I was reading through Stephs post about how there are so many group buy sites these days, and came across a few complaints on a site called Deal55. They offer gift cards for 55% off the retail price. Some readers are calling foul while others are hopeful the site is real.
I never featured this group buy site on the blog because it just seems to good to be true. I would feel horrible sending our faithful readers to a site that could potentially be an identity theft scam. It just didn’t seem completely legit.
Has anyone actually received anything from this company? It would be great if this site was the real deal, I am really skeptical. Thoughts?
* With the responses I think it’s safe to say DO NOT purchase through this company. Only a small fraction of cards have ever been sent out.
This is a SCAM site, the link I searched in net have full details about the scam.
This is the link I found about the site
http://trueler./2011/03/10/deal55…ware-phishing/
well… honestly… Personally I don’t believe company like Home Depot or Winner have that HIGH markup price, to let u pay half for GC, also, All of them are major popular companies, I don’t think they need that to attack more customers
I read the same info Sammy linked to and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I do have a friend that bought though and haven’t heard anything from her either good or bad of her shopping experience.
I’ve never bought anything from them but after researching about deal55.com on the internet, I strongly believe this is SCAM!
coupons and sales are different. this really is too good to be true. be a smart buyer!
Has anyone reported the site then if it is a scam?
I’d say its a scam
I signed up thinking it was real – but started to question it after the deal didn’t tip even though the site practically crashed due to traffic.
I went on to the site to cancel the deals I signed up for – i did give them my credit card but didn’t fill out the rest of the form so they didn’t have my address.
I got an email thanking me for tipping a deal I didn’t participate in.
Later I got two emails asking me to fill out the details of my address so that they could send me the cards I canceled (I had requested two different gift cards)
I emailed them back, one email saying that I had canceled the deal and the other email I said that any charges on my card would be considered fraud. I got a response to the first email, it was poorly worded and said something like: we know you cancelled something but you must have another deal with us – send us your address. I sent a strongly worded response to that email saying that any action on my credit card would be considered fraud. Since then I have received another request that I send them my address, but apart from that I have had no dealings with the site.
I haven’t had any strange transactions on my credit card, though I’m keeping an eye on it and I did call the credit card company. They said to keep an eye on it but I didn’t have to cancel my card.
Take a look at their forums:
http://www.deal55.com/toronto/topics
Says a lot about their service. Some get their gift cards, but it certainly looks like a site to avoid at this point. Very poor service, very high shipping costs, etc
My wife and I purchased 4 gift cards in total. Our credit card was charged about 3 weeks ago, and we have not received any gift cards, and have not been able to come into contact with anyone from the site. My credit card company said to wait until 30 days after the purchase was charged to my card and they will assume it is fraud, and credit the charge back to my card. I would not buy from this site. If I do end up receiving a card, I will let everyone know.
Its a scam! My GF purchased a giftcard from them and haven’t received anything yet her credit card was charged. Been almost a month.
Is there any way of checking whether this is a legitimate website? Any company in Canada like the Better Business Bureau that would confirm that they are really legit?
Its been researched that the companies they are offering the gift cards for don’t have any idea of what deal55.com is. So how can you offer 55% off without striking a deal with the companies? Its not like the owner is going to walk into a random winners and purchase 1million worth of cards….
this is SO sketchy
I’m keeping my personal information away from them, even if it hasn’t been proven to be fraudulent. Can’t be too careful.
Scam scam scam scam. Seriously, enough said.
The only people that are receiving gift cards are the ones where their gift cards are being paid with the money of subsequent ‘buyers’ – who may never get their money back.
Of course, this is tactical for them because they’ll have a bunch of “Happy Customers!” to go spread the news of how AMAZING deal55 is!! BUT now if you go and buy one you’re not likely to get it –;
Aurg. This frustrates me. I can’t even phrase it properly, but the link below is excellent in clarifying what I’m trying to say.
If you start reading their website, they say that you only get your GC when the deal tips, most of them need to sell at least 10000 before this happens. These deals stay open for a month. I guess what they mean to tell you is they don’t reach their tip you don’t get any!! Also, they have no affiliation with any of these companies and they state that they personally go buy the GiftCards themselves. Their Facebook page is non-existent and Facebook is investigating them at the moment too!
Do yourself a favour and stay away from this like the plague!!!
If you are interested in discount gift cards I would recommend http://www.cardswap.ca. I have used them and would recommend
If you are looking for discount gift cards I have used http://www.cardswap.ca and it was a good experience. I would recommend.
” they say that you only get your GC when the deal tips, most of them need to sell at least 10000 before this happens” also, who says that they don’t just make up the numbers? I’ve definitely seen a screen cap where there said there was a certain number as a maximum available… and the number purchased exceeded that –;
buuuuuullshit
Its a bit of a pyramid scam. Some have gotten in the past because they take the money they have recieved and pay out the cards. Then they want people to think its legit. When they finally get enough of the money they will be high tailing out of there.
