Unless you believe in the tooth fairy, avoid this site! 
I went looking for the Lionel Strasburg #31 from the 2022 Catalog, and I found it here for $96, what a buy! Even the "normal" price of $416 was a steal! Of course, the only stealing going on here is your money if you try to buy!
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Thanks for the heads up John!
It's a bit disconcerting that Scam Advisor rates them as "probably safe".
https://www.scamadviser.com/ch...e/newlionelstore.com
John
The nerve of some people's children. Like some of you I have gotten the scammers on the phone wanting to extend my car warranty or expand Medicare. If I have some free time, I will engage them and waste their time and finish by asking if their mother knows how they make a living. That has left me cussed out in several languages.
@POTRZBE posted:The nerve of some people's children. Like some of you I have gotten the scammers on the phone wanting to extend my car warranty or expand Medicare. If I have some free time, I will engage them and waste their time and finish by asking if their mother knows how they make a living. That has left me cussed out in several languages.
I have a Panasonic call block add on device that has a big red button on it that says Block Call. It's makes you feel good when you slam it. So far (in three years) it has stored around 800 numbers and has a capacity of 2000.
Then there are the emails that start with "You have won a ________________" from seemingly legit companies like Lowes, etc but with sender addresses that anyone would laugh at if they looked.
And the "Your account has been hacked_________________________" scams.
And on and on.
John
This one caught my eye because it was a model train site and it's close to Christmas. A perfect time to scam people looking for a bargain. However, I think these idiots made the bargains look a bit too good to be believed. 
@gunrunnerjohn posted:This one caught my eye because it was a model train site and it's close to Christmas. A perfect time to scam people looking for a bargain. However, I think these idiots made the bargains look a bit too good to be believed.
Remember when we had the discussion about Active Powersports and the purported items that they have that no one else does which shows up in a search for those items? I am sure if I searched for a cigarette lighter for a 1929 Ford Model T, Active Powersports would say they have it.
Despite the BBB and others flagging it as a scam site for years they are still online and still show up in a search.
Pretty discouraging.
John
Oh great. Thanks for the tip, John. 👍
It must be the same scammers using different sites. Every time I see one of these the items are always $96. Doesn't matter if it's a railking water tender or a vision line big boy. Always the same price.
I would say I don't see how people fall for these but people buying gifts for others that don't know any better can get had for sure.
Brad
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Unless you believe in the tooth fairy, avoid this site!
I went looking for the Lionel Strasburg #31 from the 2022 Catalog, and I found it here for $96, what a buy! Even the "normal" price of $416 was a steal! Of course, the only stealing going on here is your money if you try to buy!
This is the same site that had cab-2. For 199.00……..buyer beware
@POTRZBE posted:The nerve of some people's children. Like some of you I have gotten the scammers on the phone wanting to extend my car warranty or expand Medicare. If I have some free time, I will engage them and waste their time and finish by asking if their mother knows how they make a living. That has left me cussed out in several languages.
I usually end up cussing them out. Must have worked as I've only had like 4 calls this year.
Not just the model train community, cycling has its share as well. Everyone needs a $100 ebike right? Special, 48 hours only. Thanks for the heads up.
I remember seeing the E Bikes about a year or so ago for $99 or so. Recently a site with a similar name to MB Klein's Model RR Store was offering nice high-end HO equipment for $39 - $89. It was a 'Going out of business liquidation'. I took a chance and ordered 3 steamers from Broadway Ltd and the items never shipped. I was able to get my VISA to reverse the charges without question and that was the end of it. You would think anyone who ordered in a similar fashion could get a full refund so how do these thieves make $$$?
Geez, Why did Cloudflare even issue an SSL Certificate for this site, it's such an obvious fraud.
You can buy a BASE3 for $89!!!
I had one that left a text message about a phone on the way from Amazon. Looked like Amazon's site. So I called. When "Mike" from most likely Jamaica started in, he claimed that the phone was sent to me by mistake. I could keep it if I went to Target and got a gift card for like $150.00. Now wait a minute. By the time he was done I owed him $14000.00. Yep, fourteen thousand bucks. The conversation went on for about an hour with me hanging up on hime 2 or 3 times. The meat head wasn't taking no even after several adjectives I used. I finally just left the phone off the hook then called my bank.
Dick
@H1000 posted:Geez, Why did Cloudflare even issue an SSL Certificate for this site, it's such an obvious fraud.
If they own the domain, they can get a SSL cert. There's no human at Cloudflare involved in that process.
It is a Wordpress site using WooCommerce for the catalog/cart/checkout.
Payment is via PayPal or for Credit card it looks like AllinPay which comes up in Chinese - https://www.allinpay.com
For PayPal and I clicked the Fraud button that was available.
This site could only be brought down if Lionel legal reaches out and threatens action.
@David_NJ posted:If they own the domain, they can get a SSL cert. There's no human at Cloudflare involved in that process.
It is a Wordpress site using WooCommerce for the catalog/cart/checkout.
Payment is via PayPal or for Credit card it looks like AllinPay which comes up in Chinese - https://www.allinpay.com
For PayPal and I clicked the Fraud button that was available.
