Bigermart.com - NGUYEN HOANG THUY HIEN NGUYEN HOANG THUY HIEN Sophisticated scam. Ordered a product, paid thru PayPal, product never sent, pursued reimbursement from PayPal, seller sends a real tracking number, PayPal closed dispute, tracking number is for another package sent by entirely different company to a different person in same city. Austin Texas

Bigermart.com is a scam site. This is how the scam works.

You order your product, they are set up for payment through PayPal. Upon ordering you receive a confirmation email from Bigermart.com stating that your order is received, here's your order number, and that you'll receive a tracking number once the product is shipped.

After a few days a person may wonder where their tracking number is (I did) and try to reach out to Bigermart.com. Send an email, no response. Call their number and get a Google Voice account. Check out their address and find out that it is a residence in Austin, TX.

So, no email, no phone call, no address, and tracking number... time to dispute the charge through PayPal. PayPal attempts to resolve disputes, so they contact the seller. Seller sends a message saying that the product was delivered and provides a confirmation number. Look up the tracking number online and, sure enough, it says a package is delivered to your city and zip code a few days after the order was made. Very important, though - the online portal does not indicated the specific address.

So, maybe your package was stolen or misplaced - my package was supposed to go to a UPS Store post office box. They log their shipments and had no record of the order. They start looking for the package and speak to the mail carrier. This process takes a few days and I'm lucky enough to be the Mayor of my city, so people are extra nice to me.

In the meantime the seller escalates the issue through PayPal and says, hey, he got his package. Case closed. And the case is closed.

Next day the UPS representative says that the mail carrier states that the package was delivered to an entirely different address. You go to the Post Office and provide the tracking number - the address associated with the tracking number was completely different. I go to knock on the door and meet two real nice people. They happening to be moving into their home. I tell them the problem - they have a service through the post office that emails them photos of their packages and they have a Ring camera.

The tracking number was associated with a completely different package that was addressed to these new homeowners for photos, not two Rumbas.

With this new information I've reached out to PayPal, but they're not responding. That's the thing - once PayPal renders a decision it is hard to reopen that dispute and get your money back. But, without starting a dispute, you can't get the tracking number and figure out what's going on until it is too late. I'll dispute the transaction through my bank, report it to the local, state, and federal authorities - I'm sure it'll all work out.

I'm writing this because I specifically searched Bigermart.com reviews online before ordering and, while there was a post by a disgruntled buyer that received something different from what they ordered, there was nothing to indicate that they were going to rip a person off for hundreds of dollars.

My advice is to steer clear of this company. The deals look great, but there is a scam artist at work.