Hacking Did I throw my money at a scam?

[VIStrings]

My EZFlash Vi recently stopped working (doesn't get recognized at all, but my real carts do) so I decided it was time to get a Supercard. I live in Ireland, so I spent a whole day looking for an Irish-based store, and I thought I had found one.

The website is www.r4ie.com. Perhaps in desperation of really wanting the cart, I ordered right away. I had looked around the site and saw that some products had reviews on them, they had a link to their blog, etc... Which my brain signaled me as "ok, you can trust these guys".
Now I'm a bit more skeptical of the whole thing after searching the site over and over again. They have already taken the €41.50 from my account (was supposed to be €39.50 and free post, I don't know where the other €2 came from) but I've had no e-mail about the cart actually shipping. I got an e-mail in the 12th automatically when I ordered it, but no e-mail with the tracking number and information about the shipment.

From what I've researched so far, it appears that they probably are not really based in Ireland at all, probably in China or Hong Kong and just made an Irish website to bring in costumers from the country? If this is so, I really won't mind that much... As long as I get my cart. Thing is, from your experience (check the site out), will I even get it? If I don't, is there a way to get my €41.50 back?

Thank you for your time.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Whether or not you got scammed, I can't say. In all likelihood, it's just shipping out of China and you'll see it in about a month. Otherwise, if you just paid via credit card on a generic pay system (since pretty much none of those sites use paypal anymore), you'll likely just need to dispute the charge via whatever bank or what have you that you got your payment method through. Anyways, send them an email and see if support answers. Considering they say to allow up to 30 days for an order to arrive, that should be clue enough that it's probably coming out of China though.

As for your EZ Flash Vi, I would guess that it still works fine. Try cleaning off the contacts, either with a very light amount of rubbing alcohol on a q-tip or some equivalent cleaning object that would work with it, or just rub the contacts gently with a very, very lightly damp cloth. Regardless, it's probably just a bit of dirt buildup that should come off easy enough.

 

[Crass]

While I don't know for sure, nor have any experience with them. When you do a domain name registry look up it appears to be registered in from someone in China, and not a stereotypical Irish name. Probably 99.99% a Chinese site.

http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?k...F+KNn+5gqtw==&domain=r4ie.com&prog_id=GoDaddy

 

[cearp]

I'm quite sure the €2 charge is from your bank since it is an overseas transaction. have a look at your bank statement.

 

[VIStrings]

Nathan Drake
I paid via debit card, yeah. Sent them an e-mail yesterday asking if the days they mention on their website are working days or if they include weekends, mostly as an excuse to just get in contact with them. I'll see if they answer. As far as the EZ Flash goes, nah, it's really gone. Tried cleaning, tried forcing the cart to make contact with the DS pins, none of it worked. Thank you, though.

Crass
Damn, do I feel dumb for not checking where the domain was registered first. Funny thing is, I know that discoazul is reliable and ships to Ireland, but for some moronic reason I was like "nah, it'll take a long time, coming from spain, gotta find something local". Yeah, local. In China.
I deserve all of this pain.

Thanks guys, I'll come back and tell you how it all went down. A month from now.

 

[VIStrings]

cearp
Ah, that makes sense! Thank you very much.

 

[sudeki300]

i find it hard to trust online reviews as i always think they have just been made up by the company owners, best to always try and do a bit of research first about the site. alot of company's don't even hold stock, they are just a middle man and get a small commotion from the sale of the product. why pay out for stock, instead just wait for the order to come and order the product form another company and send straight to the customer......................sudeki300

 

[cearp]

lots of sites say stuff like 3dsr4uk etc etc but always check the shipping delivery page, there always seems to be one, and yeah there it will say how many days it will take to get to you. if it says Asia in a week and Europe in 3 weeks, you can be sure it is in China. but anyway, you'll still get it, it will just be while ha

 

[VIStrings]

Hopefully it's a real one, too. Don't know if there are fake Supercards.

 

[VIStrings]

Got here today, guys! What the hell, did not expect that at all. Spent the last half an hour setting everything up, it works.

I was resigned to either never see the thing or only get it in March or something, but they came through.