Buffarea - SCAM - GOLDEN SEA SERVICE LIMITED

[FerretPepper]

So I ordered an item off Buffarea.com and thought it was trustworthy due to the fact they accept paypal. Boy was I wrong. I was unaware that this was a chinese company. That part is not a big deal to me. What's a big deal is all the bad reviews they have online and how it's impossible to contact them. Search Buffarea on facebook and it's ONLY customers warning eachother about how Buffarea uses stock photos of decent clothes but send you a cheap knock off. What concerns me are customers that used paypal are NOT getting refunds for this. Some customers never get their items either. Whats also bizarre is on this company's website they charge a 15% fee for cancelling orders. I have never seen such a thing and can't believe paypal would support this site. The only way to contact this company is by email and they aren't replying. So I opened a dispute. I'm trying to cancel this order and get a refund. It's obvious I'm not getting anything or if something does show up it's going to be nothing like the item I thought I was ordering. If paypal somehow sides with them, what should I do next????

[dg-6060]

I just placed an order May 31. How do I contact them to attempt to cancel the order?

[Cynsterfo]

dg-6060 Hi. Welp welcome to the club. I tried to cancel my order literally the same day. It doesn't work. The company says they will refund you in about 20 days, then they will send an email saying your order has been shipped. Then they will say that there's been a glitch filling your order. Then they will send another email regarding a glitch. Supposedly my order will get here eventually. PayPal sees this as great business practice. PayPal makes you jump through hoops to file a claim. I tried to stop my payment thru my bank but PayPal told them the sale was fine. So I'm just counting this as q $124.00 lesson about PayPal and crappy Facebook ads. I complained on Facebook too. Nothing. It's a big scam. People who have received merchandise have posted pictures of the atrocities. So sorry you are in this. I actually canceled my PayPal account to remove my bank account. But I received so many heartbreaking emails from fooled customers like myself that I signed up again. I'm just not entering any financial info. Horrible lesson learned especially in these horrific times But here we are. Hope you have better luck. I know one person is going up the complaint ladder to get to PayPal. But I'm done.

[dholcommCA]

BEWARE!  I ordered two items on the website Levemaze.  Fortunately I paid through Paypal so they do not have my credit card information. I became suspicious when I saw that some of the items offered online were the same images as on the Johnny Was website and in the Sundance catalog both high quality clothing companies. This is theft of intellectual property. When I googled Levemaze there was no definitive information on whether Levemaze is a scam. It is a relatively new company name. My order was confirmed by Levemaze but I received no information on how to track my order until I emailed. I now have a tracking number and see that my order is “in process” in China. I saw that the PayPal payment went to GOLDEN SEA SERVICE LIMITED. When I googled Golden Sea Service Limited I found many negative reviews and Golden Sea has different websites under the names of Levemaze, Buffarea, Lilyidea, and Flinycloth, all offering the same items.  The ads for these company show up on Facebook. Many people complain that they never received their orders, received partial orders and the items were not as represented but of poor quality. It appears that when bad reviews catch up with one name they open another. You get what you pay for (or not).

[Cynsterfo]

Great work! Yeah huge scam. I can't wait to see what they sent you. It's a shame that neither Facebook nor PayPal cares. This feed continues to grow, new people are being scammed daily. I wish there was some way we could stop them. Maybe if we went to the NEWS outlets? My issue with that is there are far more serious things going on in the world today. What do you think we should do?

[dholcommCA]

I have gone to both the websites for Sundance Catalog and Johnny Was and emailed them to inform them of the use of their photos taken directly from their websites along with the names of all the companies I have found associated with Golden Sea Service Limited. This is fraudulent advertising and theft of their intellectual property. I also informed them that ads for all these companies are appearing on Facebook. Hopefully these legitimate companies with money will have their attorneys deal with Facebook. I don't know if I will receive what I ordered and if I do I expect it will get immediately donated to a thrift shop. I may try to get a refund through PayPal but I just want to prevent others from being scammed. 

