Have you ever been searching for products online and seen some products that had something odd about them? For example, you see a seller, but the name is usually just numbers. The product could be something such as a cell phone case for an outdated phone that no one knows about. The name of the product could have bad spelling and numbers and letters mixed in. Have you looked at all products the seller has, they could sell things that have nothing in common. Such as one product a toy, the next a speaker.
I have seen this a couple times. I cannot help but wonder, who are these people? What do these numbers mean? I had one incident; I ordered a product off of Amazon, the seller seemed fine, but when it arrived, the packaging of the product had the name of another company on it. It was opened and a little piece of plastic was in there that had the name of the seller. I looked at the seller, they had a few reviews here and there. However, none of their products were similar at all.
This had happened to a good friend of mine too. He had bought a product off of Amazon, when it arrived it had a different brand name on it. A few days later the police had arrived and told him that the product was stolen. The company was stealing brand name products and passing them off as their own.
Luckily, I got the company arrested, but I will explain that later.
The year was 2007. The iPhone 1st generation had just come out. I was looking on Amazon to buy one. As you know, the iPhone is very expensive. So I decided to see what other phones I could buy. I was in about the 17th page of product results when I found it.
It was an iPhone 1 for only $120. I felt a little suspicious knowing that the seller was not Apple, so I thought the phone may be a fake as there were no reviews saying if it was real or not. Either way, I would be happy to have any phone at all. However, looking at that title, it read something like "iPhone 1st Generation Col41974z1548" the seller was "Mendrix". I shrugged it off and took out my wallet and bought it.
It had been about a week since its estimated delivery date. I tried tracking it but I could not find it. I felt ripped off, however, one week later it arrived. I was very happy. I opened it up, and there it was! However, it was damaged, there was a reddish stain which rubbed off. It looked like it had taken a beating. I did not care, I would just buy a case. The screen was fine. The problems started when I turned it on.
The battery was full as if it had just been charged. I turned it on and saw that the wallpaper was a picture of someone. There were many games and apps on it already. I looked in the camera roll and saw a dark photo of a person. It sort of looked like he was in an alleyway. I searched through and was surprised to see a photo of the "Mendrix" logo, it said this: "Thank you for your purchase from 'Mendrix.'"
As I said, the phone was damaged. I got cut from the back plate. Irritated, I looked in the box to see if there was any type of contact information. Nope, there was a note that read. "Get a cheap case from our seller profile on Amazon." I looked at their products. There were many different products, such as a case, the iPhone, but there were also other things such as light bulbs and colored pencils. I bought the case and decided to check out the iPhone features.
I opened the built-in browser. It was logged onto "Facebook". Being nosy as I am, I looked through his message wall. They were all saying "RIP, Carl Jason." I was confused. Then I looked at the name of the user, his name was "Carl Jason". I read more messages saying something like "I hope they catch whoever killed you." I looked in his friends list and found his wife; she was online. I decided to send her a message using Carl's account. This is the conversation:
Me: Hello.
Ms. Jason: Who are you? Did you kill my husband?
Me: No, I didn't.
Ms. Jason: How did you get on my husband's account?
Me: I ordered an iPhone off of Amazon, and I was sent your husband's phone. I don't know how or why, but I want to know what happened to him.
Ms. Jason: He was found dead in an alleyway, he was robbed, but only his phone, nothing else.
Me: Does the police know who killed him?
Ms. Jason: No, but they believe it was more than one person.
Me: Thank you, I will contact the police now.
I contacted "Mendrix" saying that the phone was used. I never got a reply. I decided to try to find this company. It had an address on it, but looking at Google Maps it was just a junk yard. I realized that the address, when written backwards, does give the actual location. So, I packed my bags and went on a vacation.
I would walk by the building which was just a warehouse twice a day. I would make sure I wore something different each time. I did not see much, looking in the window they would just load up boxes. The boxes were all blank. I did not sneak in because that would be suicide. I could not find anything wrong with it, until the shipments.
They would have a truck filled with boxes of stolen things to sell come every week at 1:00 in the morning. I would see this whenever I went on a walk at night. I called the police. They knew what I was talking about. They called in the whole force. SWAT, FBI, and just about the entire police department. They swarmed the place and arrested everyone there. Amazon removed them from their website. I returned the phone to the dead man's wife.
It all seems well from there, I only order from well-known sellers on Amazon. I discovered that these people were not the only ones doing that. Be careful who you buy from. The numbers and letters and misspellings could be a sign of something shady.