live and learn

[teedoff]

Well, I wanted to post this if nothing else to show that we have to be careful buying gear online. I know we're not supposed to post sources, so I wont. Im happy to share privately the url if anyone is curious.

Mods, if this is against the rules, please delete or move.

I had been looking for another source....hopefully domestic...as my previous overseas source had vanished, They're back now though. I got a recommendation from some guys and found what I thought was the site. This site only accepted bitcoin as payment. I thought perhaps this was for new users, but I didnt have an aversion to paying with bitcoin as I had used this payment method in the past with my overseas source and never had a problem. Its anonymous and most sites, including this new domestic source offered a discount. 20% in the case of this new site.

So I placed a few items in my cart and checked out. The total came to 165 I think, with shipping which I think was 50 bucks. After discount it was around 135 or so. I then purchased the bitcoin through my wallet ive had set up for years.

This process too longer than it should have, so in the almost 2 weeks before I could finalize my purchase, I stumbled upon another site with a very similar name, same logo, and the sites were close to the same look.

I played around with this new site, checked out the prices compared to the original site I had been on. This new site was a bit higher on every product, and I noticed shipping was way higher. In fact for the same exact products, shipping was 100 bucks verses 50.

Long story short, I kinda felt like this new site was a sister site to the first one, and that it was more for overseas orders, where as the one I was purchasing from was domestic. So once my bitcoin finalized, I completed the transaction for the gear. I received an order confirmation email and everything looked legit.

The site said once orders were completed and payment was transferred, orders usually ship within a few business days. I would also receive an email with a delivery date estimate. This never happened. I waited a week and finally filled out there contact us form. Waited another few days....no response. I sent another one...same thing. No response. I ever replied to the original order confirmation email. Haven't heard the first thing from them.

I then emailed the other site and told basically asked them if they were affiliated with this site and explained what happened. They said they were not and any other site that was mimicking them was a fake and that I had been scammed.

Thankfully it was only 135 bucks. Not that big a deal, but pisses me off more than anything. Perhaps a good rule of thumb, at least for me in the future, is sending any potential source site an email or inquiry and see if they respond. Not full proof, but certainly counts for something.

[teedoff]

To be clear. I don't blame the guys who told me about this site at all. I appreciate the leads the gave me. Two nearly identical sites. I had a 50% and picked the wrong one. Lol

[Cylon357]

Names are OK, full contact info, including URLs, is not.

Allowed: "I bought some peptides from Receptor Chem and they were good"
No contact info, no foul.

Allowed: "Man, those guys over at PSL sure don't English very well"
No contact info, not even a name (but everyone knows what PSL means), no foul.

Allowed: "I get my jollies at https://www.onlyfans.com/Cylon357/IsOneSexyMFer"
Full URL, BUT not a source site (though perhaps questionable material all the same).

Not allowed: Ah psyche! Not going there.

Admins, correct me if I have misspoke, but I think those are the rules (illustrated in a very basic, and perhaps stomach turning, manner)

[Cylon357]

Well, I wanted to post this if nothing else to show that we have to be careful buying gear online. I know we're not supposed to post sources, so I wont. Im happy to share privately the url if anyone is curious.

Mods, if this is against the rules, please delete or move.

I had been looking for another source....hopefully domestic...as my previous overseas source had vanished, They're back now though. I got a recommendation from some guys and found what I thought was the site. This site only accepted bitcoin as payment. I thought perhaps this was for new users, but I didnt have an aversion to paying with bitcoin as I had used this payment method in the past with my overseas source and never had a problem. Its anonymous and most sites, including this new domestic source offered a discount. 20% in the case of this new site.

So I placed a few items in my cart and checked out. The total came to 165 I think, with shipping which I think was 50 bucks. After discount it was around 135 or so. I then purchased the bitcoin through my wallet ive had set up for years.

This process too longer than it should have, so in the almost 2 weeks before I could finalize my purchase, I stumbled upon another site with a very similar name, same logo, and the sites were close to the same look.

I played around with this new site, checked out the prices compared to the original site I had been on. This new site was a bit higher on every product, and I noticed shipping was way higher. In fact for the same exact products, shipping was 100 bucks verses 50.

Long story short, I kinda felt like this new site was a sister site to the first one, and that it was more for overseas orders, where as the one I was purchasing from was domestic. So once my bitcoin finalized, I completed the transaction for the gear. I received an order confirmation email and everything looked legit.

The site said once orders were completed and payment was transferred, orders usually ship within a few business days. I would also receive an email with a delivery date estimate. This never happened. I waited a week and finally filled out there contact us form. Waited another few days....no response. I sent another one...same thing. No response. I ever replied to the original order confirmation email. Haven't heard the first thing from them.

I then emailed the other site and told basically asked them if they were affiliated with this site and explained what happened. They said they were not and any other site that was mimicking them was a fake and that I had been scammed.

Thankfully it was only 135 bucks. Not that big a deal, but pisses me off more than anything. Perhaps a good rule of thumb, at least for me in the future, is sending any potential source site an email or inquiry and see if they respond. Not full proof, but certainly counts for something.

To add, and maybe actually be somewhat helpful this time....