Another route might be to google how to report scams and deal with it there. If you seek out a news media source the trick will be to find one that takes particular interest in the subject of scams. Go for it!

[Cynsterfo]

DH you are amazing! I was going to try and dispute it further from PayPal, but they really do make you jump through hoops. The moment I received a payment notification from Golden Sea vs. KIYOW, The name the company I ordered from, which was less than an hour after they took my money...I requested a cancellation from Golden Sea. They told me that my cancellation would take 21 days. Random number of days I thought, so I contacted my Chase Bank account and stopped payment. It was a Saturday, and there's Covid-19 going on so the Chase rep told me absolutely they could stop payment but to check back in 3 days. Then in 3 days I receive an email from Chase saying that PayPal says the purchase is legit. So I complained to PayPal and they say I have to dispute it with this fake company. So I contact the company and they tell me they can't refund me because they're filling the order. So I cancelled PayPal so this wouldn't happen again. But I am getting so many emails by new people getting scammed that I rejoined PayPal. Anyway, Another user has successfully gone up the PayPal chain of command to get a refund. I just have lost faith. Oh and I've received two emails regarding my "order". Unfortunately there was a glitch and my order is now being filled....hmmm. It's exhausting. I too think I will never receive my merchandise or it will look like Clown Clothes. Which might actually be good. Lolz Thanks for responding and kicking so much **bleep**! Best, Cynthia

[dholcommCA]

On Scamfoo.com

Although Scamfoo lists Levemaze (another Golden Sea Limited scam) as “potentially safe” IT IS NOT. IT IS WELL WORTH CHECKING OUT COMPANIES BEFORE MAKING PURCHASES THAT LOOK TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.  

This list is helpful however for assessing a website and you can look up questionable companies before making a purchase. 

• 1) Check if the site has a "contact us" web page
• 2) Avoid online shops that use free email providers (i.e hotmail, gmail)
• 3) Check if the site shows info about its company (name, address, country) IT DOES NOT
• 4) Check if the site has an "about us" or "company" web page
• 5) Check if the site has a valid VAT or Partita IVA number (EU only)
• 6) Don't be fooled by low prices, if it looks too good to be true, pay attention LESSON LEARNED
• 7) Check if the site has a social profile (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
• 😎 Try to always first contact the website owner via email
• 9) Analyze the domain WHOIS data to find info about the site owner
• 10) Look for possible English (or other language) grammar errors  THERE ARE ERRORS
• 11) Do not pay via credit-card, use PayPal instead (easier to get refunds) REALLY IMPORTANT
• 12) Verify that the website is certified by McAfee SECURE

13) Never enter sensitive information IT CAN BE A SET UP FOR FURTHER FRAUD

[dholcommCA]

In addition to a full description of the fraud, I sent the following to Sundance and Johnny Was. I am turning anger into action. I can afford to lose the $72 but there are many who can't! Sundance Customer Care is already forwarding the information to the appropriate department.

Sent to Sundance and to Johnny Was:

Please see the complaints against Golden Sea Service Limited that is using images from your website to fraudulently sell products they fail to deliver or are shoddy knock-offs. Please protect the good name of your company.

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Disputes-and-Limitations/Buffarea-SCAM-GOLDEN-SEA-SERVICE-LIMITE...

[Cynsterfo]

Dh

You’re the best. Lord knows I can’t afford to lose 124.00! 
Let me know if you get results, I might need to take more action.

c

[Ariev]

In our case after a claim Golden Sea provided PayPal with a fake shipping confirmation number.  Paypal (or even I) has no way of determining if the number gave exists, it is from a Chinese carrier.  I don't blame PayPal for this as it's a sophisticated scam, but they should flag the company given the feedback in this thread.  More likely they have already and the company will change names. Cybercrime which I'll categorize this under since they use the PayPal platform is a $2.2T per year revenue industry.