UPS tracking indicates.
I have previously emailed the customer service address for an explanation of the long wait, as well as requesting a refund.
I have not had any response whatsoever from "homebrands.com", and I'm currently in dispute with PayPal to get a refund.
I check the Better Business Bureau online. Well, it seems "homebrands.com" also does business as: dotcom project, giant savings, homebrands.com, ikitchen.com, kitchenhomegadgets.com, hcg logistics, metromarket.com, and many more, according to the BBB listing, along with their warning not to do business with them.
Visiting "metromarket.com", one finds a similar merchant website, and when clicking "about us", one finds a photoshopped "Metro Market Stores" storefront supposedly at the same Avenue U address with a "Please visit our store when in the neighborhood". Yeah, sure.
Upon furthur investigating online, it appears that there are HUNDREDS of complaints against this company by other customers getting charged for their purchases, and not receiving their items, not only from "homebrands.com", but "ikitchen.com" and other related webstores.
So, one can see this company does a fine job of presenting themselves as legitimate online, but in reality, they are accepting lots of orders, but not shipping product, hence, a fraud.
I'd like to make sure others don't get taken by this now-obvious scam.
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