A friend of mine told me about Deal55 after realizing it was a potential scam… an email was sent to the customer service (client care team – [email protected]) for an immediate refund before the deal was able to tip in case a charge had already been prematurely been put through. After 1 day, an email was received saying “Thank you for visiting please visit again soon a refund has been administered.” However, compared to other legitimate deal of the day online companies, Deal 55 email correspondance with consumers looks a lot less professional with respect to writing i.e. grammar & sentence structure issues. and template design.
Took a look through this site.
At first glance, it appears to be a scam. Then you read through the comments, and you KNOW its a scam lol. I read one comment that made reference to emails being recieved from URBANDEAL.CA. Turns out this is the same site basically, looks the same, same layout, everything. And there are a lot of people on there claiming fraud as well.
Lesson being….dont purchase from sites you dont trust. I personally stick to groupon, and kijiji. If something really great popped up on another site that I was recommended personally from friends, maybe…maybe then I would consider it. This is no different than purchasing your new LV bag. If it looks fake, smells fake, it most likely is a FAKE!!!
I appreciate SC alerting us to the scam. Another Canadian deal blogger wasn’t so interested in protecting her readers and promoted the site, and continued to promote even after being alerted to the scam. I won’t be using her site anymore.
I purchased a few Winners gift cards. After thinking this might be a scam, I called their head office and was informed that they were never contacted by Deal55 to become partners in this deal!!!
I asked Winners if I should contact my Visa company to report fraud. However, they stated that they could not advise me to do anything, but reiterated that they were never contacted!!!….. seems like a scam
I bought the cards 2-3 weeks ago….and still havent received anything ..
Whenever I go on that site I get a pop-up that says that my Mac can’t verify the security certificate of the site- it asks if I want to continue on or not.
That was a red flag right there for me!
I also purchased the Lulu deal back in March. Call me a sucker, but I’ve successfully purchased from many similar sites so I didn’t give it a second thought. The deal “tipped” on March 24th, so at that point my cc was charged and I received an email saying my card was being mailed out and I’d receive it in 10 business days. On day 12 (it hadn’t arrived) I emailed them and was again told that it was on the way, I gave it until Friday and emailed them again and said I was opening a dispute with my cc company. Lo and behold, I received an email yesterday saying a card was purchased and they provided me with an order # from Lulu. I called Lulu and confirmed it, my card is on the way, but Lulu knows nothing about it and said the purchaser paid the full $100 amount. This is definitely a pyramid scheme as far as I’m concerned so if you’re waiting on a card start emailing them asap!
I purchased 2 Winners Gift Cards and was being charged twice by visa. I was emailed at 15th day (they said it should only take 10 days) with a Canada Post tracking number to pick up one of the 2 GC’s at the post office. The delivery of the mail was $9 where I paid $5 shipping at their site, meaning they are actually paying more here by getting money from others. I quickly went to Winners and use the $100 GC to purchase smaller amounts GC’s to avoid use of the GC by “others”. Anyways, the other charge at visa was being disputed without a lot of questions asked by the visa centre, looks like they did get a lot of these calls for disputes.
If you google Lawrence J. Farbman owner of deal55.com and urbandeal.ca and some other domains…pretty shady character. He claimed to be some big shot with articles written about him in famous business magazines. Meanwhile all you will find is that he was owner of bankrupt window and door company…hmmm Site is poorly managed, soooo many problems. Never seen anything like this with other real sites like groupon, dealfind, etc. that alone warrants suspician since they are claiming to be a multimillion dollar company. 60,0000+ dollar company!
Deal55 is a FRAUD!
I purchased a Shopper’s Drug Mart card recently. Deal supposedly tipped on April 25th. So far no emails informing me that deal has tipped and my account shows no credit whatsoever–yet my credit card has been charged. I’ve sent emails asking for refund…of course no response.
There used to be a ‘forum discussion’ on their site. I visited it (after I’ve made my purchase) and saw tonnes of complaints. Interestingly enough, this ‘forum discussion’ has been removed from the site.
I’ve turned this matter over to my credit card company to handle as a fraud case as deal55 has charged my card and is not delivering any product. My next step is to file complaints with appropriate authorities.
SO IF ANY OF YOU STILL WONDERING IF DEAL55 IS LEGIT OR NOT, LEARN FROM MY PERSONAL MISTAKE AND STAY AWAY.
today i got the following message from deal55 and now i can be 100% assured that this is a scam and an official complaint must be filed against the person who is running this website. this is the message i got:
This is an automatically generated report of all deals and the cities they have tipped in. Those that have tipped have been shipped or pending shipment. If you have purchased a deal in this list that has tipped, rest assured that your card(s) will be mailed out promptly or you have already received your gift cards from us. Please log into your Deal55.com account and ensure that your shipping address details are correct. If you have purchased a deal that has not tipped (not in this list) your transaction amounts will be added to your Deal55 wallet which you can use for other purchases. Your Deal55 wallet money will not expire until used and may also carry a balance.