We all have been burned a time or two by sites. That is part of this grey (at best) market we deal in. It sucks, but to your point, it was a relatively small amount. Small favors, I guess, but it is SOMETHING at least.

Additionally, sites / sources go bad pretty regularly. That's one of the reasons I do not generally vouch for a source going forward, I typically try to only say 'my experience was this way, but I can not say yours will be the same'. Again, that is part of the nature of the market we are in.

Some labs do have site verification functions that let you put in a URL. The lab will look up that name in their authorized vendor list and let you know if they are approved or not. Not a guarantee of legitimacy, but a pretty good indicator. Plus, not everyone has this, maybe look for those that do.

[teedoff]

Yeah agreed. Surprisingly, I believe my previous source had the verification thing you mentioned.

And yes, the recommendations I knew were just what you said. Based on previous experience.

But to maybe help others

Bad site = alin-shop-steroids.

I will say this. In emailing back and forth with the good site and even looking around on my old over seas site, both offer a subset of products/makers that are for domestic delivery. Also shipping prices are tiered based on which brand as well.

My old site didn't offer domestic products before, so perhaps I'll give them another try. They've done right by me in the past. I had an order get delayed for months. They shipped my order again and then I wound up getting my original order. They told me to keep both.

[Test Monsterone]

In 2006 I bought a TV online from what looked like a legit website with reviews and authenticity trademarks, all that. Paid around $800 through western union like a dumbass… this was some wholesale place, supposedly. Never saw the money or the TV again. The good news is that I bought a bunch of champagne and did a bunch of coke once I figured I’d been scammed. The website went down after a few days and no reply.

A few months ago I get a letter in the mail regarding a settlement between the government and western union that will pay me back the money I lost 16 years ago. I filled out the form but totally forgot about it till I read this post. $130 ain’t shit, don’t feel too bad. You won’t make the same mistake again, hopefully.

[RoidKings]

Certainly not all sites accepting Western Union or bitcoin payments are scams, but it's definitely worth double checking you've got the right site before ordering. If there's a silver lining, at least it was only $135 and not a much bigger order. Stay safe, guys

[powerliftmike]

Yea scammers will setup a duplicate site. Sometimes you can check with google image lookup to see if the images were ripped off another site. I saw a site years ago where the image watermark didn't match the URL/source. Lazy.

[s1nc1ty]

I dont get why not just buy hand2hand, oldschool way. Especially if your been involved in lifting for a long time, its not hard to get that shit. In my gym for example, there is loads of ppl on gear. Just yesterday i heard one random guy ask his gf when she gonna buy winstrol. That aside there are many bodybuilders there and many jacked guys with traps eating theyr heads who obviously on roids, not to mention the private trainers with hg gut etc. I have my connections so im good but i think it wouldnt be hard to hook myself up through the gym

[teedoff]

I dont get why not just buy hand2hand, oldschool way. Especially if your been involved in lifting for a long time, its not hard to get that shit. In my gym for example, there is loads of ppl on gear. Just yesterday i heard one random guy ask his gf when she gonna buy winstrol. That aside there are many bodybuilders there and many jacked guys with traps eating theyr heads who obviously on roids, not to mention the private trainers with hg gut etc. I have my connections so im good but i think it wouldnt be hard to hook myself up through the gym

Sure that can easily be done, but you're paying double, maybe triple the price of what you can order yourself. I'd rather have my own source and not have to deal with a middle man. I got scammed. not the end of the world, and certainly nothing new in this game.

[Mooseman33]

I dont get why not just buy hand2hand, oldschool way. Especially if your been involved in lifting for a long time, its not hard to get that shit. In my gym for example, there is loads of ppl on gear. Just yesterday i heard one random guy ask his gf when she gonna buy winstrol. That aside there are many bodybuilders there and many jacked guys with traps eating theyr heads who obviously on roids, not to mention the private trainers with hg gut etc. I have my connections so im good but i think it wouldnt be hard to hook myself up through the gym

i think the hand to hand in gym or with gym people is more risky. i want nobody local knowing my business.

[SampsonandDelilah]

Names are OK, full contact info, including URLs, is not.

Allowed: "I bought some peptides from Receptor Chem and they were good"
No contact info, no foul.

Allowed: "Man, those guys over at PSL sure don't English very well"
No contact info, not even a name (but everyone knows what PSL means), no foul.

Allowed: "I get my jollies at https://www.onlyfans.com/Cylon357/IsOneSexyMFer"
Full URL, BUT not a source site (though perhaps questionable material all the same).

Not allowed: Ah psyche! Not going there.

Admins, correct me if I have misspoke, but I think those are the rules (illustrated in a very basic, and perhaps stomach turning, manner)

I keep going to this site and getting an error message, can you confirm if this is working or PM me?

[teedoff]

I keep going to this site and getting an error message, can you confirm if this is working or PM me?

I thought about going to that site, but was afraid Id get scammed out of a monthly subscription fee or something. lol

[Cylon357]

I keep going to this site and getting an error message, can you confirm if this is working or PM me?

When you click the link, you have to say "show me what you got, Big Daddy C" 3 times.

[Cylon357]

I thought about going to that site, but was afraid Id get scammed out of a monthly subscription fee or something. lol

Even a Cylon has to eat