okshon.com - RIPOFF MERCHANT ALERT

[albumen]

Hi there,
I'm posting here because I am at my wit's end. Story is that I and a few buddies have spent thousands of dollars buying motorcycle parts via www.okshon.com - a deputy auction bidding service that gives users bidding access to Japan's Yahoo Auctions.

The theory is that customers bid in real time via the okshon 'skin' and pay okshon (typically via Paypal) for the goods + their fees + shipping back to their home countries.

The practice, as I and three mates have found, is that this organisation appears to be a pyramid scheme based perhaps not in Japan but in China somewhere. It would seem that bidders who order a few things here and there do actually get their items. But as soon as the punter's confidence is boosted enough to encourage them to spend a decent wedge of cash - a few thousand dollars usually - then suddenly all contact with okshon.com is cut off. Okshon flat-out stop answering emails.

Then the customer complains. Then after a few more days they complain bitterly. Then the customer threatens to initiate a Paypal dispute - and minutes later there is a one-line email from okshon (never with anyone's name at the bottom) saying everything is under control and they will be shipping soon.

They keep this up until the 45 days that Paypal disputes are allowable, have elapsed. And then that's it. End of story, you have been heartily fleeced.
Now the thing is that my friends and I saved up damn hard to buy parts to build our dream bikes. And now that's all gone, so it seems. So we have, via our biking forums, been warning others off okshon lest they suffer a similar fate. But the thing is, this isn't good enough. We are massively aggrieved and we want our parts, or our money back. We have sent hundreds of emails to these crooks - cs@okshon.com - but just keep getting ignored.

We have tried to find who these people are and their contacts via whois searches - but it's like they are Kaiser Soze - a spirit on the ether. We have no idea where they are; how to contact them; or any way to pursue our claim. As I mentioned, Paypal have basically said it's out of the allowed dispute period and Yahoo Japan are as about as impenetrable as it's possible to be.

So I am writing this to implore you knowledgeable folk to help us in our plight. We don't know what can be done, if anything. But we feel we must do something. This just is not right. It's criminal. Can anyone manage to find out where this lair of crooks is located? Is there any way of breaking through their email impasse? Any way of warning others not to use Okshon? Any way of shaming these people into doing the right thing? Any way of preventing them from fleecing other people?

I apologise - I am emotional as I write this. Probably not thinking too clearly, and full of anguish and despair. But the thing is, I am hurt, and so are my friends. We have nothing to hide, nothing to lose. My name is Stephen Rothwell; my email is offbeat@iinet.net.au and I run a small motorcycle tour company in Australia - www.bikingaustralia.com . This is our rainy season - so very much the off-season for us all the way down here - and is the time when I repair bikes and build new ones. Now it looks like when the season comes in April, I will have hardly any bikes to hire. This is just not fair. I am sorry if I sound melodramatic. My livelihood is on the line and I just don't know where to turn for help or advice. Please feel free to make any suggestions.

<Address has been removed by Admin>

[Cobra]

Okay.. well i am not going to go into this too deeply. But from publicly available information we get the follow..

> THis site is hosted within the US, so there will be legal avenues that you can persue to have the owners of the domain pay up, or have the hosting company discontinue service.

> vps.mart-smart.com is the hosting domain, okshon.com is just pointing to that domain.

> They appear to be on a dedicated server which is hosted and possibly managed by a company called dehe.com. This companies website is jaguarpc.com

> DNS is managed with a company called dreamhost.com

> You wont get shit via a whois lookup as they are going through a company called Whois Gaurd. And they will provide you with NOTHING.. zip, nadda

Your best course of action will be to contact JaguarPC over the phone, and have a professional coversation with them.. remember .. you need to be polite, professional, stick to the point you want to talk about, don't get pissed when they say "Nothing we can do for you". You step it up to supervisor and so on.. and be fairly firm about what you are looking for.

Inform them about the purchase you made and didn't receive your goods, also tell them about your mates ordering "seperatly" and not receiving their goods also.

