Long time reader of the forum, never really had a reason to join and post until now, and that's to warn people not to use elitemma.com. Placed an order with them a few nights ago for a gi belt, head gear, and shin guards. Total came out to $215.92 with shipping. Paid with my credit card that I use for all online transactions and to pay all of my bills online with. Received email receipt of order, and figured it'd be on its way soon enough. Wake up the next morning and have an email from them saying that they need to verify my credit card and to fax them a copy of the front and back covering up all except the last 4 digits and covering up my signature on the back. Well, for one I don't have a fax machine, and I don't feel like driving around town looking for one to use and paying to use it and faxing them two pictures then corresponding back n forth to see if they got them and if everything is ok. If I wanted to do all of that I'd just go buy it in a store, or order it somewhere else that wasn't such a hassle. I use this credit card for everything else online and never had any such issues, and the shipping address I provided is the same as the card's billing address. Use some common sense. Anyway, that's fine, you want to be a pain in the ass and give me the run around and make me jump through hoops to order, I'll just take my business somewhere else. Well, I log into my credit card account online and see that there is a debit from elitemma.com for the $215.92. So, they don't need to verify anything before taking the money off my card, but suddenly they want me to run around looking for a fax machine before they ship what they've already taken my money for? Ok, now we have a problem. So I call them, give them my order number, and proceed to tell them that I'm not in the mood for their games and they can either ship my stuff or put the money back on my card immediately. She tells me to please relax and understand that they were just trying to be cautious, and then changes the story to the card company put a hold on the transaction, then gave the excuse that it was odd because the email name was different than my name. Well now they were just lying because how would the card company know or care what email I provided them with, and they've never declined a transaction on anything else that I use the same email for. I basically say "OK, I don't care what your reasoning is, I'm on the phone now, I'm telling you it's my card, you either want the business or you don't, and if you don't, I expect my money back right now." She tells me that everything is fine and that the order will be processed, and that was pretty much it. A few hours later I get on their site and use the "track my order function". Order status shows "In Processing" and the $12.99 gi belt shows "shipped" and the other two items, shin guards and headgear, are shown under it as "waiting to be shipped". Ok, no problem. 24 hours goes by, and I log in to see if the rest has gone out, now, suddenly the order status is "shipped" and it still shows the gi belt as shipped, but now the other two items are completely gone from the order and no longer show on the page. Yet the total is still listed as $215.92 and of course the $215.92 is still taken from my card account. So they are trying to say that the order is now filled after only shipping the $12.99 item while just erasing the history of the most expensive part of it? That's stealing and a scam as far as I'm concerned. I tried to call them but their office is closed. I sent an email telling them what they've done and what I think about it. I'll be calling them tomorrow. I'll also be calling my credit card company and reporting the transaction as fraud and doing whatever I can to follow up on it and cause them as many problems as possible for the headache they've caused me and attempt to screw me out of $200. Take my advice, order your gear somewhere else, I know I will be once I get my stolen money back.
I own EliteMMA.com I have no intention of stealing your money. Please private message me or post here your order number so I can take of it and I'll make sure you get every penny back. If any packages come to you from us, please refuse them.
Thieves? most companies that I know require you to send photos/scans of your order information to prevent fraud. This is done for your safety and theirs, apart from that. How hard is it to pick up your phone, take the pictures and send it to them? O_O Just, my two abe lincolns.
Can't speak to this company exactly as I have no prior experience with them, however, what you have described regarding the credit card seems normal. I have had to do this on more than one occasion - it protects against fraud and charge backs. As for the rest of your story, did you even try contacting them again to find out why your order history says what it said? P.S. You sound like you're kind of an asshole.
I did that. Now the shop is suing me.. I sorta apologized:"you wanted a pic of the CARD?! OooOOooOOpppsss... -My bad...." Isnt that enough?!
Exactly. I work as online fraud prevention, and we get a certain number of purchases daily (I work for a famous online retail store) that are all obviously fraudulent. One thing the company should have done is contact you preemptively. I get thanked every time for checking legitimacy of an order by the said customers. It also doesn't take an hour for a company to shoot an e-mail or make a quick phone call (if you provided your phone number) Our online checkout page clearly states you may be contacted for questions regarding your payment method. In this day and age you can never be too sure.