I got a message from deal 55 today as followed:
Deal55: Your Card Will Not Be Shipped – PLEASE READ
We regret to inform you that your Deal55: $45 for $100 To Spend at Shopper’s Drug Mart 55% OFF gift card will not be shipped as our company did not come to a neutral agreement with the retailer. If a retailer no longer wants to participate in our program, we must immediately provide a full refund to our customers.
We can provide you with two options for a refund.
1) We can place the funds back into your deal55.com account wallet, which can be used when checking out on any of the deals we offer at anytime. We will also compensate you with an additional $10.00CAD towards your wallet. Wallet funds do not contain expirations.
2) We will issue you a full refund on your credit card or any other method you had used on checkout.
Please send an email to [email protected] with the option you wish to take. Include your username, email address, full name and contact info so that we can confirm your purchase.
Deal55 thanks you for being a loyal customer and we hope to see your support in future deals to come.
Respectfully,
Deal55 Admin Team
THIS IS THE ULTIMATE FRAUD!!! How can a vendor sell or charge for a product which has not been secured with the supplier?!! BTW, I’ve read from other online review that people have called Shopper’s head office and they have no clue about deal55.
I got the same email! sunshine, it was for the walmart card right? I replied and said i wanted the full refund, they responded and said it would be done. i also was stupid enough to buy the H&M card before reading up on this. I wonder how that will pan out
New information added at top of post 🙂
Hi all
I have two things I’d like to say… first, if you are a victim to these scammers call your credit card company and tell them it’s an unauthorized charge or that you didn’t received the “goods as promised”. I’ve had to do this (sadly) and Visa was more than happy to reverse the charge, and in another case (unrelated to scammers, rather something I disputed) they “froze” the charge while they could investigate. They then reversed the charge (gets charged back to the company that put the transaction through if it’s already been processed.
Secondly, there is a fraud department at the RCMP. Has anyone notified them? I know for a fact they take this seriously due to a friend’s situation, so someone should make them aware. You can contact your local detachment by phone and give them some info and they will look into it.
I’m getting SO SICK of spam, scammers, hackers, frauds, etc. on the internet. Before I even CLICK on a link I’ve never heard of I check it out by googling first. I also have an antivirus that identifies “questionable” sites when I google them, by indicating right beside the results if it’s “safe” or not.
Anyway, call your credit card co. if you were charged.
Back in April (I think) I purchased 2 Lululemon $100 gift cards on Deal55 using two different credit cards (What can I say? I got caught up in the hype!). I received notices the deal had tipped, my cards were shipped, yadda, yadda, yadda……and nothing ever arrived. I contacted my credit card companies and started dispute proceedings and emailed Deal55 one last time. How shocked was I when I received emails that both of my cards were on the way, along with order numbers from Lulu. I called Lulu and found out that both cards had been ordered and paid for (in full – $100) by the same person. The cards arrived and have been used :), so in my case I did ok…however – not one of my many friends who purchased the same deal has ever received a card.
I’m not sure if it’s some sort of pyramid scheme, but I would NEVER purchase from them again. There’s definitely something not right about thm!
KUDOS to Sally for bringing this up and for all of you who are taking action against scams like this!
Just a quick note and another take on this probable scam (I wasn’t a participant, so this is just speculation…)
Besides appearing to be a pyramid scheme (using the funds of new customers to cover the purchases from the early buyers), I have a concern about those who actually received one of these gift cards (someone mentioned it’s being shipping from Lulu?)
HYPOTHETICALLY, especially if the gift card is being drop-shipped (i.e. ordered from the source to be shipped to your address directly) I would be concerned about HOW the (apparently) full-price gift card was purchased. If the card was bought by deal55 etc. with a stolen or unauthorized card, or if the transaction fails for any reason on their end, the retailer will cancel that gift card. So even if you think you received what you paid for, you may still lose it in the end. Furthermore, if the retailer is shipping the cards to you directly, and the scammer committed credit card fraud etc. the retailer will come after YOU – the person the card was shipped to — and will likely pursue pressing charges against YOU for theft.
Unfortunately, just another harsh lesson that the Internet is a dangerous place full of a**holes.
i purchased the h&m card AND the walmart card, and my card has NOT been charged yet, it’s been 2 weeks. I know the walmart deal has been pulled and i was supposed to get a ‘refund’. but i was never charged??
site is down for maintenance now….lol
very good blog, thank you so much for your effort in writing the post.