Update July 2010: We do not have a Facebook page, the one you see there is unauthorized and is probably going to try to rip you off should you “like” it. Apart from this website and our Twitter page, we do not have any other presence on the net, including social networks, forums, or chatting services. Anyone using our name elsewhere should not be trusted whatsoever.
Update July 2010: Sadly, many more fraudulent vendors are still appearing, particularly in the UK. The new trend seems to be vendors offering products with “branded” names, and no IUPAC name and/or CAS #, or a totally made-up fake IUPAC name. Upon analysis a large percentage of these products were proven to be inactive or even illegal compounds. Often the same branded name product was tested to contain several different compounds, depending on which vendor it was purchased from. We’ve also found some vendors are offering “MDAI” which is definitely not MDAI. It’s unknown what it is at this time. Another new trend is to collect pre-payment for a product which is supposedly “coming soon”, and then never deliver.
Please note that we will not ever offer “branded” products, and we supply full IUPAC names and CAS # for all our products. We also provide independent analysis of all our products, which are regularly updated. We stand by the products we offer 100%, and we challenge anyone to do their own tests on our products if they have any doubts. Further, we will not ever offer products which we do not presently have in stock. We will not take your money unless we know we can deliver the product to you immediately.
So in short: don’t ever buy branded products because you don’t know what you are actually getting, don’t buy from vendors who don’t supply legitimate IUPAC names and independent analysis for all their products, and never pay for a product which is not in stock. Even better, don’t do any business with vendors who can’t offer you this most basic level of service.
Update June 2010: We’ve decided to link this page directly from our homepage in hopes that more people will see it. More fraudulent websites are still appearing, some of which are methodically copying practically ALL our graphics and text. Customers are still writing to us telling us how they were ripped off by the copy cats. If you unfortunately fell for these scammers, you must do your best to get the word out. Please contact us and we’ll give you some advice.
Over the past few months we’ve been receiving emails from people telling us their story about how they were ripped off by other online vendors. People have reported losses from $30 up to $20000 — it’s really disheartening to see this happening. Recently, these emails are coming in more frequently, but there’s very little we can do to help. Scammers are definitely taking over this market to a degree never seen before, and consumers need to be more savvy than ever.
Unfortunately, we are noticing that a lot of these scammers are now using our own website graphics, our website text, or a variation of our domain names or trading name, in a brazen attempt to fool people. By appearing to be us, people have been tricked into sending them their money.
One example is our graphic of a molecule on top of a graduated shaded square. Like this one here. Sure, it’s obvious we’re no whiz at Photoshop, but these people must be even worse because there’s now a heck of a lot of websites and “vendors” which have blatantly pinched these images from our site. If you are seriously considering making a purchase from someone who has stolen our images or text, just consider that if they stole our images, what’s to stop them from stealing your money too?
If you’re unsure about any vendor, including us, ask around. But research carefully, because scammers have nothing better to do all day than to try to knock down legitimate vendors whilst building up their own apparent credibility, often using numerous pseudonyms on anonymous discussion forums and blogs. These people are quite clever at leveraging people’s natural fears about being ripped off to their own advantage.
We want to make it clear to everyone that there is only ONE website and one domain name under which we do business:
http://buythemg.com/
We also have a partner, trading under the name http://buythekg.com/, which we can vouch for if you’re interested in bulk orders.
A few parting thoughts:
- If you encounter anyone who claims their website is our “sister website”, or uses a similar domain name, or who claims they are working with us in some way, it’s a complete lie.
- If you see a website which looks suspiciously like ours, watch out, it’s not us.
- If someone is selling “bonsai fertilizer” products, watch out, for safety reasons we no longer sell such things and we recommend you do not buy such things.
- If you can’t find any history or references to any specific vendor from at least 2008, watch out.
- If you find a vendor hyped in anonymous forums, blogs, or other public websites, be very wary.
