Hundreds of people who have placed orders with an online shopping site called
Zavvi Direct fear they will not receive their goods.
Computeractive has learned that more than 2,000 consumers may have placed
orders with the company, many of them trying to buy the hard-to-get Nintendo Wii
Fit device.
However, customers have flooded internet forums voicing fears that they have
been conned.
At least one customer reported to us that she had been charged twice for
goods that have not arrived.
To add to consumer concerns the website, which took its first orders on 3
June, was forced offline shortly after 13 June for infringing the trademark of
high
street retailer Zavvi, formerly known as Virgin Megastore.
“We believe that they were misleading people by using our brand name and
colours,” a Zavvi representative told Computeractive.
Claire Pinner, who ordered a Wii Fit, agreed: “I feel really stupid, but I
thought I was dealing with the high street retailer Zavvi,” she said. She has
not been alone in making this assumption
The website in question, www.zavvidirect.co.uk, is registered to a sole
trader named Paul Clayton in Brighton. We talked to a Paul Clayton in nearby
Hove who is showing in Companies House as the director of this company. However
he denied any connection with the site or the company.
We contacted Zavvi Direct by telephone and one Simon Bishop denied any wrong
doing told us the company had given refunds to some customers and would have the
Wii Fit in stock by 20 June. The company director Paul Clayton also emailed
saying the same thing. However, doubt has been cast on whether it will be able
to fulfil the orders it has received.
“We would love to know where this company is getting its stock of the Wii Fit
from. In the UK and Europe it is in such high demand and short supply no one can
get their hands on enough – even us,” a representative for the high-street chain
Zavvi told us.
Andrew Goodwill, director of anti-fraud specialists the 3rd Man, said that
people have to be careful when shopping online.
“If goods are in short demand and a site claims to have a lot of stock,
people should be suspicious. This is a common modus operandi and is used
regularly by people committing fraud online,” he said.
The zavvidirect site and other websites using the Zavvi name that have
nothing to do with the high-street chain are linked to a company called Zavvi
Direct Ltd. It was incorporated as company No. 06495386 on 6 February 2008. The
Zavvi Direct company director is Paul Clayton and the company and all the
websites use the address: 20 Old Steine, Brighton, BN1 1EL.
Additional sites include
Zavvisports.co.uk,
a site selling sports clothing and accessories. They have different suffixes
such as .com or have hyphenated names. These are also being investigated by the
high-street chain Zavvi’s lawyers.
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