How to avoid scams when buying mountain bikes online?

[Smaier11]

I have been searching for mountains bikes recently and an ad came up on my google shopping search from a Shopify powered website named Mombikes.shop. I purchased a bike for a good chunk of money just to find out it was a fraudulent site. I can’t access website now and contacts don’t work. 

 

 

[StephensWorld]

That really sucks - I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. 

Your best bet is to contact your bank or credit card company to initiate a chargeback. If you never received the bike that you purchased, and never got a response from the seller/store-owner, then you'll almost certainly receive your money back. 

In the future, I would always recommend looking up reviews for the store before purchasing from them (especially for larger purchases). 

Shopify does a really good job at keeping 'shady' store owners off of the platform (hence the store being unavailable now), but there are over 2m+ stores on Shopify, so it can sometimes take a bit for Shopify to catch bad actors. Definitely do your due diligence before purchasing in the future, as anyone can make a Shopify store. With that said, the overwhelming majority of Shopify stores are legit and ran by honest people, so try not to let this experience sour your opinion of Shopify as a platform. 

If you're still looking to buy a new bike, I'd recommend VeloLifestyle (https://velolifestyle.com/) -- I worked with them a couple of years back on their site, and I know for a fact that they're legit and sell very high quality bikes! 🙂

[Smaier11]

 

Hey Stephen, thank you for your input here. I believe the site wasn’t caught by Shopify. I think the admin took it down after they recieved my credit card payment. Also, Mombikes.myshopify.com still comes up on google right next to my “I got scammed post.” It doesn’t look good.  “Powered by Shopify” should be a stamp of approval, instead of it not mattering and still being a questionable. 

[StephensWorld]

The store (https://mombikes.myshopify.com/) is currently marked as "unavailable" which means Shopify has probably shut them down. 

Definitely contact your bank to initiate the chargeback -- you'll most likely get your money back. 

I kind of agree with you, re: the 'powered by shopify' statement. It would be good to have some kind of "verified and approved" badge for specific stores, so that you know that they're legit. You have to think of Shopify like a 'shopping mall' though. Shopify essentially 'rents space' to businesses so that they can sell. Anyone that can afford the monthly fee can make a Shopify store (ie. space in the mall), but if Shopify finds out that they're not operating honestly then they get 'kicked out' (ie. their store shut down). It's not a perfect system, but it's about as good as you're going to get online. If you think about the biggest places to shop online (ex. Amazon, eBay, etc.) -- they have their share of 'shady' businesses that they end up 'kicking out' too. It's unfortunately how things go online sometimes -- these platforms can only do the best that they can to catch dishonest sellers as quickly as possible. 

[Smaier11]

Thank you Stephen! You explained that like a true Shopify expert. One last question. If this is the case, Shopify is making $ off every vendors (good or bad) that are using their e-commence platform. I would hold them accountable for providing a bridge from the consumer (me) to the fraudster Shopify customer (Momsbike.shop). Wouldn’t you agree? From what I’m reading they hold no responsibility for fraudulent transactions. I have to rely on my CC company to make things right, not Shopify. 

[StephensWorld]

Shopify just provides the platform to create a website (online store). They don't endorse or manage all of the websites/stores on the platform. The business responsibility is on the store owner to act legitimately. All Shopify can do is make sure that they shut down the 'fraudsters' if they find out about them. It would be the same as if you found a scammer on eBay ... all eBay can do is try their best to make sure anyone creating 'auctions' is legit, and then ban anyone who's trying to scam. Blaming Shopify in this instance is about the same as blaming your internet provider -- without your internet provider, you wouldn't of been able to go to the website (and they're making money by giving you access to the internet). It doesn't really make sense to blame them. The only person to really blame here is the store owner who acted dishonestly. The store is shut down now (and that page you see is different from the one you'd see if the store owner closed the store themselves), so you know that Shopify actually shut them down (which means they are actively acting against any fraudsters/scammers). 

[edrif]

But why doesn’t Shopify offer an option for users to ask Shopify to confirm or check is the store is legit? I think Shopify need to revise this. We all know that other companies that offer platforms have a process in place for users to report suspicious or potentially negative activity or content (YouTube, Instagram, etc.). I think that https://grbikes.myshopify.com/ is the evolution of MomsBikes — and I joined Shopify just to ask about this and I didn’t find a link to get help from Shopify. 

[YOD_Solutions]

Contact your bank and request for a chargeback. You will get your money back.

[edrif]

I am searching for a new mountain bike and it appears that https://grbikes.myshopify.com/ is the evolution of that site. A few things simply don’t add up: address, about us description, return policy, prices and the wide range of hard-to-find mountain bikes that are available in just about every size.