Bralx

[craigjm]

Has anyone ever used this company before?

http://bralx.com/

They have a TV i would like at a really good price but alarm bells are ringing as -

the site doesn't look that good
the phone number appears to be a mobile
when you go to checkout it doesn't go to a secure link

seems a bit odd to me

[TonyRPH]

Business address is supposed to be at:

Our Location. Address: Bralx Store 318 Edgware Road, London W2 1DY.

Do you know anyone in London who could check this out for you?

But the domain info for bralx.com suggests otherwise (although not unusual)

Most importantly, the address given below (34 Hexham Road G83 INVERUGLAS) doesn't appear to exist.

Domain bralx.com
Date Registered: 2012-1-2
Date Modified: 2012-1-7
Expiry Date: 2013-1-2
DNS1: ns1.bralx.com
DNS2: ns2.bralx.com
Registrant
    Golden Waves Solutions
    Frol Volgin  volginfrol (at) yahoo dot com
    34 Hexham Road
    G83 INVERUGLAS
    United Kingdom
    Tel: [phone]
Administrative Contact
    Golden Waves Solutions
    Frol Volgin  volginfrol (at) yahoo dot com
    34 Hexham Road
    G83 INVERUGLAS
    United Kingdom
    Tel: [phone]
Technical Contact
    Golden Waves Solutions
    Frol Volgin  volginfrol (at) yahoo dot com
    34 Hexham Road
    G83 INVERUGLAS
    United Kingdom
    Tel: [phone]

Edited by TonyRPH on Saturday 21st January 22:17

[craigjm]

All seems far too fishy to me. What made me go and look is that they came up on Google shopping search

[Genelec]

As I'm up at this time with little else to do I did some research....

bralx.com is registered to Golden Waves Solutions http://www.whois.net/whois/bralx.com

Golden Waves Solutions are registered to Darius Peckaitis http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07742681

Darius Peckaitis is mentioned all over google, a useful one is the Money Saving Expert forums http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php...

The companies registered address appears to be rented so who knows who actually lives there.... http://g.co/maps/fnwhn

So all in all, really damn suspicious!

[craigjm]

Well there you go. Just shows that sometimes your in built filters prevent you from being ripped off as I was severely dubious. I will report it to google shopping. Thanks all

[Verulam]

I was searching for a good price on something yesterday and had Bralx.com come up on Google shopping with a fantastic price. However, as with previous posters, I felt somewhat cautious about it - it is definitely "interesting".

First things first - the 318 Edgware Road address (no longer shown on the Bralx.com website). I thought that I recognised it when I looked it up on Google maps, and checking on the PostOffice website, they say that HiWay HiFi are at that address, and I think that I might even have been to that shop to buy a camera last year. The HiWay website confirms that their store is at that address - http://www.hiwayhifi.com/site/info/showroom.asp.

I'm in London, so I might jump on the tube at lunchtime and go to HiWay for a quick chat.

As a general issue, the Bralx.com website provides absolutely no details of a registered company name, and Bralx does not show up on Companies House.

The Bralx.com website does give the following mobile phone number: [phone] (to make this posting more searchable: [phone] / 07848 497 519)

Doing a Google search for that phone number also brings up Willion Electronics ( http://willion.net/index.php?route=information/con...) and that page lists the 318 Edgware Road address, and the website has various of the same graphics as Bralx.com, so they do seem to be closely linked.

A whois lookup for willion.net shows:

Registrant:
LAS international
William Moore ()
37 Bullwood Rd
AUSTELL
ST,PL25 8WT
GB
Tel. [phone]

As with the address give for the Bralx.com domain and detailed by TonyRPH, this one doesn't seem to exist. On that basis, a bit of caution with Willion Electronics might also be advisable.

I put a test order through on Bralx.com without using PayPal/credit cards, and it gave the following details for payment, which I'm including just in case anybody ever searches for them:

---

Bank Transfer Instructions

Please transfer the total amount to the following bank account.

Bank Name: HSBC Bank
Sort code: 40-02-33
Account number: 71853775

Your order will not ship until we receive payment.

---

That HSBC bank branch is at 75 Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, E1 1DU.