DO NOT tell them about okshon keeping you sweet untill the paypal period is up .. you need hard facts and that aint one.

So stick to what you know and that is jaguarPC is hosting a website that is taking money from potential customers and not delivering goods.

If the hosting company is worth their salt they will investigate it.. as it is illegal for them to host scamming sites.

That is your best course of action for now...

See how you get on with them... if you still have no luck.. come back to us and we'll see what else can be done.

Cheers..
C.

[albumen]

Cobra, thank you very kindly for all your well-considered advice. I shall indeed be reporting my difficulties to jaguarpc.com. Thank you for the info on what constitutes illegal hosting of scamming sites.

And isn't it just charming, okshon - a company so corrupt they feel the need to cloak their whois info!

A few mates of mine on the biking forums have come up with the following info - the address and phone number for the Okshon place in Japan:

Man Chung Yan
Rm 102, 2-34-8 KAMISAKABE
AMAGASAKI  HYOGO
661-0979

Tel: 090-8367-7816

Also the registrant details in Hong Kong, which would appear to be the main nest of vipers:

Domain Name: okshon.com

Registrant Contact:
Mart Smart Limited domain@mart-smart.com
Mart Smart Limited
Rm 618, Hollywood Plaza
610 Nathan Road, Mongkok
Kowloon, NA NA
HK
+852.29614860

Administrative Contact:
Mart Smart Limited domain@mart-smart.com
Mart Smart Limited
Rm 618, Hollywood Plaza
610 Nathan Road, Mongkok
Kowloon, NA NA
HK
+852.29614860

Technical Contact:
Mart Smart Limited domain@mart-smart.com
Mart Smart Limited
Rm 618, Hollywood Plaza
610 Nathan Road, Mongkok
Kowloon, NA NA
HK
+852.29614860

Billing Contact:
Mart Smart Limited domain@mart-smart.com
Mart Smart Limited
Rm 618, Hollywood Plaza
610 Nathan Road, Mongkok
Kowloon, NA NA
HK
+852.29614860

Record created on 2005-06-05 00:56:54.
Record expires on 2008-06-05 00:56:54.

Domain servers in listed order:

ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com
ns3.dreamhost.com

Needless to say, no answers keep coming from those 'phone numbers. I have informed the Hong Kong Police cybercrime division of the fraud, and have had stern words with Paypal; essentially my point was that since I know several people who have been ripped off by okshon, even in my small niche two-stroke motorcycle orbit, that the okshon ripoff is something that happens regularly. That being the case, Paypal are complicit in the fleecing or at best, are doing nothing about it.

They saw my point, and resolved to put the heat on okshon to give me my parts or a refund. Since then I have had another email from okshon, essentially saying that "The team leader has been away for some time because his father died (most likely of a broken heart 'cos his son never returned his calls!) but he has instructed us to send your parts to your local contact in Japan."

This smelled of another attempt at placation, SO I wrote back to okshon, saying:


"Please advise: When you send my parts to my local contact in Japan, please refund me my $240 okshon deposit and the $169 I have overpaid okshon. When can you do this? Today? Tomorrow? My Paypal address is ___________

And please confirm if all my parts have arrived, and when you will make the delivery to my Japan contact.

I do require answers to these questions.

But, as ever, no answers are coming back. I suspect a whole heap of leaderless warehouse boys are milling around not knowing what to do with the round-eye's perplexingly specific requests. I mean, surely I don't really want answers to those questions. I must just be some sort of information/confirmation junkie.

So the jury is still out and I have Paypal, Yahoo Auctions, the police and the media involved. And the pressure will keep mounting until okshon do the right thing.

Thanks again for your help Cobra. Much appreciated. That's another contact I can use to try and leverage okshon into doing the proper thing.

Cheers
Steve

[Cobra]

Yeah man... keep on their case. It is a pain in the ass when shit like that happens. Main thing is to keep the cool and not do something foolish that ends up getting you in shit.. which it is VERY easy to do.

