Description

I was looking for the mannkitchen pepper cannon (pepper mill) using google search shopping tab where you input a product and it shows all the various options available, with prices. I saw many other websites offering the normal cost of 199 USD, and then HOTSTORES was offering a severely discounted cost of 83.73 USD. This was odd, but wasn't a red flag because the week before I saw a very legitimate sale of this product on the real Costco website. That sale ended, so I was looking for alternative offerings of a similar price. I see HOTSTORES offering the product for 83.73, so I went through the website and it looked legitimate enough. I continued to the payment page, and made sure to look at the URL to make sure google provided the "lock" symbol which signifies that it is a safe and encrypted purchase. It DID have the lock, the HOTSTORES website DID show secure encryption. So I continued with the purchase. I used my debit card, and provided my name , address, and phone number. I finished the payment and received an email from "[email protected]" with a very legitimate looking HOTSTORES receipt, saying "we're getting your order ready to be shipped, we will notify you when it has been sent." they provided buttons to view my order, which worked in the few days after purchase, and a button to visit the store, which again worked for a few days after purchase. They provided an order number. "2024101243153774" . The purchase date was 10-12-2024 and I received the confirmation email on the same date. However after about a week I checked and did not receive any tracking details, and they never told me they sent the product. I clicked the links they provided to view my order, and the page was dead. I followed the link to the store, and that website also no longer existed. The customer support email they gave ([email protected]) also seemed very fishy. So I paid for a product, then they immediately deleted the website and I have no way to follow up. It is clearly a scam. Unfortunately I did not find the phone number or state of operations of the website before I purchased, so I cannot tell you where they were operating from, or what phone number they used as their company phone number. This website wouldn't let me continue without putting in their phone number so i just put 999-999-9999