Have you heard of these guys?

K

Kenneth Lau

Active member
I am about to buy an item from these guys. http://zoompointinc.com/

Found them on ebay and they asked me to phone them to negotiate.

They are willing to cut me a deal plus free shipping but I will not be paying them through ebay.

I am a little bit skeptical about this so just wanted to see if anyone has deal with them before.
 
Kenneth Lau said:
I am about to buy an item from these guys. http://zoompointinc.com/

Found them on ebay and they asked me to phone them to negotiate.

They are willing to cut me a deal plus free shipping but I will not be paying them through ebay.

I am a little bit skeptical about this so just wanted to see if anyone has deal with them before.
Click to expand...

It is against ebay rules to 'pay outside of ebay' for items purchased via ebay.

You lose any ability to go to ebay if the product is not what was stated, in the condition stated, or ever delivered at all.

Do you feel lucky?

Perhaps they are legit and just don't want to pay the ebay fees... but in general I consider such a request to be a warning bell and usually do not go that route.
 
Oh, jeez. I was looking at their auctions 'cause they have some EX1rs. They've got like 4000+ transactions on ebay with perfect feedback, if that's worth anything.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
It is against ebay rules to 'pay outside of ebay' for items purchased via ebay.

You lose any ability to go to ebay if the product is not what was stated, in the condition stated, or ever delivered at all.

Do you feel lucky?

Perhaps they are legit and just don't want to pay the ebay fees... but in general I consider such a request to be a warning bell and usually do not go that route.
Click to expand...


Thats what I am worrying about. Because I am not paying through ebay, I think I will be screwed if this end up to be a scam.
They sent me an invoice through email and didn't even ask my mailing address. Kind of weird....
 
Consider anybody on eBay wanting to deal outside of eBay as bein a scam. With eBay's security breach a couple of weeks back, it wouldn't be surprising for an otherwise good vendor to suddenly start "acting sketchy" and wanting to cut deals paid to other accounts outside of the system.
 
How did they "ask you to call them to negotiate?"

Did they have a "Make an offer" item, and they were replying to you? Did you buy an item and wait for an invoice?

I have seen scammers hijack an account before, then ask people to call them instead of paying online.

It is against eBay policy. You will have no protection.

eBay just forced everyone to change their password last week because they had been hacked.

I would at least wait a day or two, then call a number you find from older listings or from theor web site during normal business hours. It really does raise alarm bells that they want you to go outside of eBay,

Is the price "too good to be true"? Would you be paying with a credit card?

Good luck! I would go slowly. Any pressure to close a deal immediately & I would back off.

Michael
 
unadog said:
How did they "ask you to call them to negotiate?"

Did they have a "Make an offer" item, and they were replying to you? Did you buy an item and wait for an invoice?

Is the price "too good to be true"? Would you be paying with a credit card?

Michael
Click to expand...


Michael, they have an item on ebay listed as $5K. I emailed them trying to negotiate to $4500. They asked me to call them and I did today. They are willing to bring it down to $4800 plus free shipping to Canada and then sent me an invoice through email.

The price is not too good to be true, but is for sure a good deal. Also, yes I will be paying credit card if I decide to buy from them.
 
The credit card helps a lot! :) Don't do a bank transfer under any circumstances!

They look pretty legit. Their prices were high on some things that I checked: An AT897 mic that they had listed for $215 used, versus other vendors selling it New with free shipping for $200.

As long as the terms are the same as on eBay - is it 30 days return? And the phone number that you called is the same as on the web site, email address looks legit, etc.

You could have someone call to inquire about a different item- perhaps one not listed on eBay. Then see if they also send a quote by email and etc. in the same way.

You could also look at the eBay fees for the item, and see if they are saving enough to give you more of a discount? I used to calculate my eBay fees at 10%, with about 3% of that being PayPal fees. They would still have credit card fees equal to PayPal.

I'd kick the tires for a couple of days, just to make sure. If its were a scammer, they might pressure you to act. You could also do a Google image search for any pics they provided.

The hardest part is going to be if there is a delay at customs, then it doesn't arrive for 12 days.....

People have been known to ship rocks so that they have a tracking number, and even to ship to the wrong address to delay, and so they have a delivery receipt.

It sounds like they are trying to save fees. I have seen that in the past. But your going along with that means absolutely no eBay protections.

I did a search and saw they are also on Amazon. You coukd try to revirw their history there.

Good luck! Let us know what happens.

Best,
Michael
 
It isn't clear how exactly the deal got taken outside of eBay. If you found the company while looking on eBay, then sent them direct email/from their website, outside eBay, mentioning the eBay auction. That isn't the vendor taking it outside eBay. If however you sent them eBay site mail concerning a specific auction and they responded by having you call them, then moved it outside, that's against eBay's rules and a bad sign. If you contacted them outside eBay, referencing the auction I'd say they have no obligation to involve eBay.

As for the deal itself, as long as you pay with Paypal using a non-debit card credit card, you can't get much safer. They will never get your credit card number and you have Paypal and your bank/Visa/Mastercard backing you up. You might have to deal with a lot of hold time and some paperwork but you aren't likely to get taken for much of a ride. This assumes though you don't use Paypal for your business/receiving money. If Paypal doesn't agree with you about the deal, Visa/Mastercard usually will, but that will burn Paypal for you in the future. Which might matter to you a bit.

The Canada/international part might also cause some issues. Are their import duties on what you are buying? Many US vendors never consider that their exports might involve customs. And the receiving customer will be the one that has to pay any duties. Might also effect warranties on the product as well (depends on the product).
 
Are these the phone number and email address that you are in contact with?

tel: 702-468-8575. fax: 702-586-1075. sales@zoompointinc.com.

You could fax the quote to that number if you suspect something is up. Or call them...

I helped one seller figure out that his eBay account had been hacked, when I called him at his web sites listed number. Instead of the number posted by the scammer on eBay.

Frustrating! As long as it'is bothering you at all, just wait. I'm sure you could do the same deal 1 or 2 weeks from now.

eBay tries to hide and downplay fraud. They wouldn't necessarily admit any breaches. We do know that they were hacked.....

Cheers! I hope the fonts are OK. On a tablet.

Best,
Michael
 
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Just throwing in my $.02

sounds to me like they were willing to cut you a deal IF they could come out even by skipping ebay's fees. That's what's most likely going on here, kind of a win-win situation. They still get as much money as they want, you get to pay less.

The loser in this situation would be ebay... which is why starting a transaction on ebay and taking it off is against their user agreement (they also won't protect you, as has been mentioned). Their whole business model is hooking up buyers and sellers, it doesn't do them any good to hook you guys up then have you jump to private transaction before they take their fee.

So probably you're fine and just getting a good deal.

That said there's no way in hell I'd go for it. I'd absolutely pay the extra money to get ebay's protection, that's a lot of money, and it's juuuust sketchy enough that I wouldn't feel super comfortable paying them outside of ebay.

Okay. Now that I've said all I want to... you still haven't gotten a straight answer from anyone in this thread, so let me be the first to answer the question you actually asked:

nope. Have never heard of these guys.
 
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