I've not dug any into the website hosting, but might do that tonight if I get time. I'll update later if I make it over to 318 Edgware Road.

[TonyRPH]

For me, this address (Bralx Store 318 Edgware Road, London W2 1DY.) came up in a Google search.

It was a link to their contact page, and although the address was not visible on the page, apparently it was still embedded in the page source code, and hence Google was displaying it.

ETA: On 13/01/2012 bralx.com was on the expired domain list.

The WHOIS record shows:

Domain bralx.com
Date Registered: 2012-1-2
Date Modified: 2012-1-7
Expiry Date: 2013-1-2

If you were running a legitimate business, surely you would register a .com for more than one year to protect your brand?


ETA (again):

Domain Name: BRALX.COM
Registrar: INTERNET.BS CORP.
Whois Server: whois.internet.bs
Referral URL: http://www.internet.bs
Name Server: NS1.BRALX.COM
Name Server: NS2.BRALX.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 07-jan-2012
Creation Date: 02-jan-2012
Expiration Date: 02-jan-2013

I had to laugh at this... "INTERNET.BS CORP" BS for bullst?

Edited by TonyRPH on Tuesday 24th January 12:27

[Verulam]

Just doing a little bit more searching, a "ping" check on the bralx.com website shows that it is being served up by 62.212.75.123 and a reverse whois on RIPE shows that the host is LeaseWeb in the Netherlands.

Doing the same for willion.net shows that it is being served up by 95.211.18.80 and a reverse whois on RIPE shows that the host is also LeaseWeb.

I've also just put a test purchase through on willion.net, and the whole process is identical to that on bralx.com, except this time payment options are PayPal and cash-on-delivery - no bank account details.

So that supports the theory that the same person/people are responsible for both websites.

Finally, the security certificate on https://bralx.com is self-signed (i.e. absolutely cannot be trusted), and the security certificate on https://willion.net is issued by Comodo, but is only valid from 16 Jan 2012 - 16 Apr 2012, which hardly inspires confidence.

Overall, it's a total FAIL. I'm not even vaguely convinced that either website is a legitimate business.

I guess that the only "good" thing here is that bralx.com was registered on 2 January 2012, and willion.net on 15 January 2012, so there hasn't been too much opportunity for harm to be done.

[lisw23]

I have purchased something from Bralx.com and after reading the posts it is clear this is not going to turn up Has anyone actually recieved any good from this website? I have reported them after reading the reviews on here I was just wondering if there has been any further update about the website.

[TonyRPH]

If you paid by credit card, you should be covered.

Same if you paid by PayPal - a complaint to them will result in the payment being reversed.

If you paid by bank transfer - well I don't know if you have any come back on that.

[cheshirespirit]

I sit here and read all of these posts & feel more n more down, for I have ordered 2 items & paid for them on the 21st Jan,(probably a bit hasty, esp after looking bk at the account name Golden Waves) had no probs getting through to that mobile # on the website & spoke to what sounded like a foreign speaking man, who assured me that once i paid, delivery wud b deffo by this Friday & i got an email saying i wud have a confirmation email by Monday....Monday came & no email, nor did i see one yesterday.......tried to call 2x yesterday & the mob just rang & rang then went dead.......am feeling like a complete mug at this point!!!!....NOT HAPPY!!!!

[rutherford]

I was about to buy an LED tv from them that was over £100 cheaper than the nearest recognisable retailer then got a bit suspicious at the mobile # for contact details. This is the 2nd result on Google for bralx so I guess the guy is monitoring things and took down the address from the contact page after it was mentioned on here. Thanks for confirming my suspicions fellas, looks like you may have saved me a few quid.

also further down the google listings they've had a deal marked as spam on hotukdeals.com

Edited by rutherford on Thursday 26th January 14:22

[fredsmum]

Hi just wanted to tell everyone we think we have just been scammed by bralx. Ordered and paid £300 by the transfer method yesterday. Now we can not get in touch with them The mobile wont let us connect.

Once bitten twice shy though. I hope people read these posts before buying, wish we had

[drakeriverboat]

yeah i went through all the bits until it got to the bank transfer part and i thought no chance, sorry to hear about the ones who got stung it is easy to be enticed by the cheaper but not overly cheap that you expect from a rip off site.