This site could only be brought down if Lionel legal reaches out and threatens action.
Yep, It looks like "Let's Encrypt" actually issued the Certificate, and most likely that SSL cert was issued before the fraudulent content of the site was launched. They are using Cloudflare DNS servers and the hosting servers do appear to be US (possibly Canada) based. They registered the site through "Name.com" and they do have abuse reporting for these types of sites.
There are other ways to bring down the site without Lionel but it helps tremendously when they issue abuse reports as the victim instead of us as witnesses.
Looking at their robots.txt file, they are not targeting their own by disallowing the crawling by the standard Chinese search engines such as Baidu, Sogou, Yisou, Bytespider, etc while allowing Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc access to index them.
The sad thing is there may be newcomers to the hobby that aren’t familiar with the prices of items in this hobby. They may just think it’s a sale item and go for it.
Rats. And I wanted that Buffalo Creek and Gauley consolidation!
@romiller49 posted:The sad thing is there may be newcomers to the hobby that aren’t familiar with the prices of items in this hobby. They may just think it’s a sale item and go for it.
The very reason I posted this!
There are some scammers that have been hitting churches this Christmas season too! I was contacted by one of them, but luckily I knew better.
It goes like this... You get a text from what looks like a a valid number and it will say: Hey so-in-so, this is Rev./Fr./Sr./Pastor Whomever and I was wondering if you could text me back when you get this. I'm in a meeting but I have a question."
If you text back, they reply "hey, I was wondering if you could pick up some gift cards for a needy family I'm working with. You don't have to bring them over, just text me the numbers on them and I'll make sure they get them."
For shame!
@rplst8 posted:If you text back, they reply "hey, I was wondering if you could pick up some gift cards for a needy family I'm working with. You don't have to bring them over, just text me the numbers on them and I'll make sure they get them."
The gift card scam has been around for years, I see them all the time. Usually it's someone has their address book compromised and then everyone in it gets a gift card request. Just got one the other day.
The newer gift card scam, that I'm surprised took this long to surface, involves tampering with the cards so when you buy it and it gets loaded, the scammer immediately empties it before the recipient ever sees it. A throwback to the old 1970's scam that people would replace the deposit slips at the bank with ones encoded for their bank account. When you made a deposit and used a bank's deposit slip, the numbers were already encoded so the bank just send them through and your money went with them!
Check out the Terms & Conditions! At least they admit they SCAM from China! They're getting bolder and bolder nowadays! 
This isn't the only such site, by any means. I've come across probably four similar sites in the past 5 months or so while searching for some train related item. If they don't show a fixed address and phone number in their contact area, that's an alarm bell. And, of course, if the item seems too cheap to believe, then don't believe it!
Here's a picture of this new "store."
This is 1900 Grandview Blvd, Sioux City, IA.
Sure looks legit to me...
@Rich Melvin posted:Here's a picture of this new "store."
This is 1900 Grandview Blvd, Sioux City, IA.
Sure looks legit to me...
I have some friends in Sioux City, I'll waste their time and have them stop by and check it out!!
@Rich Melvin posted:Here's a picture of this new "store."
This is 1900 Grandview Blvd, Sioux City, IA.
Sure looks legit to me...
The last time I came across one of these scam sites I googled the address and it was the picture of a water pump house for a dam. These people are clever. 😁
Brad
@Rich Melvin posted:Here's a picture of this new "store."
This is 1900 Grandview Blvd, Sioux City, IA.
Sure looks legit to me...
I guess the scammers have never heard of Google Street View!
@Rich Melvin posted:Here's a picture of this new "store."
This is 1900 Grandview Blvd, Sioux City, IA.
Sure looks legit to me...
@H1000 posted:I have some friends in Sioux City, I'll waste their time and have them stop by and check it out!!
Maybe they have a basement and attic full of trains. Hey, it could happen. But I'm guessing that I have more boxed trains on storage shelves than he does.
According to https://www.woodburycountyiowa...ity/property_search/ this house is owner-occupied and the owner's name is Tran Ngoc.
Have your friends knock on the door and introduce themselves to Mr. Tran. Perhaps they should ask where their order is.
Since the website uses "Lionel" as part of its name, I wonder if the real Lionel Corp. would be interested in this information?
The Real Lionel is aware.
@Mallard4468 posted:Maybe they have a basement and attic full of trains. Hey, it could happen. But I'm guessing that I have more boxed trains on storage shelves than he does.
According to https://www.woodburycountyiowa...ity/property_search/ this house is owner-occupied and the owner's name is Tran Ngoc.
Have your friends knock on the door and introduce themselves to Mr. Tran. Perhaps they should ask where their order is.
Since the website uses "Lionel" as part of its name, I wonder if the real Lionel Corp. would be interested in this information?
I tracked another site down in a similar situation last year. I seriously doubt that Tran Ngoc has any idea his address is being used for a scam. The one I tracked down was an active cookware store, not a train store, and I'm sure they had no idea their store address was being abused.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Check out the Terms & Conditions! At least they admit they SCAM from China! They're getting bolder and bolder nowadays!
What did I miss?
Looks like 3.6 covers paint issues though
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