Keep us updated on how you get on man... and if we can do anything else for you just ask.

Cheers
C.

[ba_willard]

I guess I should feel lucky as I did actually receive the items I bid and won (1jz parts).  But it's been over a month since request $100 refund of my okshon deposit and total silence.

Yesterday I inform okshon via their contact us page if I didn't get resolution from them within 24 hrs I will open fraud case with paypal.  From the experience described in this thread, it sounds like paypal won't do anything.  However I'm going to give them a chance.  At minimum I think paypal should revoke their account.

I'll post the outcome of situation...

[ba_willard]

As expected okshon.com (Mart Smart Limited) failed to reply and I opened a dispute with PayPal.  PayPal's system immediately closed the dispute saying more than 20 days have passed.  As I'm not in favor of anyone or any entity stealing money, that resolution was unsatisfactory, so I escalated it to a PayPal  claim.  In a matter of a couple of minutes my claim went from the status of "pending" to "defferred" to "case closed".

Here's a copy of my PayPal case:

From PayPal: PayPal on 3/25/2008 19:16 PDT
Buyer escalated this dispute to a Claim.

From Buyer: Brian Willard on 3/25/2008 19:16 PDT
Although I'm not in favor of this company Mart Smart Limited fraudulently taking my money, I'll be even more concerned if Paypal continues to provide them with a Paypal account.

From Buyer: Brian Willard on 3/25/2008 19:09 PDT
Upon making this shipping payment (making my outstanding balance $0) this Yahoo Japan broker dba okshon.com (and known to Paypal as Mart Smart Limited,) was to refund $100 on deposit with okshon.com since 12-28-07 (also via paypal transaction). They sent the items won via auction to me, but did not refund my deposit. Their site at https://www.okshon.com/user/1895/balance/withdraw states "We will process deposit refund once a week, every Saturday/Sunday. Please also make sure there is no outstanding payment due, otherwise the deposit will be held until the outstanding invoices are settled. Thank you." Four weekends have passed, and okshon.com refuses to respond to the many attempts at correspondence I have made regarding this and they have not refunded the $100 to my Paypal account. At minimum, even if my funds cannot be recovered, I request for Paypal to revoke Mart Smart Limited Paypal account, preventing them from any future fraudulent activity. Thank you.

That was last night...  I called PayPal this morning a spoke to what they told me was a Dispute and Claims Specialist, named Ladonna.  She first told me it was closed because it was related to an eBay transaction.  After I contended with her that, when PayPal facilitates one PayPal customer to steal money from another PayPal customer, PayPal has responsibility.  After then explaining to her that okshon.com (Mart Smart Limited) requires deposit to bid on Yahoo Japan, doesn't allow deposit to be used for payment when item is won, and then refuses to refund, she then did say Paypal would investigate.

I really don't expect any results from either okshon.com or PayPal, but hopefully if enough people that get taken by okshon.com fraud complain to PayPal, PayPal will be responsible enough to revoke okshon's (Mart Smart Limited's) account.

Too bad okshon couldn't be satisfied with the money it could make legitately, but instead feels compelled to steal funds in the process.

[Cobra]

Keep us posted on what happens with this..

Cheers man
C.

[ba_willard]

I had written it off getting my deposit, but 2 days ago I got an e-mail from okshon informing me that they had refunded my deposit.  I verified they indeed did transfer $100 to my paypal account and asked them why it took so long.  I copied the reason they gave below.

Speculation regarding there may been some external pressure notwithstanding, Cobra it may be a good time to pursue recovering your loss again with okshon again.

-brian

------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:38:49 +0800, "ok!shon.com Customer Service" <okshon.cs@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Glad to hear that.
>
> Basically we are doing deposit refund on monthly basis to reduce
> workload, and before deposit refund was sent, we have to make sure
> there is no major oustanding payment (i.e. parcels are dispatched).
>
> We first send outstanding parcels, and process the refund on month
> end, so it may takes a bit of time to go through the whole process.
>